It’s almost weird for him to say so, so he doesn’t voice his thoughts, but without the murderer running loose some of the joy has gone out of the half-child’s life. It was a mystery to be solved, a story with an open ending that he had hoped to bring to a conclusion. Unfortunately, he hadn’t even been there to witness the reveal and capture of the horse responsible. He did not wish to be there to heckle or blame- death was not upsetting to the half-child- but he would have liked to know. He just wanted to understand how close he had been to solving the earth god’s quest on his own.

As for why he is in the meadow right now… he was considering a visit to the island (he doesn’t know it is gone) to see his beloved mother; a trip to see how she is doing and continue to try and apologize for his mistakes again. Can he ever make for what he is done? Perhaps not.

EXPLOSIONS, MOTHERFUCKER. The half-child’s ears flicker at the shout and Tobias raises his head in alarm, bleating softly. Her, the cervid offers, as his sunny gaze finds the bouncing filly in the distance. The surgeon turns as well, lids narrowing as he watches her bounce about and then lick her egg. Curious, he responds, and turns towards her. There is some mystery here to be solved, he is sure. Tobias follows, his antlers jingling with the variety of objects that hang from their times.

Perhaps they should have just kept walking.

Just as the half-child and his cervid come too close to the filly for it to be a coincidence, the girl begins to squeal. Wincing from the piercing sound, the half-child lays his ears back. Steady, he calls to Tobias, who has balked backwards from the noise and prances uneasily on cloven hooves. For a moment, neither of them know what to make of the girl and the poor creature in her egg. Still, the promise of discovery lingers in the air, and the half-child decides not to leave… yet.

“Explosions?” he queries, ears remaining half-back only because he fears that her piercing screech will start up again. Absently his gaze travels back to the hellhound flailing in its egg. She should help it, he thinks to Tobias, but does not voice this thought. It is not his concern what she does with her property, and there is no mystery of whether or not the hellhound needs assistance or not. It is beyond his interest.

She’s bold- vivacious even- and the half-child hardly knows what to make of her. In many ways, he wants to like her, if only because she is brave where he is timid, and she is spontaneous where he is calculating. If she is fire, than he is water; if she is the sun, then he is the moon; he takes interest in such opposites. He has learned that when fire and water meet, they make steam. When day and night meet, they make dusk and dawn. Opposites make tepid intermediates, curious concoctions that are neither wholly one nor the other, and have properties entirely their own.

But then, as she explodes the ground just off to his right, he wonders if she doesn’t need much more water than he can provide to tame her wild heart.

Skittering to the side as the ground rains down upon him (for he is a meek scientist, not a brave warrior), he eyes the hole in the ground suspiciously. Tobias, too, dances away balking and lowing. For a moment, the half-child looks at her mouth and wonders if he should sew it shut with his new-found toy. Would silencing her shouting stop the explosions? His lips purse in concentration, and he is silent just a little while too long while he watches her and tries to make something of this chaotic filly. Surely science must have some answer for her erraticism, right?

But then, his morbid mind wanders to another thought, and he smirks as he looks to his cervid. The two share a conversation for a moment, mostly imagines with some words thrown in, before the half-child looks back to his new companion. His pursed lips have finally turned up into a small grin as he gives voice to his macabe thoughts. “Can you explode the inside of something? Or… someone?” Worried she might consider him a worthy subject for such an experiment, he lowers his horn in a sort of threat, pointing it in her general direction. If she screams before she explodes him (should she attempt to), he might just have a chance to react..

She hasn’t tried? She has the ability to reign destruction upon… well, the earth at least, and she hasn’t studied her ability? The half-child sighs to himself, horn still held defensively in a way that Erebos had taught him. Does nobody in Helovia appreciate discovery? Do none of the horses care for classification, or science, or understanding? You’re starting to wonder, more and more, what type of world it is you live in. Only Erebos seems to get it. Maybe that’s why you like him so much.

As she looks back towards him, the half-child bobs his horn up and down a few times, trying to convince her to take her studies elsewhere. In his head, he also considers telling her that this conversation is going to end rather abruptly if she explodes him, but he is too timid to voice such a statement aloud. Finally, though, she loses interest and the half-child raises his head from the defensive posture, watching her curiously as she instead begins to advance upon a tree.

The boy and the cervid jump for a third time as the sound of another explosion rockets through the air. They had been waiting for her to shout and scream, to holler before whatever she was doing just got ripped to shreds, but she hadn’t said a word. Curious… does that mean, then, that she screams for the pure joy of it? So immersed in the question he has pondered, the half-child doesn’t even notice as the moon amulet dangling on Tobias’ antlers glows for a moment.

Despite his nerves, he takes a cautious step towards her and the tree she has unceremoniously grounded.

“Interesting,” he reports at last, ignoring her question as he glances to the hellhound to see if it has managed to free itself from its egg entrapment. Slowly, his gaze returns to the ruined flora as Tobias inches up behind him. Finally, after inspecting the destroyed tree trunk, he adds, “I think it was an appropriate sized explosion to ruin the tree.” He doesn’t really know what to say after that- it’s not so often that he goes on explorations like this without Erebos to help guide him.