Romina is a bit of a daddy’s girl.

She’s not ashamed of her deep love for her parents. They were beautiful souls, and she idolized them. There was no pedestal taller than the one she had placed Ashamin and Hotaru upon. Though she considered those outside of her family - and to a lesser extent the ‘family’ of the Basin herd - to be far from important or meaningful, she reserved her overwhelmingly sincere love for those who had nurtured her from birth. The ones who had looked past her oddities and loved her anyways. If Romina could grow to become the perfect mix of her parents, she would live life happily. Though she was undeniably close to Hotaru partially because of the fact they lived together, Romina did not forget her nomadic father.

Perhaps it was the cold to drive her once more from the haven of the mountains. Certainly it had inspired many of her previous travels. Though she had been born into the frost and frigidity of the Basin, her thin form and spring coloration seemed to determine her preferences for her. Whether her distaste of the Northern climate would decide her future path for her or not was yet to be seen. But she knew even in her youth that she would not leave without her twin by her side. Yet she was confident in the fact that he would follow her. To the ends of the earth, if she so desired. Where one treaded, the other was not far behind. Today however, she does not have her brother’s companionship as she wanders into the wilds. But it does not mean she is alone.

Alice is a lurking companion as graceful legs pick down the mountain paths, bounding through the thick snow of the steppe with a sneering pout on her pretty face. She is grateful that her abnormalities at least allow her to traverse the snow faster than her full-equine kin. But Romina will never stop hating the fact that one must travel through the snow drifts of the pass to reach the borders of the Basin. It does not deter her however, for she is on a mission. Alice keeps up easily, flicking here and there in her vision. A silent guardian. Allowing Romina her adventure, but keeping all threats at bay.

The forests and trees welcome her as she journeys onward, sheltering her from the sweltering sun that filters through the branches of different trees. They cast differently patterned shadows upon the forest floor, dappling Romina’s cinnamon hide like the fawn spots on her body. The sun arcs and sinks as the days go by, but Romina does not fear the wilds. She is young and carefree, unaware of the dark things that lurk in the night. The only shadows she knows are the ones she casts, the machinations that are yawning and stretching tentatively in her growing mind. In time, her mother’s manipulative nature will bud inside her, and her devotion to family (and only family) will lead her to the scientific manipulations of others. Innocent curiosity fueled by her selective loyalty. Until the day she is faced with the horrors of the world, when that innocence shatters and the diamond soul inside her - the strength of her parents passed down, a legacy, a mantle she will take up - demands that she conquer the shadows of the realm around her. So that she would never be weak again. And nothing was safe; she would utilize everything to protect herself and her family, and everybody else could burn beneath the fires of her might.

But those times will come far later. For now, she is a fawnling child drifting aimlessly through crackling grass and wooded undergrowth. Alice keeps her on the right path, for she only has a description and a direction. East. To the sun. To the bloodied lands and the crimson rivers where her father promised she could find him.

When she comes upon it, it’s unmistakeable. And far more alien than Romina had anticipated. Alice comes to her side as they slowly make their way into the trees that remind her of maples. For a moment she’s nervous, wondering how she’s supposed to find her father in this land she doesn’t know.

Alice seems to notice her hesitation, and lifts her jowls to the heavens to howl. Ashamin should at least investigate the noise. Wolves did not howl often in the middle of the day, and certainly not without the response of a pack. Nose twitching nervously, Romina calls out into the shadows.

”Papa? Papa, where are you?”

She doesn't have to wait long for her father to arrive, her nervousness dissipating like dew beneath the hot summer sun as her kin appear from the crimson horizon. Alice glances momentarily towards the Clovenheart, hell-black eyes seeking contact with similar pitch orbs. His feelings towards her are not unnoticed, but she is only here as an escort for the springtime girl, and once the two are united she turns and slips into the blooded undergrowth like a flicker of sunlight across water. There and gone. Romina scarcely notices her absence, her father's arrival far more intriguing as her own beatific smile breaks like sunlight across her features. His lips form her name, a rare joy that she cherishes each time it graces her ears. She bounds to him on graceful tri-toed cloven hooves, hopping and prancing in place as she reaches her pale nose towards his towering frame.

