[open] hearts overgrown;

[agathe]

Agathe

She had been born into the darkness, was comfortable in it.
Reveled in it, even: the darkness made it easier to hide and then, naturally, pop out noisily, scaring her twin brother or Mama Roz or any random passersby. (She hadn’t, as of yet, been able to scare Mama Fi.) Pax and Agathe were mischievous children, playing tricks on anyone they could, disguising their voice to pretend to be each other. The seriousness of which the Loess inhabitants took themselves only encouraged them further.

Today, however, it’s a little too cold for Aggie to be playing any tricks. Her first winter had been less than enjoyable so far, her fluffy coat no match for the freezing Loessian winters. There’s a fresh layer of snow at the bottom of the small canyon where she likes to roam, and she picks up each leg gingerly as she walks through it, looking for someone she recognizes to use as a shield from the cold and wind.

She can see a U-shaped rock structure up ahead and she picks up the pace to reach it. An even better shield than a body. This would be perfect to hide and scare someone, she thinks with a smirk and a mental note for the future, though for now she just stands, grumpy and shivering, vowing to stay here until winter ends.

FOUND HEAVEN IN YOU,
PROMISE TO BE PURE AND TRUE

[Fiorina]

F I O R I N A

The quiet of the winter day had gone on for long enough that Fiorina was starting to get suspicious. Where were those twins? The older ones (and the ones she had thought to warn Oceane about) were not usually causing as much trouble as the spotted pair. Relatively harmless trouble, sure, but Fiorina had become so used to smiling at their shouts and games that the silence that she had spent most of today in felt… wrong.

It is not hard to find their scent, though Fiorina hasn’t let on exactly how easy they are to track just yet. She wants them to have freedom, to wander and explore, but she privately feels better if she knows exactly where they are and knows that they are safe.

Perhaps, she ponders as she follows Agathe’s trail, this protectiveness will fade when the sun returns.

They are just so small and so… soft. She had been absent and blind for when Drear had been a foal and hadn’t had the chance to discover whether she was overprotective - and the rest of her brood had been born lethal.

Her black eyes spot the filly huddling a rock structure before the orange glow of her fire illuminates Agathe upon approach. Fiorina is gentle with the twins, wary of her own hard edges and unwilling to risk hurting them, but it is no effort at all to join her youngest daughter and add her body to the structure protecting Agathe from the cold. Her dark muzzle bumps against the filly with spots that remind Fiorina of the stars that have gone missing. “Waiting to ambush your next target, little sky?”

@[agathe]