These fields high in the mountains are the closest thing the colt has to a home. He was born here, watched his sister be blessed by a dragon egg here, and has spent his first few days of life bouncing around in the sweet grass here. He is deeply attached to this place, although his natural boyish desire to adventure has led him to wander away from his dam's comforting side much more in recent days. He fancies himself quite the expert on these hidden fields, having stomped across every inch and nibbled every blade of grass in a vain attempt to mimic his mother. Alas, he might as well be eating cardboard for all the flavour it holds compared to the warm milk of her teats, and thus he's long since decided to refrain from trying to be all grown up.

The early evening sunlight glimmers on the glossy black fur of his stout back as he walks, accentuating each fledgling muscle of his young body. He isn't even a week old yet, his hooves only just beginning to harden beneath their light feathering and his frame covered by a decent layer of foal fluff that lends him quite the cute appearance. A tufty black mane stands like a messy mohawk atop his neck, one lock hanging between his ears to dust against the white skull-like blaze that adorns his face. Inquisitive red eyes blaze out from this ivory prison, focused on a large and thorny-looking plant topped with a big pink flower. "Pretty," murmurs the youngster, stepping forwards with mouth gaping to pluck the flower from its stem and chew it thoughtfully. He'd sworn not to eat grass, after all, but shiny colourful flowers were a different story. Petals poke at odd angles out of his muzzle as he chomps loudly, pink saliva dribbling down his chin.

He continues to chomp on the flower, idly thinking that perhaps nomming on something strange and colourful isn't the best idea - it could be poisonous and make his peepee fall off. That would suck. But it's too late now, so he savours the mouthy massacre of the pink bloom, swallowing hard as ruined petals stick in his throat. Surprisingly, it's a lot tastier than grass, and the colt's greedy eyes zone in on another similar flower nearby. He turns, oblivious to death and mischief charging towards him. He can hear a scream, but it's probably just Nymeria tripping over her own feet, nothing to be concerned with...his mouth gapes hungrily towards the tasty flower glimmering like a beautiful pink sun, nom nom nom little flower -

The ground explodes in front of him. The flower he was about to devour is blown up into the sky, raining petals down upon him and staining his white face brown with mud. He releases a high-pitched, girly shriek - idly hoping neither parent or Nymeria is around to hear such a none-masculine noise that a beast like him should never ever make - and bounces backwards, ears pinning and lips baring to expose hardened gums still stained pink with his previous flowery dinner. His head whips around to be greeted by a beaming filly with horns - wait, horns? Despite his pounding heart and considerable sense of shock at what's just happened, he can't help but oggle those horns. After all, he has never met a unicorn before, and his entire family is purely equine. Straight away he decides that, if all horned things are going to try and blow him up, he really doesn't like them very much.

Cool?! His eyes boggle, apopletic. If there's something Volterra lacks (besides horns, apparently, and also his very own dragon egg, but he's not bitter, nope, not at all) then it's a sense of humour. "Cool?! You tried to kabloomy me!" He fluffs himself up, trying to look fearsome, but it's difficult when he's covered in mud and bits of flower, his lips still stained pink. "How'd you even do that? You gots magics?" He'd thought the only magic in the world was that of his mother's venomous mouth, but apparently he's got a lot to learn. There's also mad, tongue-flopping fillies with kabloomy powers, it seems.

If only the boy knew what they had in common - a terminal case of twin envy. It's woefully unfair. Nymeria has magic, and a dragon egg. According to his father's dragon - who he doesn't particularly believe, because surely it's impossible - he has the ability to bond to two companions, a rare and unusual prize, but oh wait, Nymeria can do it too. All the young beast has is a shitty amulet his father gave him, that doesn't actually do anything. But Volterra doesn't resent his twin her gifts, so devoted is he to her. It's a miracle he's managed to peel himself away from her side long enough to explore by himself. He is entitled to be a little bit jealous, though, and to grow a steely determination to obtain everything he possibly can. Including magic. Maybe magic to defend himself from explosive little fillies who look as though they've been eating the special kind of grass.

