the

Mother of Companions

It comes to her, through her, like a bullet on the breeze. Her name - a shout from familiar lips which she cannot yet place. Kygo kindly repeats it for her, blaring out, "AMPERE!" with a raucous joy that only amplifies when she shoots him a cross look. His green wings alight from the tree top he'd roosted in and she'd sheltered under, napping in the midday sun, the heat of an approaching summer already a threat.

He races ahead of the blue mare, his flight pattern erratic, a tactic to avoid predation - though so is staying with her. He's careless though, much more interested in what mischief awaits on the borders, giddy when a second shout streams forth with a hot urgency that quickens his flight as it does her steps. She's looking more refreshed than normal, though nothing like where she should be. Birdsong has been kind to her appetite, enticing her with the sweetest of foods, and it has simply marked time. Supposedly time heals all wounds, or more aptly put, time makes you used to all wounds. Ampere isn't healed, but she is now accustomed to hurting, and like anything that is constant, it becomes less noticeable.

So she moves through the sand at a gait faster than her recent trudge, but decidedly lacking her normal purpose. That's when she receives a flash from Kygo of the fire mare, causing Ampere to halt in her tracks (partially because being flashed in the brain with someone else's awareness is fucking disorienting).
"Tandavi?" she asks, mostly to herself, but Kygo picks up on the mental conversation and offers an unhelpful sort of shrug. He doesn't pay attention. Ampere presses onward, a new eagerness to her stride. She's not sure she can call the mare friend, not sure she ever could, even if she did, but all the same she has missed the grounding effect of the old Diviner. Maren may be hotter and just as bluntly honest, but Tandavi would always be her first.

It would be nice to say she appears before Tandavi, but with the wide open desert they'd each see the gradual smudge of the other's body coming into closer form. Ampere pulls up to the shore, then halts, the divide of the ocean an obvious separation between them. The blue mare stares, her feelings knotted, before she extends her wings and glides across, Kygo joining her then.

"Tandavi?" she asks as she coasts down and lands easily in the sandy wilds before the herd. There's a question in her tone, it had been there from the start, but it deepened when she picked up on some of the heat churning in Tandavi, there in the taut hold of her muscles. Mildly confused, Ampere stayed guarded, but hopeful. "Have you decided to come back?" No accusation, and no promise either. Ampere didn't like her herd, her family leaving, but she didn't condemn it either when she'd been just as much of a culprit. She'd welcome her family back, always, but she'd fight to make them stay if she could first (as Megaera could testify).

It wasn't exactly up to her any more though.

I've been trying to fix my pride
But that shit's broken

the

Mother of Companions

Ampere is so similarly focused on Tandavi that she doesn't notice the lack of the fox, Natraj, that was always with fire dancer. Companions were normally the first thing Ampere would always notice, and their names, if they were ever properly introduced, would linger must stronger in her memory than the calling of any horse. Ampere has been, distracted, in the past few years though, growing steadily more complacent compared to the mare Tandavi so strongly remembers up on the Veins.

The fire which had held Ampere's gaze had gone out though, and in the absence of its heat and its light, Ampere had only the cold and the dark to watch. It allowed old, wild things to get close again.
For now though, Ampere was still adjusting to the night, and Tandavi's was a flame that still burned bright.

Ampere's hopeful query is pierced by the simple word, no. Ampere's features falter faintly, but soon enough her expression reforms with intrigue, wanting to know the purpose of Tandavi's presence then if not what she asked, and why she seemed so fidgety. Briefly Ampere wondered if she wanted to come back (it seemed hard for Tandavi to say no), but couldn't due to... an obligation? A tyranny? A new sand allergy?

The sound of her own name dispelled whatever imagination Ampere was running off with. Her gaze re-focused on Tandavi, intent to know as her old friend(?) continued to noticeably struggle. Ampere was about to crack a joke to lighten the mood, or demand the girl spit it out before they both turn gray, but then there it was- out just like a fresh foal, wet and ugly and exhausting.

Ampere could only blink, too stunned to do anything else.

