Since losing his family for so long, the yearling had not strayed far from them. Fear kept him rooted beside Casimir, following faithfully wherever the brothers he cared for wandered. In truth, perhaps more than anybody Kipp longed for Emerson to appear, to return. Casimir and Evers were the only two he could remain with without feeling as if he were going to explode from a tangle of emotions that wouldn't be separated for a long time. However since the tiny arachnid had crawled upon pewter pillar to sink lethal fangs into tender skin, Kipp had lost all forms of inhibition. As if a phoenix he had been born anew in this world of delusion and shifting scenery. Nothing hurt, and yet his mind was scrambled far too badly. Emotions that would have never overpowered the submission and resignation that was born into every child under Mandrake suddenly surfaced with wild abandon, seizing control and driving Kipp into a fiercer being. Anger, injustice, and refusal to bow down...all things that were never found in the sweet, mild-tempered youth before. Was it all just hidden away, kept under wraps so that even he did not know of them? Or was it purely the direct effect of the hallucinogenic?

Whatever it was, the lucid periods were slowly getting longer as it worked its way through his system, and he thanked that fact when he followed Ever's scent to the Heart. Where had Casimir gone? Last he'd seen his blind older brother, it was during a mildly lucid period on the shore of a place he couldn't remember. So instead, he stuck close to Evers and prayed Casimir would do the same, as he knew he wasn't in the right state of mind to go looking for him. Who knew when the next bout of insanity would start? So Kipp forced his steel blue legs onward, sapphire irises shifting between hazy and cold. It made him feel sick inside, to feel such emotions. Comparing himself to Archibald, telling himself in a resigned voice that lived beneath the hallucinogen's influence that this was not him. But that voice could do nothing to stop it, and so he trailed after his frailer older brother with a stoic face, appearing onto the tender scene with an air of frigidity uncharacteristic to the Earth lover.

Or, it would have been tender, had Mandrake not been the one to birth the poor child. Kipp regarded her with distant eyes, and Wilder's protectiveness only made him snort softly as he stood by Evers' side. Heat, stifling, covered the area. Why the devil of a mother would birth an innocent in an area of death like this was beyond him, but then again it was Mandrake. Did any of the other brothers feel a hatred for her like Kipp did? It hid beneath all the emotions she'd constructed within him, a lurking beast that normal-Kipp quailed under whenever it announced its presence. In that moment the blanketed appaloosa felt a surge of pity for the child, despite the obvious strength he displayed in his first moments of life. The poor wretch had been brought into a world that would wreck his soul, twist his mind. Had it not been for Emerson, Casi, and Evers, Kipp likely would have been the same as Archibald and Tajheri. The thought disgusted and intrigued him equally, for though their actions repulsed him, they also intimidated him and commanded respect that made Kipp feel awed in their presence.

Instead of speaking- unlike Evers, with all his personal boundaries removed by the devious little spider, Kipp feared what he would say should his lips even twitch- the yearling stood, a silent statue, beside his thin elder sibling. Flinty azure eyes moved slowly over Mandrake, Darwin, and Wilder. Evers' form was so much smaller than his, though height wise Kipp was only growing a little taller. Lack of nutrition, likely due to his busy mind, had left him with a thinner frame than Kipp's healthy one. Standing there beside him, and knowing of their shared wariness of Wilder, Kipp's newfound darkness through the little arachnid's meddling had protective instincts tripling in an instant. Every nerve twitched, every muscle tensed, ready for a battle only he desired to initiate. Instead he leashed in all that frantic energy, that need to drive his hooves into Mandrake's body, and tried to stay as lucid and in the present as possible. Casimir and maybe Knox were the only ones to know of his delusional state, and explaining it should Evers see it or question his sudden new behavior was not something Kipp wanted to do. So like a stone bodyguard he remained by his blue stained sibling, motionlessly watching the new spawn of the devil.