The goddess was all consuming. Her presence was such that the surroundings nearly erased themselves from existence. Every word uttered, every broken twig and uneasily shifted foot amidst the growing crowd faded into pointless noise, a mere backdrop to highlight her perfection.

Erthë barely heard what her mother said. She forgot to breathe as she stared in awe at the lavender-colored mare, hovering as still as a porcelain figurine beneath the black-feathered wing - until black spots began dancing before her eyes and nearly obscured the vision of the unholy deity. Tiny lungs inhaled greedily of the magic-tainted air -  somehow it tasted all the sweeter because she shared it with the immortal one. It really didn't make much sense. At a fleeting glance the mare looked like any other. Strangely colored perhaps, but not more than the foreigners that had been brought along for the ride as the green labyrinth was torn from one plane of existence to another. It was just that the lavender hue of the lady's skin was sweet enough to render her heart asunder, and every lash and wrinkle, every stub of hair and the lilac of her eyelids, everything down to the silken locks of hair was perfect. Too perfect. So much so that it could never be the shell of any mortal soul.

Only a goddess could be so flawless.

The child longed to move nearer, if only to see the sheer perfection from up close. With a slip and a shrug she escaped the protective embrace of her mothers wing and began to weave through the milling crowd. She had some practice in evading hooves, legs and flicking tails; this was nothing compared to the chaos of a battlefield. Her movements were agile, if not very fast, and while the filly tried not to think about it every step hurt. Blisters - or boils, rather - were rubbing against one another on the inside of her thighs, painful and full of fluid, ready to burst at a wrong move. The pain of them was on the level of Bear God drool - a searing aching itch you couldn't even imagine until it was all over your skin.

Erthë was just about to inch across the last stretch of ground towards the Lady Moon when something caught her eye, something so fascinating it even tore her attention away from the goddess. Blinking in astonishment she altered her path and slipped in next to a mare of cream and gold, horn-crowned and so pretty that if the Moon hadn't been there she might have been the focus of everyone's attention. Alas, compared to the lavender queen everyone paled; and in any case it hadn't been the dainty build or sweeping locks that caught the eye of the child.

"Does that hurt?" she asked, nearly breathless as she stared in awe at the chain that dangled between horn and ear. "Why do you have it on your face?"

Mother wouldn't have been pleased that she forgot to introduce herself, though Erthë didn't realize she had been rude until she'd already spoken. She twisted awkwardly where she stood, downy wings and over-long tail writhing in curiosity and embarrassment, and if horses could blush she would have been bright red about the cheeks where she looked up at the stranger.

The fidgeting stopped when she wasn't told off. Instead the frail fawn stared in unabashed admiration at the dangling chain, its golden links gleaming and reflecting in her one good eye even through the dusk of the bamboo forest.

"It's so pretty" she breathed, looking awestruck. "But why do you wear it? Did your ma tell you to?"

But formalities did not tolerate waiting any longer. The maiden introduced herself and the child had to save her questions for later, bound by common decency, as mother called it, to reply.

"Hi, Rexanna, it is nice to meet you" she chanted, in the droning voice used when repeating something learned by heart. "My name is Er.. Erttte.. Ere, I am two weeks old - soon three!" It was a bit embarrassing to not even be able to say her own name right, but she had trouble with those lisping sounds. Couldn't da have given her some easier to say name? Like.. like Vlasi... but no, that wasn't very easy to say either.

There, now formalities are over, right? With all the patience of running water she looked from Rex to the Moon Lady and back, with a rather smug and secretive look on her face.

"Do you know who that is? It's the Moon! I thought the moon was white but Mom said that's the moon goddess... How does that work?" The young brow furrowed in through, and rather absentminded she shifted her stance so that the painful sores on her legs wouldn't rub against one another.

Her thoughtful frown brightened into a happy expression when the pretty lady laughed. She laughed! Oh, what a wonderful feeling, to be able to make someone do that! It was infectious too, the good kind anyway, because it made her giggle along. In the excitement the delicate child skipped and jumped on the spot, a merry little dance that only ended when one of the usual coughing fits glued her back onto the ground.

