another mind, another soul, another body to grow old. it's not complicated.
Otem wasn't put off much by Aurelia's disagreeing. Given the choice between being a stupid child or a poor leader, Otem would much rather be the latter. You grew out of being child, but if what you weren't was a poor leader, the autumn-touched girl very much doubted that there was much coming back from that. "If my Father was here, he would do it." Otem mumbled as Aurelia mentioned that they needed a real leader. "Or-" She was about to say or my mother, but of course Isopia couldn't lead anymore. Isopia was dead. Otem swallowed the latter portion of her sentence with a hard gulp, and coughed slightly hoping to conceal the unfinished sentence.
It was with great pride and smugness that Otem watched Aurelia recoil so dramatically from the floating orb before her, if only because those fleeting feelings of rage that the golden mare had provoked in the girl when she first arrived, were still glowing beneath her breast. Not a leader, or brave Otem thought to herself, a look of satisfaction upon her youthful features as Aurelia demanded to know what the orb was and why it needed to be anywhere near her. Patiently Otem waited until this pantomime of terror had come to end. "Because Kisamoa said that we had to. And if healing this land means that things can get back to normal and we can form herds, then so be it. I'm sick of all this hurry-up and waiting that we've been doing."
Otem blanched slightly as the golden-marked mare asked who she was. Back in Helovia, surrounded by Volterra's many other children, and in close proximity to her mother, almost everyone knew who she was. Or perhaps the girl had acquired her mother's inability to conform to social standards. Whatever it was, Otem hadn't been expecting the question and had just stared at Aurelia for a moment before being able to conjure an answer.
"I'm Otem." She answered, and then, not thinking better of it, added: "Grand daughter of the God of the Earth, from Helovia." On her wither, fully unimpressed with her bonded's bragging, hooted and fanned her wings. "Oh, and this is Pandora."
The Portal