Her mind is blank at first, but then suddenly, as she digests what was just said and the weight of that, her thoughts are careening out of control, wreaking havoc all within her. Ampere tenses, her body tugging in tighter to itself, though her hooves never lift. The lines of her face grow taut, and something in her eyes harden.

"What?" Is all she manages to say, to stutter, out of the plethora of shit buzzing on her mind and on her tongue.

She's surprised of course, shocked even, but there's also a certain calm to her that wouldn't exist if this - if this was the first she'd heard of it.
This was the first real proof she had, which was the reason for any of her response. For some time now she'd had her own suspicions now, and of course there was that snake-poison dream where a whale told her (what's not to believe there), so there'd been some gentle hints. Always though there was that lack of confirmation, that little wiggle of doubt. This however was something much more tangible, much more encompassing, taking up all the room where he doubt would normally sit.

"Are you certain?" she still asks, just to be sure, but even as the question leaves her mouth her body is softening, her heart is accepting.
"I was too," she finally says, gently, guiltily.

A pause, because Ampere wasn't trying to defend herself or seek forgiveness, just offering an explanation, and then she says "Thank you for ensuring she lived. Do you know who raised her?"

I've been trying to fix my pride
But that shit's broken

the

Mother of Companions

Tandavi's confirmation washes over Ampere like the sea; salty, so it stings against open wounds, yet oddly comforting, a serene power that tickles as it sways across her. The acceptance of this fact is difficult - after all her experience as a mother now, it's awful to face the abandonment of that egg, of her precious daughter, of the Sun's daughter. Yet she is thankful to finally know, to be at peace where the doubt was gnawing, and to recognize her mistakes as she had so many others. She cannot change what was done now, as much as she might wish, so she is merely grateful she can see the product of her grown daughter, powerful and independent. She smiles faintly at the last vision she held of Aithniel, triumphant in her overthrowing of the Seasoul.

The smile falters as Tandavi goes on. First her heart prickles with concern that the poor child grew up in the Basin. It's cold there, Ampere thinks, knowing the chill settles in more ways than one. Then, a nauseates guilt when Tandavi confesses the girl asked of her cruel, neglectful mother.
"I see," Ampere manages after a moment. Her tone has grown softer, more weary, as have the lines on her face as the details of her past mistake gradually make themselves known. "Thank you... for telling me. It's been something I've wondered for a while. I tried to ask the Sun God once but he didn't answer me, and I was never quite sure given how quickly she aged... God's blood I suppose." Ampere was genuine, and the blue stare she held Tandavi with was hurt, but also apologetic. "I'm a different horse now," she admits, "A different mother." A half smile, because there's not truly humor. "I've you to thank for that. It's a role I've embraced since you helped me face the responsibility, if only I'd managed to do it first with her."

Ampere falls quiet then, wondering if she ought to tell Aithniel, or if it's better to leave it be. She hasn't had a mother all this time after all, would she really need one now?

Ampere might have wondered why Tandavi was telling her all this if she weren't consumed by what was being told. The Fire Dancer's voice beckons her focus once more as she continues to go on, and obediently Ampere's head and gaze lift from the thoughtful stain she'd been pouring her vision into on the ground.

At this new however, Ampere is shaken.
The other egg...
... it hatched.
Hertz...your son.

Ampere's response is not immediate, the shock leaving her breathless, her eye lashes motionless over her impossibly wide (horrified) eyes; only the beat of her heart indicates she still lives, and it is frantic. The edges of Ampere's body starts to dance away as her hide and color are consumed by sparks of electricity. The blue, raw energy pulses where her form once was, suggesting more than ever that she embodies lightning, for better or for worse.

As Ampere fades, it seems so too does her silence. As electricity crawls across all of her, leaving only spots of dark hide and soulful eyes, does she finally respond, and it is with her characteristic tempest nature.
"WHY WOULD YOU KEEP THIS FROM ME!?" the lightning horse screams, spark-lit body recoiling away from the fire-mare, storm-brushed wings lifting in outrage.

"YOU KNEW!" she accused with a shriek. "YOU KNEW ALL THIS TIME!"

I've been trying to fix my pride
But that shit's broken