[mature] I sold my soul for this ~Caw~

[Hestia]

She’s had no knowledge of the old growth kept secret. Oh if she had, then she would have never went to Nerine. She may have even forgotten her children. She would have blissfully settled for a life of solitude within the grove clinging to the last bits of her adored Beqanna. At the moment she is caught in her thoughts observing its last vestiges crumble to ash beneath her tail. Its then that she hears a voice. Its dark out, and Hestia is not a night creature.

She looks around searching for a glimmer of a shape somewhere in the darkness. Hello, Her voice quiet, she doesn’t intend to startle anyone, in fact she’s a little bit sorry that she’d interrupted someone else’s sleep. She hears the chuckle and sees the white separate the blackness to give the voice a shape. Can you bring children back from the unknown? The dry snark is not intended for the white shape, but for herself as her knowledge of this impractical desire begins to wear on her hope and strength. They all know of the ‘unknown’ she speaks of, the place where ponies go when they disappear for years at a time, and sometimes come back long after they should be dead only to find that the world changed, and they have not. She’s been there, and she’s pretty sure that is where her children are at.

Maybe this is the place that sleeping beauty went too?! If she’d known there were children present, she would not have stepped so near the mare. I apologize for disrupting you. I’m Hestia. She stops once more, finally noticing the appendage that stretches out over a gaggle of foals. Though she can see they are well protected, she looks back to the mare her own motherly instinct kicking in. She studies the woman in front of her, unsure how she would react to being questioned about their home and security. Not as if the mare can’t protect her own, she can see that she can. But wouldn’t it be easier to be among a group?

The black mare refrains from prying just yet. It’s not her place, the scales glisten reflecting the moonbeams that shift between leaves and outstretched branches. A dance between dark and light, always struggling to overtake the other. Never fully succeeding. She observes the slitted pupils. It reminds her of another she’s met and has grown quite amiable towards. Then again, most of the males she encounters she finds to be worth making friends with… most… She nods out of respect to the mare. Maybe it’s unbecoming for a queen to do so, but she does not desire to elevate herself above others. This is probably the few things that she deviates from the old ways over.

HESTIA

The devil whispered in my ear, you’ll never survive the storm
I whispered back, I am the storm

@[Caw]