[private] baby, please don't go; scorch

[Scorch]

WATCH THE FLAMES CLIMB HIGH INTO THE NIGHT

Can you?

Scorch turns her head in the direction of the tiny voice, nearly lost in the chaos of the storm that has only just begun. Her eyes flicker all across the area from whence the boyish voice came, but still, no heat signatures are recognized - everything, everything is hiding from this storm, except herself and the damned idiot of a child that still remains elusive, even to her keen gaze.

"Gods fucking damnit!"

It's not every day that a storm-demonchild materializes at the tip of your nose. At least, not in Scorch's experience. She'd already been on edge considering that her heart aches for the child she knows is lost out her, and then he goes and lights each of those very flammable nerves on fire. Her heart is slamming. It is a moment before the mare realizes that, if she doesn't act quickly, this foal will get hypothermia and die.

"Of course I can see you child, what kind of question - never mind." The boy is busy blabbering on about something, about a mother (a daughter, if she would slow down enough to listen), but Scorch concentrates her powers elsewhere. Her powers are weak in such terrible darkness, and she must sacrifice her own protection to lend him some - she cloaks the boy in tangible light, leaving herself with a flickering barrier that fails more often than not, but which will have to do the trick.

"Never mind that, boy, stay close to me and don't wander off. I'm taking you to shelter." She bares her head against the storm, gritting her teeth as the wind knocks her a pace to the left. "Then we can talk about anything you damn well please."

She grumbles under her breath about good-for-nothing kids for the rest of the way back.

--

Her hairless body is glistening by the time they reach the cave, but the moisture won't stay long with nothing to cling to. The boy, on the other hand, is dry and safe, a miracle - and Scorch's sour mood has lifted in light of a new soul to place her mark upon. Her loving mark, of course.

Philomena is immediately aware of their presence and leaps up from where she had laid in a pile of gangly legs, but Scorch ignores her for the moment, turning instead to the familiarly-coloured little colt. "I am Scorch, and I may as well be your mother now. But tell me, do you remember your mother's name? Perhaps we can find her."

She looks to her daughter then. "This is Philomena." Stepping forward, Scorch begins grooming the tiny fellow, an odd size for the season - most children were almost yearlings at this time, but the boy looked barely born. Her lips work methodically down his neck and across his bony spine, ears perked to catch all that he has to say.

Scorch

Once Khaleesi of the Amazon Jungle

@[Philomena] jump in either now or after Venge's next post.