Grusha was not one that typically handled emotions with much grace. Feelings of  sadness and grief and frustration all seemed to meld together and left the mare feeling angry. She had removed herself from everyone because their own grief and sadness only served to amplify her own and, thus, amplified her anger. Sadly, she could remove herself totally because the Throat was supposed to be home. Sometimes it almost felt like it, but then she would glance up toward the sky expecting to see Gaucho there either coming in from patrol or heading out on patrol and then she would remember Gaucho was dead and the waves of grief and anger would start lapping at the shores of her heart once more.

That day hadn't been a particularly good one for Grusha. It had started off as one of those days that the Throat actually felt like home. She'd spent the morning gathering bones from animals that had succumbed to the desert and she'd begun to hide them away as she usually did. There was nothing out of the ordinary and she'd even been in a good enough mood to play fetch with Nashoba when he'd run over to her with his favorite bone.

But then she'd made the trip to the Oasis for water.

And she looked at her reflection.

And for a full two minutes she thought she saw Gaucho staring bacak at her.

Her heart felt like it had frozen mid-beat and her blood felt like it had turned to icy slush in her veins. Then the white hot anger exploded and she'd lashed out at her reflection, her hooves slashing repeatedly at the water until she'd had enough. She turned quiet suddenly and tore away from the oasis, very nearly trampling her own companion in her rush. Nashoba yelped and scurried out of the way then took off after her.

After Gaucho's body had been burned the twins had hidden away his bones in one of their secret stashes. There was a mixture of bones there, not purely Gaiucho. When Nashoba had finally caught up with Grusha she was well into digging up what they had hidden. Several smaller bones had been smashed under her hooves, others had been tossed aside carelessly as she continued to dig in a frenzy for one particular bone...

Gaucho's skull rolled across the sand and Grusha whirled around to face it, her ears flat against her skull. Her lips were pulled back, her teeth bared, clenched as she glared at the skull. "This. Is. Your. Fault." She said slowly, angrily. (Ever since receiving Ampere's dagger she'd been practicing how to speak properly, though she sometimes had her slip ups). "You weren't supposed to die. You weren't supposed to leave uth." And now, in her fit of rage, all she wanted to do was smash Gaucho's skull.

"."

Grusha&Tae

in the middle, under a clear blue sky

the sun can only burn for you and i

"Seestra!"

As soon as Tae saw that her twin had taken Gaucho's skull from its place in their cache, she knew something was wrong. The girls had taken the bones of their Father, but they hadn't exactly paraded that fact around. Gaucho's death, especially in light of all the uproar over herd politics lately, was still a rather prickly issue. Despite how amusing it would be to have Gaucho's-skull lurking and haunting a few choice members within the herd, now seemingly was not the best time.

So why had Grusha taken it? Why was she now glaring at it, as if meaning to smash the delicate bones?

Mal and Hel raced ahead of the mandible-marked mare, yipping and barking happily towards Nashoba. "Seestra!" Tae called again, as her hooves carried here across the bloody sands and towards the Oasis where her twin currently stood. Given how much Grusha had grown, she looked more like an older sibling of Tae's, rather than her twin. Where Tae had stayed petite and hardened, Grusha had grown into an unmoveable force. If any had thought she had been intimidating before, they were in for one hell of a surprise now. "What are you doing?" Tae asked, her voice softer now that she was by Grusha's side.

Tae's wide, ghostly-white eyes searched the contours of her twin's face, trying to understand what was happening in her mind. Concern coloured the ghostly mares face, and indeed, bits of her body began to whisp away in ghostly tendrils as her heartbeat quickened. Alkthough Grusha was more of a hulk-smash now, ask questions maybe later type, she was far from stupid. Still, having Gaucho's skull out in the open like this?

Grusha&Tae

in the middle, under a clear blue sky

the sun can only burn for you and i