to build a mountain of a molehill - violence

[Tamora]

Her own mother wouldn’t know what to do with power if it turned belly up in front of her. Whatever it was that ran through her blue-blooded veins had either skipped a generation or been graciously bestowed (ha! If only she knew) from her mystery man of a father. Kerowyn doesn’t talk about him. Ever. When they were little, she and Marigny used to make up stories about their sire, pretending he was some gallant knight that was killed whilst defending their mother’s honor, or some devilishly handsome scallywag who broke their mother’s heart, because he couldn’t curb his wandering ways.

They are the daydreams of naive children; no more the truth than it would be to say the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.

The click-clack-click-clack of bones knocks on the edge of her concentration, an unexpected guest that rattles her concentration. The chestnut mare looks up, and while the dirt pile slows considerably, it continues to grow. A disembodied voice greets her, and then she truly does put her exercise on pause. Tamora’s  ears flicker around, trying to locate the source, though she directs her question to the creature in front of her, because she feels a tad bit silly speaking to the open air. “Bones don’t talk. Who’s out there?” The voice isn’t familiar. Marigny might have been able to raise and assemble bones, but Tamora knows her twin, she can feel when her bay sister is near. This is a stranger, not a prank.

She can’t be sure that whomever controls the skeleton isn’t a threat, so she abandons the hole completely, focusing on a nearby, decently sized rock. It floats up from the ground as she waits. The truth is that Tamora is only half-concerned about the bones’ master or mistress. If they’d wanted to attack her, they could have while she was absorbed in her hole. But it’s best to make herself seem like she could be dangerous. Just in case.