She was improving.

It's hard to say when it started; unlike her noticeable destruction, the rebuilding of Ampere was slow and quiet, only apparent after a great passage of time, or acute scrutiny. Such is typical of creating and ruining, and why loss deals such a greater impact than gain.

A turning point was certainly the threat of the new 'god' Kaos, igniting that need to protect and defend once more. It was like the overwhelming darkness those years ago, the crisis and the threat and how it united the realm, well it inspired her from the Wilds and into a herd. She found strength and family in the herd, and gradually her feral manners subsided under compromise and joint efforts.
The meeting with the strange electric creature and the gifts she bestowed upon Ampere was another important breath of life back into Ampere. That one was an internal tug instead of an external pressure, one that pulled Ampere a bit further back into the mare she was, the mare before Gaucho instead of the broken one after him. Ideas that had grown quiet in her heart were starting to echo again...

Ampere's lips pursed in thought as she stared out at the shoreline. Just having ended her patrol her body was faintly darkened with sweat in certain corners of her body. The new, burning feather of the golden Sun fluttered in her mane as a spring breeze drew upon her, eliciting a faint shiver where the dew of her duties caught it. A black, flame-less feather moved in her hair too.

Kygo arced suddenly down from his erratic flight across the beach. He swung deftly into her mane, sending strands every which way. Ampere flicked an ear back, oddly accepting of this compared to her typical treatment of the bird (they had rebuilt too, just as quietly).
"Don't tell me you got more seaweed?" she asked through their link, a touch of disgust lining her tone.
Kygo paused in his burrowing efforts, feathers half-heartedly fluffing up in rebuke. "No!" was all he quipped back, clearly hiding something.
Before Ampere could ask further the breeze picked up again and blew the tuft of dried grass the little bird had collected. The movement caught Ampere's eye, her blue iris turning as she watched the foliage drift onto the sand from her body, laughing as Kygo jostled on her neck, darting after it with a dismayed "bitch!" that mimicked her own voice.

With the silence broken, Ampere switched to her normal manner of conversation with her companion - audible, as if that somehow made it easier to bear the idea that they could speak mentally, that they were bound. It was certainly something she never forgot, but it was something she had adjusted to much better than she ever imagined she would; time does that to you. From suicide attempts to laughing with him on the beach, and just in a year. Time does fly.

"Honestly, what's the point of building a nest?" she queried, humor drawing out her words and sealing them with a smirk.
"Never know!" Kygo insisted, agitated as he tried to place his pieces just so, but even Ampere's slightest movements unsettled them. He insisted her mobile nest would make it that much more impressive, but he may have underestimated the instability. He kept trying though, energetically racing on his wings back down the beach to find some new decor.

If Grusha was expecting Ampere's ire, she was sorely mistaken. She could not fault her daughter for her own flaws, least of all in the wake of Gaucho's death. His was an end that was more than a stallion, more than a lover, than a father, than a Sultan. His was an end to all of that, and his passing left ripples of grief that lapped greedily at their hearts and their consciousness. The Wildfire had been a presence, a force unmatched, and his absence was felt in the removal of such weight upon their lives.

So no, Ampere could not be angry, not in this.

The gentle word floating over to Ampere, so subtle and short, was so wholly significant to the blue mare that it laid a kiss upon. She turned with a quick, reactive manner, as though responding to nothing more than her name. Yet she stilled as she pivoted, neck craned against her shoulders, gaze peeking out over the top of her tucked wings. There her stare embraced Grusha, her little girl just standing in the sand as simple as could be.

Ampere's eyes pricked with moisture, her lips hung slack with surprise, and her wings drooped from her sides. Some guttural noise, like a bird's coo, rumbled in her chest as Ampere abruptly reanimated and rushed to complete her turn and close the gap between them. She strove to sling her neck around her daughter's (though their apparent height different meant that failed, so Ampere settled for tucking beneath instead) and her wings shot out to actively embrace the stoic girl. "Grusha," Ampere breathed against her, and it was the sound of relief, of comfort, of love. "I've been so worried about you... you and Tae both."

Ampere stood back, trying to compose herself better as she regarded her daughter with a broken smile. My, she has grown! Ampere though, proud. "I'm glad to see you, I've missed you. Have you been," Ampere struggled for a word. "Okay" seemed cheap, and "well" wasn't much better either.

"Coping?"

They say a Mother's love is one of the strongest kinds. It is able to endure the constant and various manifests of pain that the world and its children unearth. It is there from the very beginning, until some mortal end, and even then it's never truly gone. It is the sort of love that comforts and secures, born out of familiarity, of protection and trust.

Ampere is a mother.

She hadn't realized that Grusha and Tae hadn't been together a lot of this time, as she'd assumed. She knew Grusha had left, but she hadn't thought she was lost, at least not to Tae. Just distant, untouchable by anyone but her womb sister. The brief confusion across Ampere's face helped dry her threat of tears as she shook her head and forced a stronger smile to reassure her girl. "Oh, she's fine," Ampere murmured, waiving off the concern. "She just hasn't been around as much." A pause, an exhale. "She's here though, a healer now." Not sure how much Grusha knew any more if Tae hadn't been visiting her, Ampere decided to share some to ease the conversation. She had enough heartbreak on her hooves.

Blue gaze lowered then lifted as Ampere received her answer about Grusha's state. A shrug was something at least. Ampere wasn't quite sure whether it was a better something or not than her. Either way, she nodded with understanding and acceptance, because at least she was still standing here - they were standing here. That took more strength than some knew.

"Oh baby," Ampere nearly sighed, relieved. "You can always come home." She reached forward to embrace her daughter once more, less content to let her go this time.