He arches a brow at her insistence of expertise. "Good thing you're a poopy shot or you coulda kabloomied my nose off," he states grumpily. Yet, as serious as he usually is, he can't help the smallest of smiles twitching at his muzzle at the sheer exuberance of her. She is filly on crack, and it's quite endearing - endearing enough to draw a rare smile from the youngster, which is certainly something. The smile is gone as soon as it arrived, however, at her somewhat scornful words about him being new. His lower lip ejects forcefully into a pout. "Nu-uh, I'm nearly a whole week old. Not new. And kabloomy sounds better than asplosion." He decides to purposefully call it kabloomy now, just to annoy her.

She talks him through how she uses her magic, and his forehead furrows in concentration. Maybe...maybe he does have it, and just hasn't known how to activate it? He desperately searches for the red thing, for any nub of power within himself, but simply cannot find anything. All he can do is watch in grumpy awe as she blows up more flowers, raining them down upon him. "That is kinda cool," he reluctantly admits. "But can ya not kabloomy all the flowers? They taste good." He looks sorrowfully around at his dinner sprinkling all around him. "My Ma's magic is cooler, though. She gots poison drool." He arches his neck proudly.

His eyes widen at her first words, because he's hasn't yet grown out of being gullible. "Your poop asplodes?" he exclaims, practically going starry eyed in awe. He is, after all, a little boy, and little boys tend to like gross stuff. Corrosive saliva, flower-exploding madness? Pah! Exploding poop? Now you're talking. "Show me!" Just to be safe, he takes a step back, because he doesn't want her explosive excrement blowing his hooves off. That would be a deeply undignified way to die.

She proceeds to correct him, and his lower lip ejects stubbornly, eyes narrowing and ears flapping backwards. "As-plosion," he re-corrects her correction. He's wrong, of course, but he's also a petulant little shit and doesn't like to be told that he's wrong. So, just like kabloomy, he makes it his personal mission to carry on saying asplosion, just to make her apopletic. Although that may not be the best idea, given she can make things explode around him. He isn't yet old enough to have developed a sense of self-preservation. however. Or a sense of tact.

Next thing he knows, he has an eyeball directly in front of him. He is in the mouthy stage where he likes to lick or nibble anything that stays still long enough, and he can feel his tongue begging to be released to lick that big, juicy eyeball, just to see what it tastes like. But, mercifully, he manages to refrain. This girl has cool magic, she's hyperactive and loud and rambunctious and kind of awesome, so alienating her by slobbering in her eye probably isn't his brightest idea. Plus she might blow his tongue off, and how could he be the petulant little shit he is without his tongue? Maybe he does have some tact, after all. She speaks of her mother's ability to sprinkle cold stuff, which Volterra imagines could be kind of useful if you ever got too sweaty. She seems suitably awed by his mother's magic, and, ever the braggart, he's keen to embellish on it. "Yeah. If she bites you, your skin goes all rotty and gross. It's so cool." He considers himself quite lucky to be Confutatis' son, rather than her enemy, as he would not like to be on the wrong end of that poison drool.

Shida's next words really get his attention, though. "You gots a twin too?" Delight explodes across his features, because yay twins! And, given what the girl is saying, her twin is similarly blessed. "I know what you mean. My sister can do weird stuff with water, and she has a pet dragon. It sucks." But, unlike Shida, he holds no hatred towards his womb-mate; quite the opposite. He is so engrossed with her that he loathes the idea of her dragon hatching and stealing her from him. The unicorn's question causes him to deflate again, though. "Nah, I don't have any magics. I'm just normal and boring." Puppy eyes flop sadly at the recognition of his own boring-ness.

She doesn't seem willing to reveal whether or not her poop can, in fact, explode. Being the boy he is, he decides to believe that it can. Starry-eyed expression lavishes its attention on her rear end, as though expecting her to deposit a grenade for his amusement. He has to resist the urge to wander behind and lift up her tail to have a gander at the source of the bomb-making. At this age, the colt has no regard for physical boundaries, and wants to either poke, lick, bite or kick anything that holds his interest, for better or for worse. His morbid fascination with anything different pushes him to, sometimes literally, stick his nose in everywhere he possibly can.

He can't deny the pride he feels at the reaction his dam's magic seems to evoke in her. It does make him wonder, though, why he hadn't inherited his mother's magic in the same way he had inherited her skull marking and his father's white forelegs. Imagine if he had the corrosive saliva that Confutatis is infamous for! Think how many people he could impress if he could melt flesh with a simple kiss! But no, he is doomed to be useless and unenviable, only able to brag about the abilities of his mother rather than himself. One day, kids will go all awestruck at the idea of my magic, when I get it, he decides, silently vowing to get something special so he doesn't have to live off his parents' glories. "You could come and see her, see for yourself!" It doesn't occur to him that inviting a friend home for dinner could be a lot more literal than he might like when it comes to his vampiric mother, nor does it phase him that she probably wouldn't be best pleased about him inviting a random-ass filly to come and see her.

