Listening wide eyed to the explanation the pearly hued filly looked between Nephele's wings and her own miniature feathers. Spreading them out she tried to compare, but the difference in both hue and apparent size was disheartening. Still. She did have wings, and Mother said she would teach Erthë how to fly someday soon. Maybe she could go the the edge of the world too then, and visit Tembu.

"But you look like her and you stood where I thought she were" she muttered as the red-marked mare complained. "And I want to go to the Edge too but I have to stay here and look for her..."

Encouraged by that thought, she hovered close by the elephant man as they walked, and pressed even nearer to him when the foliage parted to reveal first one, then another horse! All of them had wings, none had horns, and though they were smiling and talking the fawn felt a sudden heat rise to her cheeks. Shyness was, perhaps, not very prominent in her character, but there was a difference between being cheeky when there was one or two to hear her, and a completely different thing altogether when the meeting turned into a gathering.

She kept her mouth closed and tried to just follow along with the conversation, already bored but also a bit fascinated by the complicated turns in adult language. It seemed to her that they were having a very friendly battle about the mother impostor, where the winner would get to take her home. What a lucky mare; already three herds were vying for her attention, but Erthë had almost been left to the wolves by the unicorns of the Basin. A gentle prickle of envy bled into her gut as she looked between the horses - would they have been as eager if it had been her that was new and homeless?

She sniffed. Black ooze retreated back up the nostril it had tried to escape, only to start its slow descent again. They were talking about the illnesses now, and it made her prick the woolly ears in renewed interest. The last arrival, the Megaera lady, mentioned the Throat and healers too, and it instilled such confidence into her that the filly actually spoke up.

"I know uncle Badger!" she said. "He told me he doesn't know what the cure is... D-do you?"

Stuttering slightly and blushing harshly as she addressed the soft-spoken Miykael, she twisted in on herself in the anxious wait that followed upon her question. Maybe they would ignore her, maybe they would snap and growl and look at her with stern adult eyes until she grew quiet again...

But maybe they could help her heal her mother, too.