There had been an attack against Mother.

That she had heard it so late was only a symptom of her isolation. After the Hive fell, she had stayed with the Bonebound for a time; but had moved on to greener pastures soon enough. It was difficult to make friends with any of the group's other members, what with her perpetual silence—and although it was certainly possible, she had never really been in the mood to make friends, after Mother.

It was easy to imagine Her creeping tendrils slipping into the minds of others, stealing away any she tried to get close to, as if punishing her for leaving her one and only family. As if it was her choice to leave; although in retrospect, having the fungus ripped from her was perhaps the best thing that could have happened.

She's unsure what would have happened to her, had she stayed. She would be a happier fox, sure, but... still living a lie. She finds in retrospect that she much prefers the harsh truth to blissful falsehoods. Sharper, but healthier, in the long run.

It's easy to miss that effortless camaderie with her hivemates, even so, but she tries not to dwell on it. And thus finds herself avoiding the closeness of any other friendship, and usually eschewing the mere presence of most other Gembound in general.

Until she had heard about the raid.

And then it was time to put down her cozy life and start searching for answers, because as much as she preferred her solitude she could not—would not stand Mother's reaching presence and she had gone too long just sitting on her haunches without any sort of action.

Also, she abhorred the lack of information. That more than anything was what got her searching; asking a few Gembound around the place, tracing the thread back to its source, finding any Gembound that was alive and willing to tell her about the raid. Information was an easy thing in the Hive; enmeshed in a web of it, tangled in the searching eyes of Lessers and the easy trade of knowledge between hivemates, lines between individuals blurring.

It is not so easy, now that she is alone, but she undertakes the quest to collect it anyway.

It is only when she's approaching the curtain of leaves separating the inside of the neat little stone house out in the plains from the outside that it occurs to her Mother may have gotten to this one first. Too late to do anything about it now, although she does reach blindly for her magic to summon a wisp. Useless at best—she's still not gotten the hang of whatever trick caused that wisp to explode against her face so long ago—but at least the comfort of another presence at her side will be nice.

The blue flame springs easily from thin air, and with the comfort of the gentle, heatless thing floating above her head, she raps a paw against the stone.

@James

The house was vacant, had been for a while. Strangely, though, there was no dust. While this place had no one living in it, it wasn't abandoned, not entirely.

And judging by the bag filled with fresh fruit lying next to the doorway, whoever lived within was still around.

James watched the fox from afar, her form familiar. He didn't, however, remember the person he'd met having had a gemstone collar like this person had. A stranger, then. Someone he didn't know, someone who was knocking on his old home with clear intent.

"I'm afraid that there is no one home," he announced, standing tall and silent, his long mane flowing in the breeze, his tail braided so that it wouldn't drag on the ground. He hadn't quite gotten the courage to cut it yet, he rather liked how it streamed behind him whist in flight.

The stallion was big, though he was lithe, too, with lean muscle showing the endurance of a runner. His chest feathers were puffed out, giving the illusion of greater size, with his two crests along the back of his ears flicked upwards and towards Daughter, his attention set on her.

What was the most amazing, however, were his wings. Massive and grand with barred bay feathers on top and sunset beneath, so vibrant that if you looked for too long you might be tricked into thinking they were pulled from the sky itself. They were at rest now, held at his sides as he stood tall and proud, his fur short and neat and nearly black, shining brown underneath the lights above, broken up by three white socks and a star beneath the gem resting on his forehead.

"If you are looking for it's inhabitants, I'll need a reason as to why before I grant that information," he said, his tail sweeping behind him lazily, "What's your name?"

@Daughter