She stared in awe at the golden stallion as he emerged from the shadow of the mountains. In all her short days of life she had never seen anyone as grand as this person. Her father might be taller, but there was an air about the golden man that seemed to shout that he was both stronger and more important, and the impressive regalia that crowned him and the pretty deer that flanked him practically hammered this point down. Erthë quivered under the weight of his gaze as it swept from her mother to her and over the rest of the group, unsettled by the hard expression. Was he angry at them for being there? Should they not have come?

He spoke, and she strained her mind to understand what he was saying. 'Lord' was a word she had no concept of but instinctively she knew that it was important; she could feel her mother tense and hold her breath, and threw the shadow mare a curious glance to see why this bothered her. But the mare's face was impassive, unreadable, and so the child was left to decipher the meaning herself, without any clues. The horn-crowned, Thra.. thrandu.. anyway, he continued to say something and this time she too felt something cold and heavy and hopeless come over her that made her cling even closer to Mother's side, because didn't 'ask too much' mean no? Meaning, he wasn't going to help Mother?

Something thick and hard to swallow gathered in her throat that was both sad and angry. Tears threatened to well into the ocean-green eyes and Erthë was just about to say something, apologize or object - she wasn't sure which - when suddenly the golden one turned his head sharply and addressed the young stag. The foal stilled, taken aback by the quiet conversation; she could see the intensity with which they stared at one another, like when Father talked to Vlasi in his mind and Vlasi spoke back.

Wide-eyed she realized that the Lord was growing more and more agitated, and suddenly the deer was moving, walking towards her. Mother tensed visibly this time with ears flattening against the neck in warning, but the dark creature did nothing; it simply placed itself by the side of the white fawn, who gazed up at it in quiet admiration. When it lowered its head towards her she giggled in surprise and tried to touch her nose to its muzzle; it was so pretty, and looked so kind, very much in contrast to the palomino unicorn.

Erthë flinched when the man suddenly screamed and stared in wide eyed amazement as he then turned and shouted behind him, his voice echoing against the mountainside. She pawed the snow, confused at the sudden change of tone as he continued; he looked angry still, but the words he used were different now.

It was all very strange. Mother seemed both relieved and oddly cautious as she listened, and this didn't change a bit as two grown up mares came hurrying from within the valley beyond, both pretty and kind eyed and rather business like. She noticed one of them looking at her and smiled shyly, a brief and rather impatient twitch of the lips that fell away as she stretched her neck and tried to look further into the passage to discern what lay beyond.

Were they going to help Mother after all? Were they all going to be let inside? The thin tail curled in quiet agitation as she tried to contain her excitement, the adventure in the situation overtaking her worry now that the adults were talking instead of shouting. But it was all very boring, couldn't they hurry up a bit?