-Oh my love, don't forsake me; Take what the water gave me-

Inherently, she feels connected to Amet. His role in her life reminds her too much of Ruan for there to be any semblance of negativity between them. Mutually, they’d only bettered each other’s situations and for the sake of her sanity (which seems to be slipping since her recent visit to Loess) Circinae is more than overjoyed as the wave of his distinct voice crashes over her newfound home.

“Is that?” Her daughter, Nyxa, starts. “Amet” Circinae finishes, rising from a languid rest to shake her wolf pelt free of debris. The mother is content to be at ease with her youngest again, now that Nyxa has found it within herself to wander home. Their initial greeting had not been so heartfelt (The sting of placing duty above love is still raw,) but Circy had come to see a shift in her little girl. Nyxa was not so little any longer and soon enough, she’d be more a woman than was necessary. “Paws or hooves?” The green pony asks her offspring, never pausing to question if the girl will tag along or not.

They are pack now, much like she and Crevan had been. “Paws, if you please.” Nyxa chirrups, stretching into a stand with a little shiver of excitement. “I just got a handle on them, after all.” She prompts, rousing a proud sort of smile to her mother’s otherwise blank expression. Nyxa had found her skin and like her ancestors before her, was reveling in the feel of it. With a stark white underbelly that stretched from chin to tail and a rich, fiery red sable coat to color her topline, Nyxa had followed suit and kept her mother’s pattern, all but the color. Even as kin they look related.

Both dart nimbly from their resting place to make quick work of the small island. An odd sight, maybe -two wolves slipping free from the dense jungle to scatter birds and trot down the white sand beaches to where Amet and his guest wait. Odd, but nothing Hyaline’s King isn’t used to. The duo halt at an appropriate distance and Circinae decides to switch bodies, if only for the sake of Solace and first appearances. Nyxa, content with herself and understanding that she was but an additive to this party, sits with newfound patience and wags a happy tail for the scaled stallion’s benefit. “I’m so sorry that I haven’t tried to contact you sooner, Amet.” Circy says, once her transformation is completed. “It seems like time is running away from me these days.”

With a breathless sigh she turns animated eyes between the pair - her familiar gold and bronze monarch and the lovely, brightly-colored mare - and for the briefest of seconds, confusion muddies her expression. Her nose twitches; Circinae shifts and replaces the slip with a warm smile and a quick nod in Solace’s direction. “My name is Circinae and this is my daughter, Nyxa. Welcome to Ischia.”

Turning aside, she carves long indentations into the soft sand with her hooves before moving ahead into a slow walk. No sense in speaking out in the open, especially when there was plenty more to see. “Should we get down to brass tax?” She asks, trying to stifle the curiosity simmering beneath her pleasant exterior.

Circinae

-Oh my love, don't forsake me; Take what the water gave me-

This group melds well and even though Circinae can’t discern at first where the conversation is headed, all beginnings of it are crafted with respect and mutual affection. Circinae’s immediate impression of Solace is one of admiration; the girl can hold an eye and still look pretty doing it. “Good,” the pony mare thinks with a soft nod in the lady’s direction, “that’s half the battle won already.” She thinks as she walks. Half would be charmed into loyalty with Solace, the other half jealous of that steady beauty.

“Hi, Nyxa.” Solace calls out, rousing the attention of the smaller wolf and turning away the attention of the elder. Happy to be brought into the loop, Nyxa weaves through her mother’s feet with daring bravado to slink alongside the cream-and-blue diplomat. “I don’t remember you from Hyaline.” The girl clips with a tilted head. Her mother across the way jerks an ear, and then a sharp eye, in her daughter’s direction but her wily offspring ignores the glance. “Have you always lived there?” Nyxa asks.

With a weary sigh Circinae turns back to Amet, the words, “Then I suppose you know that my answer is a resounding yes.” spilling free without losing a step to her beat. “Oh?” She pauses at the next matter, her insatiable drive to discover the strange something she felt emanating from his person rousing at the mention of a secret. With the slide of her gaze to Nyxa, she turns those questioning eyes back to Amet with the wordless thought, “Should I send her away?”

“Let’s head inland then, where prying eyes and ears might not hear.” The Keeper says aloud, clipping into a brief trot to take the lead. A worn trail gapes open ahead of them, one path among the hundreds that Ischian inhabitants alone had worn into the soil. As they slip beneath the humid cover, Circinae lags until she can feel the haunting brush of stone-hard scales against her shoulder again. “My attention is yours, Amet; Solace.” She speaks, head drifting between them as their names slip through her teeth.

For a second, she feels nervous.

Circinae