They were tiring, and she couldn't really see why she coughed all the time. It was as though something along the way between nose and lung was being poked and prodded, but it was also a burning and stinging like bear god blood as she inhaled. They didn't last long but left her breathless and panting, drained in a way that hours of talking or playing couldn't accomplish.

And yet, as soon as she found the strength to speak again, the child kept smiling. The frail constitution did nothing to dull her bright nature or fill the gluttonous appetite on life. By the time she looked up she was already talking again, blabbering on as though she didn't have a concern in the world.

"That was awfully nice of him! My papa is nice too, but when he gets angry he can be really scary. He scolded me once, I sneaked out, and you wouldn't believe how angry they all were when I got home!"

She swaggered back and forth around Rexanna, boasting with the kind of pride only one who loved from the bottom of her heart could about being yelled at. She giggled at being addressed with the accidental nickname, happiness spreading like something warm and soft and wonderful inside. She felt something great had happened just then, like the moment they shared belonged to just them and no one else. It was like a good secret, a hidden gift, a ray of light illuminating frost on a flower bud.

But... then a cloud passed and the sun faded from her eyes. Rexanna asked about the boils and Erthë became quite still, her eyes growing distant as the unpleasant memories welled up inside. Well, one eye at least. The left one saw nothing at all; it was blind, dead, destroyed by cursed blood. Soon it would begin to rot within its socket, but for now Erthë only felt mild discomfort whenever she blinked. It kept watering and leaking so that her cheek became stained with foul smelling liquids. She hated it, hated the boils that swelled and burst and bled all over her legs. Ah, it made her feel so dirty, so tainted...

"I walked into a red forest" she responded automatically, but some of the eagerness had died away and the voice was mechanical. "Then a big bear appeared. They said it was a god, but he was sick... Mother thinks that's where I got them. She was itching an awful lot too..."

A shudder passed through the child and she pressed the downy wings tighter against the slender sides, suddenly chilled despite the temperature of the air being so much higher than her own.

"I don't like this place" she added. Sea-green eye jerked back onto Rex, unspoken angst aging her by months as she inched closer. "It feels wrong and fake, just like the red forest, and she is here too, just like the Time man was. Something is going to happen...."

Why was it so much harder to return to a cheerful mindset than to slip down into fear and unease? The filly curled her tail in appreciation of the kind words but couldn't really feel them do any difference. It was sad that she had seen horrible things at such a tender age, but she had neither the perspective nor the experience to understand that. It wasn't her age that was unfortunate to her, it was the whole fact that someone would go so far as to kill and defile someone just because they didn't agree. What bothered the child even more was that she couldn't quite bring herself to hate the swirl-marked god who had ordered it either... because even though she was young the girl was intelligent enough to understand that he wouldn't have done it if there had been another way. Or would he? What would have happened if the big, mad bear god had been left alive? Would he have done bad things, or would everything have worked out just fine?

Erthë didn't know. She didn't know that god, nor did she know the time man. Her eyes traveled to the Moon lady, a touch of doubt staining her admiration of the goddess... but as she regarded her it was as though the sheer beauty and elegance of the exalted being made her uncertainties melt away.

No, she wasn't sure, and she had no way of knowing what was right and wrong because no one had ever told her that. Even if what she did was a sin and a crime, at least she wasn't alone? The goddess was doing something, like the god before had done before, and she had been asked to help (at least that time). It was a comforting thought, if not altogether noble, and it helped the small girl settle down. Gradually she relaxed, and by the time she looked back at Rex the smile had returned to her eyes.

"Brave? What is brave? Why am I that but not you?" The tiny chiseled head tilted in query; it was a word she didn't know, a concept she didn't understood. At least the suggestion that this was no more than her mind playing tricks on her - like the shadows she thought crawled in the forest when she slept there with mom - was comforting...

If only her stomach could have believed it too. It kept fluttering and churning with warning and premonition, and the filly threw a glance around to see where mother had gone... ah, there she was. Glaring daggers and bristling as their eyes met, but grudgingly returning her bright, eager smile with a dark-lipped, surly one that spoke volumes of the telling off she would get once they were alone again.

At least the mare was there this time, which was more than she could have asked for.