In a different time, a better time, Ampere would have humored her son and splashed in the tide with him. She would have enticed him into a game of tag, playfully nipping at him, just out of reach until she'd finally let him 'catch' her and dissolve the whole chase into a swimming session and laughter. That would have been a time when her heart was whole, when she could carry enough love for the living wildfire of a stallion and all his children, but that time was not now, and so the only thing she provided her child was neglect.

So it should be no surprise that the second child elicited little more than a blinking of her lashes as she turned towards the small, new voice. The moisture caught in the dark fringes blurred her vision, causing the shadowy figure to dance beside her son. He was of little consequence, so she resumed the game of ignoring. Not even a single stray thought about his mother's whereabouts or his general well being wafted across her consciousness. If she couldn't gather enough crumbs to tend to her own progeny, she certainly didn't have the strength to dote upon others - but she would have, once.

The sound of sand being pushed aside beneath hooves was the first indication of his approach. The second was the gradual lifting of her feathers from their slack relaxation to the very tips of their reach. Her nostrils flared, then quivered as she drew him in, while his presence stole across her like the winter winds. When he spoke, her flesh shivered, rippling like black water as she curled away from him, bowing like a branch to the stiff breeze. With her name, he begged her eye, and stiffly she cast him a single one from the edge of her face, neatly tucked against her shoulder, wet mane and forelock scattered across with her inescapable wildness.

"Bold of you to travel with children, Mesec," she said in sharp, though quiet and rough response, as though she hadn't spoken in a while and her throat was unaccustomed to it. Her stare, though originally directed at him, caught sight of the filly near him. There was no doubt in that moment whom the colt belonged to then either.

They looked like him, she noticed, and for some reason that hurt. It was surprising she could still recognize a new wound given the constant ache that churned inside of her, and even more alarming that he could manage to inflict them still. Hadn't she buried him beyond Helovia, when she spent those days and nights tangled in madness and despair? Hadn't she moved on and burned him from her being with the Wildfire's blaze?

Or was that it - was she cast back into the darkness, now that the embers had grown cold? Was she so fucked up that she could only ever love those whom would hurt her? At what point would the self betrayal ever stop?

Anger sparked inside of her, striking off some bone that wasn't waterlogged with grief. "Given your history," she snarled, attempting to hurt him, wanting to drag him into this pain too because that was certainly easier than admitting she still wanted him.

It was easier than realizing he didn't want her any more - not if he had two little shadows in tow, belonging to some other mare's cunt.

Was she so forsaken, that she lost both her sun and her moon?
Seemed so.

[welp this didn't turn out as planned. fml Ampere you're such a bitch I hate you :| ]