Tumbling down

another mind, another soul, another body to grow old. it's not complicated. "I think my mother would have agreed with you." Otem uttered dryly. Was she betraying her mother by implying that she too would have wanted to settle down with Volterra if given the chance? That she disapproved of his sexually duplicitous ways? Did her comment betray just how much The Mountain had loved The Indomitable? Bitterly, the child mentally shrugged. Doesn't matter now she thought, her lips twisting in an unflattering way on her otherwise lovely face. That Erthë had likely spent more time with Isopia than Otem had was an incredibly strange thing to comprehend. Of course she knew that her Father had ... and Zero had, and Ampere and the rest of them. But this mare? Otem hadn't even seen her before, and yet there was an entire ocean of memories that Erthë had access to concerning her mother, that Otem didn't. She wanted to pout and scream about how unfair all of this was, but forced herself to refrain. It wouldn't do any good anyways. The revelation that Van was her brother (half-brother her mind instantly supplied) swamped the bitterness inside of herself and suddenly she felt silly for having tried to hit him with a flower. Otem's dual coloured eyes grew wide as she looked to the boy for confirmation, as if he would somehow be in a better position than his mother to know that this was true. "Oh." She said uselessly, eyes darting from mother to son, feeling slightly out of place despite the familial relationship that now bonded them together. "I have a twin called Vulkán. And .. like I said, lots of other brothers and sisters.." Sheepishly, she looked up at Erthë, "..I don't know all of their names. I haven't even met all of them. I just know that there's a lot." It's like he's trying to win a contest or something, Otem thought but didn't say. Having kept quiet for this entire conversation, Pandora suddenly jumped from Otem's back and flew up into the bow of a nearby tree. "Oh!" Otem said brightly, her cheeks puffing up despite the tear-marks still tracked down them. "That's Pandora. She came through...One of Father's dragons didn't I think. Or .. well he did, but then ran away. Did you have a companion? Either of you?"

_{art by Chloe!}

@Erthë