Sneaking away from the Mountain That Knows is no mean feat - the clue is in her name. There's a pull in the colt's body that drives him to want to wander away and explore his home for himself, but getting out from his dam's watchful stare is an unenviable task. It's only when he realises that his sister isn't there that he thinks there's an open window of opportunity, and with a furtive glance at his massive mother, he seizes it.

Stealthy, stealthy, stealth goes the volcano boy, his wings tucked to his sides and his strides long to try and get away from Isopia before she turns around. With the wide open expanse of the Throat now seemingly at his mercy, Vulkán isn't sure what to do first - he settles for following Otem's scent, hunting for her simple familiarity. He soon comes across her alongside two other fillies, and he tilts his quad-horned head with interest at the sight in front of him. Eggs, a defensive mother-owl, and a snake hunting for its dinner.

One of the fillies is winged, and points out that the snakes will eat the eggs without help. The burnt-coated colt frowns. "It's nature," he states matter-of-factly. Despite being only a handful of days old, the colt already grasps the general meaning of life - that, as a herbivore and a prey animal, he's vulnerable to being eaten by predators, but that he shouldn't hold it against them as they're only trying to survive. He immediately compares himself and Otem to the eggs, wondering if his mother would protect her children so savagely. She would, he's sure of that, because regardless of the circle of life and the dance of predator and prey, it's also a mother's primal instinct to do anything for her offspring. These eggs are not he or Otem's offspring, though, and the snake has as much right to eat them as they have to eat the grass beneath their hooves.

He looks over to Otem. Surely she will agree that it's best to leave the snakes to their feast? "We should leave them alone." He glances at the eggs again - there's no empathy in his gaze, merely a dispassionate admiration for the mother-bird's valiant attempt to save them.

Shouldn't they be given a chance? The colt turns his quad-horned head, looking at the filly with an impassive, emotionless gaze. "If the snakes do not eat these eggs, they will find another nest and eat those eggs instead. They must eat, the same as us; it is not our duty to play God and decide that these eggs are entitled to life whilst condemning a different nest to death." The lava-boy's voice is deep for his age, yet seems utterly devoid of any inflection or differing pitch. It's monotone, and as emotionless as his expression.

When Otem addresses him, though, the colt seems to visibly deflate. He looks at her, and the first fleck of emotion shows in his features - surprise. Why is she disagreeing with him? She doesn't normally disagree with him. Mother taught them all about this, and Otem, like her brother, always seemed to instinctively understand the cruelty and simple barbarity of nature. It is just...life. Life is unpleasant, and often short and painful, this much Vulkán knows. That is why he values order and routine so highly; it's his only way of exerting some form of control upon the intangible, unpredictable mess of life.

"But..." Alas, the boy has taken too long in his reply, and Otem is gone. A confused, sorrowful bleat emits from his mouth, and his right shoulder begins to bubble ominously. "Wrong," he mutters, panic beginning to rise at this quite unexpected event. He does not like unexpected events, and Otem disagreeing with him is enough to knock his delicately-balanced sense of order into the roiling depths of chaos.

The volcano-boy stands where he is, quivering slightly, staring at the fillies as they charge the snakes. As they interfere with nature.