Tornados from a butterfly's wing
She could feel Pain knifing through him with every step. Like forks of crimson lightning, so bright it made her vaguely nauseous. He was injured, and walking was only making it worse, even if he wouldn't say so aloud. There was no way to see it though. No way to assess damages or find a bloody healer. They were paying for their trip to the mountain in spades already, and they had only just descended it.
Ama wanted her children tucked safe by her side more than anything else in the world. Until she and Yan staggered to a halt, that had been her only driving force. Otherwise, they may as well have found some sheltered grove to wait things out in. To rest Yan's wounded limb and to give both of their mountain-weary bodies a chance to revive. She couldn't rest though. Not with her son and daughter somewhere out there, caught in the dark.
Another stab of Pain struck her, and Ama winced at the sensation. At the very least, pausing gave her a moment to think somewhat more clearly. "Oh, Yan," she murmured, wishing she could do something more to help him. All she could do was place a thin layer of Indifference between him and the jagged Misery he was stuck with. She couldn't remove the pain, or its source. Only how he felt about it.
"It's temporary," she warned, knowing she couldn't keep it up forever. Not even close. But hopefully long enough that they could get a plan in place, and start doing something about it.
She nodded when he asked about the playground, then stopped when she realized he wouldn't be able to see it. "Yes, pretty sure." It might be a challenge to find her way in the dark now, though. Heart sinking, her mind began to tally how very many things the dark was going to make difficult. She stared at the vague glow of Yanhua's chest, tried to ground herself in the knowledge that everything still existed, even if she couldn't see it.
His next question was enough to shake her from her existential dread, and into something much more tangibly unpleasant. Blood rushed to her face as the awkward subject of the useless, humongous sails on her back was brought up. "I, er, have never actually used them." She admitted, very quietly.
Big, gaudy flaps of chitin, and she had never screwed up enough courage to actually use them. There was no way they'd work like nice, normal pegasus wings, oh no. She'd watched butterflies. Those things couldn't fly in a straight line, she didn't know how they landed or took off and she was terrified to find out. So she'd been endowed with paper thin decorations, and they didn't even glow.
Ama swallowed hard. "I'm sorry." She paused, emotion getting the better of her for a moment. She had no light, couldn't heal, couldn't fly. In that moment, she felt like the least useful horse to ever exist. They couldn't stop, though. It had already been too long. "We have to keep moving, we have to-" she stopped, a thought niggling in the back of her mind. Trees. They kept running into trees. Trees meant a forest.
"We went the wrong way, coming off the mountain." She realized, blinking into the dark. The path, there was only one going up the mountain, must have split at the base. And they'd been so tired and disoriented...
...Amarine
@[Yanhua]