Filth stopped thrashing as an unseen force nudged it right-way-up, only turning its head to try to see what it was. Once it was righted it lifted each hoof, testing its balance, and concluded that this was probably just how gardens worked.

"There was too much sound, but I'm fine now," it called to Pride. That was true - the overwhelming sensations were fading, at least. Without elaborating it announced, "I'm going to find more penches," and made its way towards a promising tree. One ear remained turned to Pride and Vivilene, alert to the conversation, out of instinct rather than any intention to eavesdrop.

@Vivilene

"Okay!" Vivilene called out to Filth as she righted herself back up, hooves and knees scraping on the garden floor as she shoved herself upright. She peeled a mango with her hands and offered the fruit towards Pride with a tiny smile.

It hadn't been too often that Vivilene got to spend time with her grandfather, but she liked him. He was, as all grandfathers should be, old and gentle and knew lots of things about a variety of topics.

Her stone-giver, she knew much less about.

Azizos wasn't a bad father by any means, but compared to her life-giver, Attikias, she hardly saw him at all. He seemed nice, but aloof and absent-minded, sometimes. Vivilene didn't mind too much, nor did she particularly feel any kind of loss for not seeing him more often. The Elenya Clan were large as it is: with Attikias and a legion of little siblings, Vivilene rarely felt like she was missing anything.

Even so, a long, cervine ear wiggled up and down briefly at the name with concern. She had a memory, distantly, that one day he had just up and left. Vivilene never particularly minded-- if he wanted time alone, that was fine. Vivilene wanted time alone a lot, especially when her younger siblings could be so much.

But there was a pull at something deep within: a feeling that this wasn't good news. Her mouth opened and shut, lips twisting around words that didn't form. Eventually-- slowly, and softly, she asked, "Is he okay?"

@Pride

Pride watched Filth go with some amusement. Too much sound-? He didn't know what Filth meant, but-... He let the child wander off to eat, though Pride kept an eye on him. It wasn't a nervous eye, just the automatic half-watchful gaze of a parent. Or a grandparent. Or a great-... whatever.

He glanced to Vivilene, then. Her simple question was a crushing one, and he felt like he'd been kicked in the chest. It hurt, and the answer--to answer would hurt worse. But she deserved one, and he took a breath and turned to face her properly. "No," he answered, as gently as he could. "We thought he'd... gone travelling, and fallen asleep, somewhere, but-..." He shook his head. "Arsu found his stone in Polaris. We're not sure what happened." And to forestall the obvious question, so that Vivilene didn't have to ask it: "You may see a new child about. He looks... more like Mercurius. His name is Akari."

Pride's gaze had slid down (when had it done that?), the old pain threatening to return, its twinge strong enough. He raised silver eyes back to Vivilene. "I'm sorry," he said.

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

@Vivilene @Filth (sorry the vivilene tag was a brainfart)

Filth continued to explore the garden as Pride informed his granddaughter of recent circumstances. Some plants were hard to spot, but its nose did well enough to find them. The foal gathered a small pile of interesting-smelling things, fruits and berries that tickled its senses with sweetness or sour tangs, and shakily settled down to try these with a little more method than it had heretofore shown. It understood, after all, that eating was something that everyone did and that it might have to do for a long time, so one might as well learn how to do it properly.

It was halfway through these, pondering the taste of something that had looked like a smaller pench, when its teeth crunched against something that was not fruit. Out of curiosity it carefully spat the food back onto the ground and nosed at it. Something small but alive - alive in a way the fruit was not - had snuck along. It was a flat and shiny thing (later, Filth would learn the word was beetle) and it had tasted, on the whole, quite decent, though it was nothing like a plant. The foal picked up what could be salvaged from the from the fruit and resumed its meal.

Fruit, it decided, was rather nice. Berries even more so. A certain kind of hunger nibbled at its insides, however, and now awoken, it demanded attention.

Filth listened.

This time the sounds resolved into a clearer picture, each with a proper source. Its own pulse was keenest, closest, determinedly churning at its core. Other beats matched it all around; Pride's was strongest, a comfortingly steady rhythm. Vivilene's heart fluttered and danced prettily. Both of these creatures, however, were too big to eat, and the foal did remember that Vivilene had called it rude to bite people. Filth was quite certain it did not want to upset her, so it ruled them out.

Around them, though, were a thousand tiny flickers. The garden was alive with minuscule creatures flitting between flowers and fruits, doing whatever they were made to do. Filth did not need to see them now; its head whipped out, catching an insect in its mouth, silencing the impossibly fast and light heartbeats. At this point, it noticed not only the hunger, but a certain absence of something that it could not name but was certain it ought to have - some fundamental instinct of horseness that lay beyond its grasp.

There was an instinct that would have told it that this was not something horses did. That horses did not hunt, and that they were, rather, typically on the other end of such activities. This base knowledge never entered that cavity in the foal's psyche, however - and so it leapt gleefully around the garden in a burst of speed to nip at unfortunate lessers, spurred by the feeling that it was discovering something true about itself, something it was meant to do.

"I'm not hungry now," it announced eventually, trotting back to the cervines. "What's a zizos?"

@Vivilene

"Oh."

For a time, that was all she could say. It didn't matter how close or not she was to Azizos; he was still her father, and she was uncertain how to act when Pride told her the news. Her first instinct, for some reason, was to comfort Pride: to wrap her arms around him and hug him close and to refuse to let go. She settled, for now, for quietly leaning on him in a terse silence.

