Julia - like her elder twin sisters - came after the ravages of the Plague. They had been born in the time after and so the only sickness that Julia knows is this: her mother is often tired. The sun doesn't stay out long enough, she thinks. Maybe if it came out earlier and stayed out longer, her mother might bloom like she had seen the hibiscus and bromeliads do (though she is too young to understand that those lovely plants only do it once).
Tephra, already humid, needs a special kind of warmth. The little girl presses her shoulder and then her side along the pale legs of her dam. She's still little but Julia hopes it enough; maybe it works because her mother shares a secret and the buckskin filly brightens in reply, "He didn't!" She exclaims with a playful toss of her head as her mother pulls away and takes one high step towards her leopard-marked dam. Warlight moves back and Julia turns her attention towards her father, beaming up at him. She adores the hours spent with him and the time they spent together lights up her young face.
Basking in the familial glow and love of her parents, Julia giggles. "Not today," she trills and the corners of her golden lips uplift in a smile. "I told Papa he'd look like a drizzly bear." @[Raul] had explained the flora and fauna of Tephra several times, seemingly never exasperated with her myriad of never-ending questions that will turn into a well on knowledge given time. The girl alludes to the creatures - massive, hairy brown beasts who prefer the Northern cold to Tephra's fire - that are more typically found in the Common lands or the kingdom above them.
It's a funny picture, thinking of a grizzly bear with its thick coat drenched in water. The image is nothing like the mare she had tucked herself into; sleek (too thin) and slender and lovely.
Still smiling, she turns her head around to glance at her mother again. There is a shadow on Warlight's face but it's gone before Julia can catch it, like their feathered friend. Her mother's ailment has already taken flight before Julia can catch it by its dark wings.
She was leaving? Was she taking La and Loey with her? How long would she be gone? Julia follows where the deep blues above her go and it's to her father. It's also where the buckskin filly looks for assurance. For some kind of explanation like he so often gives (like that the pitcher plants are good for preventing scars or that the kapok tree helps with swollen joints). She doesn't understand this but she can do what @[Warlight] asks of her.
The buckskin filly is still watching her sire - waiting for his reply - when she answers: "I can do that, Mama. Maybe I can find you a blue one too? And maybe Papa will help me find a yellow one so you both can have the sun in your mane."