Surprise etches itself across his delicate features as she rants about her twin. Wait, she hates her twin? How is that even possible? "I love my sister, she's the best. I just wish I had some special stuff like she does, 'cos I feel like a loser." Cue violins! "At least you got your asplodey magic, and a horn. I got nothing." Woe, misery! He is the only one of his family without anything special, though. His mother has her magic and her Mongrel, his father has his dragon, Nymeria has her everything. In the raffle that is life, Volterra certainly hadn't bought the best ticket. But, as Shida thinks, at least he's tall. Maybe he'll grow big and powerful enough to kick the ass of anybody who mocks him for being boring.

Her whispered question makes him ponder for a moment. He doesn't remember his Ma taking anything from him, but his first few days are pretty blurry. "I don't think she did - I mean, I don't have any ouchies, and I think someone taking your horn would give you ouchies, right?" Now it's his turn to step closer in an attempt to oggle at the base of her horn, where it joins to the flesh of her forehead. Yep, ripping that off would hurt. "My Ma and Pa don't have horns, either. Or wings. Only birds have wings." He has not yet had the pleasure of meeting a pegasus, after all. "What's your name?" He's tempted to just call her Kabloomy from now on, because as names go that's a pretty fitting one.

Already he's mentally going over introducing his new explosive BFF to his mother and sister. Confutatis will probably give her the stink-eye and try to get as much information about her herd out of her as possible, possibly by means of venom-related torture...whereas Nymeria will probably just give her the stink-eye for coming within a fifty-foot radius of her twin. Maybe bringing her home to meet the family isn't the best idea he's ever had, then, but he simply can't resist showing her that he actually isn't a complete dullard and in fact has a very interesting and magically-inclined family. Unfortunately for him, he fished from the arse-end of the genetic pool when he was made, and lacks any of his family's talents, but if it's the last thing he does he will prove that he isn't boring, dammit!

She explains that her mother has wings, like her sister, and a look of intense puzzlement crosses the boy's face. Well, this is a shock to his whole belief system. "You mean horses...can have wings?" Oh, the things he's learning from this encounter! The idea of winged horses is still utterly foreign to him - the same as horned horses who blow shit up was until five minutes ago - and he finds himself wondering if she's just trying to wind him up. He is, after all, rather gullible, and she does strike him as quite the impish little madam. "Do they have feathers like a bird? Or a beak?" It's a reasonable question, to him at least. "I want wings - that sucks." Yet another thing to add to the ever growing list of Things Volterra Doesn't Have!

She doesn't give her name - Kabloomy it is, then - but instead brings up a very interesting, if terrifying, point. The colt's lower jaw hangs open in shock as he contemplates her words, giving him quite the gormless appearance as his tongue lolls to one side with the head-tilt that comes from the force of his thoughts. Could it be? "I...." He can't even think of any sort of retort, because now he's actually considering it. He remembers dark warmth, then he remembers the blinding sunlight and the solid ground beneath his feet, alongside blurry images of his sire and the green dragon. The struggle to rise to his hooves, the sweet tang of his mother's milk, the fear when his father sniffed him, the jealousy when his sister was given the dragon egg instead of him...it's all a roll of blurry images in no particular order, but surely if he was abandoned at some point, he would remember? "I don't know, how will I know?! Ahh, what if my real Ma saw how useless I was and abandoned me?" Now she's really got him worried! He screws up his tiny face, trying desperately to recall any memories that may grant him clues - his mother and sister float before him, both with the skull blaze upon their face, and then his father with his white-splashed forelegs...

He wouldn't have those things if he was just some random mangy orphan, would he?

He shakes his head more decisively this time. "My Ma and Nymeria have white faces, like me. And my Pa had white front legs, like me. Like you say, I musta got them from each of them...so that means I'm theirs, right? Right?!" Crimson gaze bores into her, hunting for reassurance. He is still a child, after all, and any child may be slightly alarmed at the idea they could be adopted. If he runs home and asks his dam, he'll probably get a good hard bite on his butt for his trouble, and that would just suck.