Even when Filth spoke and asked questions, she opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out. She could barely even bring herself to breathe. It was a horrible, sinking feeling that sat itself in her belly.

And she couldn't articulate why, but it felt wrong that his stone had been made into someone new. Maybe it was just grief: she wanted Azizos, she didn't want someone else taking his place. She wanted to be angry about that, but she couldn't find the will to be.

She fidgeted. "I..."

She wanted her dad. Both of them. She wanted to stick her face into Hunter's pelt. She wanted to sit and braid flowers with Angela. She wanted to roll around in a meadow with Annie and Adenium. She wanted to be anywhere else but here, now.

The cervitaur started pushing up, hooves scraping against the garden floor. "I have to be alone," she rasped.

exit, unless stopped
@Pride

Pride grimaced faintly. "I'll be here," he said softly, and then looked at the approaching foal. He shook his head at once, grimacing again--he'd thought he'd spoken quietly enough that Filth wouldn't have overheard. He hadn't wanted them to hear a thing. Damn it. That complicated matters.

"Stay with me for a few moments, if you wish. Would you like to see a little magic? -Has Vivilene told you about magic?" he asked, tilting his head with polite inquisitiveness.

Never mind that it felt like someone was crushing his chest beneath all that. He took a breath and slowly exhaled, forcing himself to stay friendly and calm. Not to crumble in any way.

"And may I ask about your name? I do not know if you know, but... it generally means bad things. Ugly things; it isn't a... polite name? Does that make sense?" Pride wasn't about to tell the kid they had to change their own name, but it also seemed like it'd be a very dick move not to warn them before they pranced around the caves announcing it, too.

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

@Filth (and @Vivilene for visibility)

"Where's she going? Why does she need to be alone? Why is your heart doing that? Filth asked in rapid succession, pacing circles around Pride. All the pulses around it were fading again, but there was definitely something strange about the way both cervines' rhythms had changed during their conversation. It wasn't even entirely sure what a heart was, in truth, but that felt like the right word for the source of the pulses. It felt important.

"I think my name is good," it continued while shakily settling down beside the stag. It is my name so it means me, and besides, I don't know how to be polite yet." It had a vague notion that filth was something inevitable. It was everywhere. Wherever it went, its namesake would be there first; there was something satisfying about that.

"I don't know what magic is," it said then, dropping the extraneous trains of thought as its fluttering mind caught on the new word. "I'd like to see. What is magic? Can you eat it?"

@Pride

Pride peered at Filth, then nodded. Well, it was the foal's own choice of name. If it wished to be called Filth, then that was its decision. "My heart?" he repeated back, but he didn't really register the question, or what it meant, other than finding it odd.

He was thinking, instead, on how to tactfully be honest about the other question.

"Sometimes when we receive news that makes us feel bad, or sad, we need to be alone for a little while. To think clearly and without interruption. As for magic..."

He'd been about to reach for something flashy, to demonstrate, though he nearly smiled at the question of whether it could be eaten. "Yes, sometimes." He tried, instead, to summon up a magic banana--but nothing came, so he resorted to verbal explanation, instead.

"Magic is something we are all hatched with. Some of us can move things with our minds, or make fire, or light, or gemstones out of nothing. And yes--you can grow plants for food, with some magics. Or create fruits from air. I can do that, but--magic does not always work properly. It is... fickle. Do you know what that means?" Pride finished.

He was aware, as always, that he might be offering too much information (and in too many words) to what seemed like it might be a freshly hatched child. But better to treat it like an equal (while trying to keep things just simple enough to understand) than to condescend, or worse, to dismiss their questions as "you're too young to need answers yet"--at least, that's how Pride saw things.

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

@Filth

"I think so," said Filth, who did not much contemplate what it meant to be a freshly hatched child. As far as it knew, the comfortable but monotonous stasis of the chrysalis had suddenly given way to a world full of things, some of which were edible, all of which were interesting. Pride himself was at least one of those things.

"It means it does what it wants and that isn't always the same thing you want, right? Do I have magic? Could I make things grow?" Promptly it was back to twisting its head to inspect itself for any traces of magic, if it was a thing that could be seen. "How do I know what it does?"

@Pride

"That's exactly what it means," Pride answered, his tone encouraging. And it was genuine. He was pleased that the child understood him; that he wasn't being too confusing or perhaps too vague.

"As for what magic you have, have you ever done anything unexpected, without understanding it?" he asked, thinking. "You could learn to make things grow, I think. I know a couple of others who could help you to learn that, if you like. But I do not know what magic you've hatched with." He paused, thinking.

"Some of it is difficult to describe," he went on, and then he reached for his own magic. Suddenly the white stag split in two: there seemed to be two Prides, each stepping neatly away from the other, both regarding Filth with a steady silver gaze. Only one, however, spoke. "This is part of my magic; a magic of the mind, to manipulate matter and thought. But there are many sorts of magic. I think the only way to know which yours is is to use it, and realize it is magic, you see?"

Pride spared a thought then for Vivilene. He hoped she was okay. But the best thing he felt he could do, for now, was to take Filth off her hands (and hooves) and give her a few moments' time. So... he was doing the best he could, really.

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

@Filthy