He leans to meet her halfway, his royal voice descending in an expression of longing and joy combined. Were she capable of purring she would be as his cheek brushes against hers, loving and affectionate. Instead an odd, happy little bleat echoes quietly between her teeth, long beautiful tail swaying joyously like an overeager pup. So few times does she see her father, what with her own gratuitous adventuring, that she soaks in his presence like a dried out sponge finally introduced to water. She would carry him with her for as long as she could, reserve and crystallize each memory so that the distance would not seem so vast in the times between.

"I missed you too, Papa," she croons softly, her joyous mood taking a momentary slide downward. It's temporary however as his warmth finally moves away, asks after the rest of her family that she'd left behind in the cradle of the sky-reaching mountains. Before she can respond however Rakt bowed and shook his beautiful antlers at her, and Romina's forelegs skipped up into the air, a little kick of her heels as she landed and blew happily through her nose as she shook her own horns back. They burst into opal flames almost immediately with her building excitement, and her smile was nervous and bashful at the slipup when she finally turned back to her father.

"Mama is busy challenging the warriors. Ru'in and I have been exploring! I've seen so many places," she gushes, eyes bright with wonder and delight. Now she understood why her father had left the Basin, or at least it was what she had assumed. And her lips slip into a frown as she muses quietly towards the painted buck, wondering if perhaps he has an answer for her. "Ru and I don't like the Basin. It's too cold for us, and we want to adventure." She almost asks to come and live with him, but any permanent residence seems to prickle unnaturally at her nomadic nature, and she waits for his wisdom first. Ever eager to absorb his words and intellect.

Her father's glowing pride and enthusiasm took Romina aback as surely as the flux of her magic had done to him. She and Kiada had been practicing constantly, trying to overcome what they saw as a decisive weakness. A flaw in their code, meant to try and destabilize them and put them at a disadvantage. Just because it was optically pretty didn't mean it was useful, in fact it seemed to be the antithesis to the word. So she flicked her bright eyes down to the earth, scuffed at it with her cloven toes, and shrugged awkwardly. Romina really didn't want to talk about it, the useless, harmless flames that licked up her horns at the will of her tempestuous emotions.

"No...it's only when I feel really happy, or sad, or angry." And the bitterness in her young voice was unmistakable. The twist of her lips in the shadowed corners of her budding brilliance reminding her and all others that she was imperfect. And even if Romina embraced those flaws, twisted and manipulated them to work for her instead of against her, she hated the constant reminder of her own malformed existence. "Kia and I have been trying to control it...to not get so excited. She has something like it too." And a soft, burdened sigh fell like a stone from her tired lips, unable to face her father and the disappointment she was sure to cause him. "I'm sorry..." At least Ru'in had useful, beautiful magic. But not Romina. Blessed as both her parents and her brother had been, the only magic she'd received was one that put her at an eternal disadvantage to others. One she couldn't even harness, with how they were harmless flickers of light only reminiscent of flames.

She introduced the new topic as quickly as she could, wanting to distract her father from her failings in the magical realm. And whether she knew him intimately or was just lucky in choosing a thread that would resonate with him, Romina didn't care. So long as he was sufficiently sidetracked. Her brow furrowed, tiny face wrinkling in thought as she mulled over his carefully worded answer, the machinations laying pulsating in the depths of her mind preening and coming to life with this new variable.

"A group?" she asked, not sure how to feel about that. Because it wouldn't be just her father. "Ru'in wants to craft. Can he do that in the wilds?" Romina didn't know anything about the structure of magic in the herdlands, knew only of the Gods as patrons. Surely if there were patrons for herdlands, there must be one for the wilds? Romina could care less where they ended up if it was warm and intriguing, but she would not set aside her brother's passions and desires if she could help it. "What's the Unbound do?" But her eyes were bright and interested, a subliminal message to Ashamin that she was not uninterested in the prospect. Anything to be free of the icy clutches of the north.