Ever since shattering those ominous, entrapping bones in the vengeful and enraged fear they arisen in her for her people still in the Rift, a pain pierced her plated skull. It was not unlike the pain one got from eating too much malsana fish, or if one ate it after a long while of not eating it. But that pain faded after a few hours. This pain lasted, and had lasted, for days.

So the militant mare was in a foul temper. To be fair, the woman was rarely in buoyant spirits; but, at the moment, the seahorse was extraordinarily contentious. She had not even the sea to ease the pounding roar of blood in her skull, only freshwater ponds that made her ridges swell and plated skin sore. And she had spent enough time in the water (for at least it was liquid relief to the heat, if not to the pain) to make her body as sore as her skull.

So she left the waterfalls, though instead of finding a reprieve from the crashing sound, hear wearily pinned ears heard a faint thumping. Squinted (but still unblinking) bright blue eyes narrow through the thick, but dry, foliage. What was that?

With a gait that lacked her usual athletic grace, she broke through the bushes. “Kahelo, ĉesigi,” her command was out before she even entirely recognized the colt. She only knew that this small creature (although he was no longer as small as in the caves) was bashing his head against the earth with enough force to break it. And so her command to stop was out of her mouth, unfortunately sharp (the skin around her eyes twitched as her throaty voice rattled around her skull), before she even knew why she was commanding him to stop.

And, waiting for the reverberating to stop, her too-large eyes stared down at the collapsed colt. “You, too?” finally her guttural voice sounded again, though it was quiet, hushed, and entirely unlike her usual confident speech. She paused a moment longer beside the ever-silent colt, “The ostojn left wounds in the mind for all. Akvians say,” in a rare moment of reflection, her hushed voice begins to fade into Akvian, “ La kuraco por ĉiuj estas salo.”


And something akin to sadness, though not quite that in the strong woman, flashed in her pained face as her unblinking gaze stared at the grey colt.

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ĉesigi= stop
ostojn = bones
La kuraco por ĉiuj estas salo = “The cure for all is salt.”