[open] She's mad but she's magic [All Welcome!]

[avocet]

His shadowed brow furrows by the firelight.

Avocet is looking at Popinjay and he knows he should feel hatred. He thinks of all the anger that he has lugged across Beqanna in a personal vendetta towards the shifter. The bay adolescent has always thought that should he stumble across his mother again, he would kill her. He thought all the rage and ire that has built up in his lean chest over the (short) years like thunderstorms would allow him to strike her down. Avocet had been born trait-less but he thought the power of those emotions would lend him the power of some god or another; he wouldn't be Avocet the abandoned son but the avenging one.

So why for all his planning and plotting does he look at his mother and feel confused? It's like all his ideas (and memories) grow suddenly hazy, surrounded by the smoke that billows from his dam's bonfire. His ears prick and then fall back into the darkness that is the wild tangle of his mane. "Are you?" he asks bluntly. Avocet considers showing his mother the fine edge of his teeth to accompany the sharp point of his words but refrains. (But why?) He considers her giving the greetings that she once gave him, the ones that he thinks he remembers.

He is stiff in her embrace; as stone-like as the granite that her new kingdom is known for.

When she pulls away (and he thinks his restraint is a gift she doesn't deserve), he clenches his jaw before asking: "What are you doing here?" Because some part of him wants to ask: Why not the Pampas?

Huglava remains on his back but he croaks again, curious about the flame-bringer. She brings the gift of warmth and banishes the shadows and his young companion finds fault with this her? He croaks again, with approval. She is a companion fit for the Great Croaker, he admonishes his charge. We should bring her to His resting mound. Avocet pins his ears again and glances back, speaking aloud to the frog. "We are not bringing her back to Tephra."

@[Popinjay]