She smells him before she sees him, and her heart soars. Dominus has taken himself off hunting so he isn't tempted to eat Tembovu's elephant companion, so she relies fully on her own senses to detect his arrival. He is a cacophony of sound and size, and she twitches eagerly in anticipation.

Then, she sees him. Despite herself, despite her suffering, despite her fear, her face splits into a smile. He is home to her. He embodies the Edge, its comfort and familiarity, its protective, welcoming embrace. She longs to move to him, hold him close and tell him how much she's missed him and her home, but she restrains herself. He deserves more than to be touched by a liar.

The ironheart sees him looking at her daughters, and she fights not to stiffen or show her fear. They do not look like her, that much is true - they are miniature embodiments of their sire, which is perhaps a blessing in disguise. Still, she worries that he will know - he is a clever man, although she hopes the measures she's put into place will maintain her facade. "Tembovu." Her voice embodies the relief she feels, her delight at seeing him; the haunted look in her eyes could just be the weary gaze of a traveller, the resigned expression of a woman who failed.

His words bring another grin to her face - it feels like a weight lifted from her heart as she uses muscles she hasn't in months. Something about him puts her at ease, despite his size and strength. She trusts him, although her trust in stallion-kind has been considerably shaken by her recent experience. They are a bit small to be soldiers. "Oh, you'd be surprised. They're little survivors, I'll give them that." This part, at least, is the truth. "That one is Oizys, and that one is Enyo." Misery and war - she quite hopes her King is not up on his mythology.

When he addresses the girls directly, her heart warms further. For a man to be able to speak to children as equals, instead of irrelevent objects...God dammit, why could her womb have not ripened with his seed, instead of the grey demon's? She breathes deeply, preparing to speak, ready to explain; he asks about a wetnurse, but rather than answering that directly, she decides to tell her full story, to save having to spin multiple webs which she has to monitor and maintain. "My trek has been long and arduous, my King. But, as you can see by my lack of a father, it was not successful." Her head droops - she channels all the emotions she'd felt during all the times she had hunted for Nato and failed, and wields them now. They are real, true emotions, in an attempt to lessen the amount of actual lies she must tell. Real, true emotions, just at the wrong time.

"Dominus and I travelled far outside Helovia, following the single trail left by the stallion we saw. However, clearly tracking is not our forte - we ended up following more deer paths than we did horse trails." She snorts - this, too, is a truthful tale from the past. She really does suck at finding things. "I asked any wandering rogues that we came across, and they confirmed the presence of a man who looked like my father - apparently, he was a member of a large roving herd. We followed the directions given to us by countless strangers, until we...until we found..." Here she chokes, summoning every ounce of sorrow she can. This is the first true lie, as she has never experienced anything like what she's about to say. This, for the first time, is foreign territory.

"It was a massacre. I don't know what had happened, and I probably never will - I don't know if I want to, either, but I suspect I stumbled upon a battlefield. Bodies, everywhere. I searched, fearing the worst, but I couldn't find my father. I choose to think he escaped, that he's alive somewhere...he is too proud a warrior to have met his end in a place like that." She averts her gaze, her face a picture of woe. This, again, is borne from truth - she does sometimes fear that her father is rotting on a battlefield such as the one her imagination has conjured, and the idea of the man dying in such a way, alone...it makes her ache.

But her story cannot end there. "That's when I saw these two fillies, with vultures swarming overhead. They were still alive, Tembovu, and screaming, and the vultures were still eating them...That's how Oizys got her scars, whilst the carrion-eating bastards squabbled over who got to peck out her eyes. There were the remains of a mare nearby, her body so scavenged that she was hardly recognisable as a horse. She was sort of...lying across them. I like to think she was their mother, and that she died saving her daughters." This is how Nyx thought she herself may have died during the birth - protecting them, whilst their father's birds pecked her bones clean. This is how she summons a disgusted shudder; again, she draws from personal experience. "I had to help them, Tembovu, I couldn't just leave them to be eaten...I choose to think that they're related to my father, maybe his daughters or granddaughters. Even if I couldn't find him, it comforts me to think that I may have a piece of him nearby." This, she hopes, will explain any familial resemblance that the girls hold to her. "They were weak and underfed, so I couldn't possibly continue my search once I'd discovered them. I had no choice but to return here." After all, what kind of woman would drag two orphaned darlings halfway across the world in search of her sire?

"I've managed to produce enough milk myself to keep them going - but if you think it would be better for them, I'm happy for you to find them a nurse-mare." Inwardly, she hopes not; she enjoys feeding her own children, and sees it as her responsibility. But she does not want to risk disrupting her lie by seeming overeager, so does her best to be nonchalant. "Will you allow them to stay, my King?" She very much doubts Tembovu would turn away two foals in need, but she does not want to risk anything by presuming.