As Khloros listened to Nemesis speak, he found his mind--as it had during her story--drifting along to consider her words.

Where are our parents...?

He peered back at her, tilting his equine head quizzically.

He cast his mind back to the moment of his own birth. He couldn't remember the words, now, but he did remember whispering, murmurs of a purpose, and of his name. Sharply, he looked to Nemesis, mind working.

"...Do you remember anything about when you were born? Aside from... setting yourself on fire, I mean? ...How did you get your name?"

It might have seemed a random question, or at best a bizarre leap of logic, but he asked the question with sudden intensity. If she'd heard things, as he had, maybe it was a clue as to their births?

Even more, maybe it was a hint to their purposes, their origins, and their eventual fates. He thought this in simpler terms--in a sort of vague idea of "maybe it will tell us about us, but it was still intense, his curiosity burning with sickly heat as he peered at his new friend. His new family.


________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Khloros shifted from front hoof to front hoof slowly, regarding Nemesis with the same empty gaze he always held. But now it was actually empty; his mind, for a moment, was blank.

Her name wasn't fire, and she'd not actually answered him in the slightest--... Or had she?

Khloros considered, eyes narrowing slightly in thought. His memory tickled at the back of his own brain, unclear, but... lurking.

"I think I remember something like that when I was born. I think it was something about me being--not just me. Something else. I don't know. But you were--fire? How did you get the name Nemesis?"

He paused, peering at her for a moment, then added, "It's just... You said you wonder where our mothers are. I do too. Were we all born the same way? Did we all think of names right away?"

The young horse shifted from foot to foot again, but this time deep in thought. Maybe if he and Nemesis had a similar experience, others had, too? She was born thinking she was fire, and he was--... What was he?

He was a carrier of Death, he thought. If he wasn't misremembering. He wasn't sure what that meant, aside from maybe that his friends, his bacteria, might be deadly, but what about others? Was Booker born with the idea that he was a mushroom?

Khloros squinted and shook the thought aside with a toss of his mane, shifting his focus back to Nemesis and her Fire.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Khloros half-closed his eyes in a sort of gentle smile. She was sort of adorable, this gentle giant, clumsy with her words but obviously big in her heart.

He shook his mane a bit. She didn't seem all that interested in theories and histories, but rather slightly stumbling over her own words, babbling almost... shyly? About her past. It was endearing, and for a moment, Khloros felt the slightest bit protective of his new big sister.

"So... You are fire? Can you--make, fire? You can still set yourself on fire? What can you do with it? Is it like... friends? I mean, for Booker and me, we have... friends, tiny ones--lots of them--inside us. Is that what fire is like for you?"

He peered at Nemesis, her tale of her name still swimming in the back of his mind, her enthusiasm at her magic taking over his thoughts and washing away all questions about their origins. Instead, he wanted to know, now, how Fire used her, well, fire.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Khloros leaned closer, ears pricking up, to sniff toward the flames. The air was immediately warmer even a couple of feet away and quickly Khloros pulled back, sneezing.

He blinked at Nemesis, listening closely. Not like many small friends? Yet the way she described it, the overarching something, felt almost right. Almost. Not quite, though. He struggled to put it into thoughts, but then decided to try to translate the concept directly into words, instead.

"I... think I know what you mean. With my friends it's kind of like that, too--one big idea, one... goal, one feeling. Only it's made up of a thousand thousand tiny ones. Like they all decide, together." The idea felt foreign, difficult to put to words, after all. His friends wanted to live, to see, to spread where needed, but he felt that there was some deeper goal that kept them lurking within him until the time, or times, came.

Had the foal known what cells were, known that the entirety of any body was made up much the same--of millions of tiny "friends" that decided something all together, decided to be called Khloros, or Nemesis, and to live and lurk and spread--then he might have been able to better form the thought. But as it was, he only fidgeted, a little, at his own inability to word it properly.

"Nemesis? Does... everyone have friends, or... or Fire? Does everyone have magic?"

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Khloros didn't want Nemesis to feel stupid. He wasn't sure if her leg truly itched, or if she was embarrassed, looking away to avoid eye contact while admitting that she didn't know something. He nickered softly as he considered her words, before speaking.

"I don't know, either. I bet nobody does... I bet there's a lot of stuff nobody knows."

Khloros paused, hesitating.

"Is there... someplace safe to sleep, here?" he asked, a little forlorn all of a sudden at the memory of just how alone he was. "I made sure Louie made it here, but--... He left, again, and he kinda forgot me, I think. Is there somewhere else I can stay?" He tried to keep the hopeful tone from his voice. It would be rude, after all, to impose on Nemesis, and maybe she didn't really have any place for him to sleep.

"I can just sleep anywhere, I mean, if not," he added hastily.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD