I DON'T WORRY, WORRYING DON'T AGREE
THINGS THAT BOTHER YOU, NEVER BOTHER ME!

The fact that she had discovered something the Goddess of the Forest did not know made Talya very, very proud of herself. She straightened up, holding her head high and beaming with her wide, happy smile she often wore on her pink lips. She had helped the Goddess of the Forest with this knowledge! Now, any time the Goddess of the Forest needed to leave her realm she could remember as Talya told her, stick her nose deep into a pine tree and inhale the scent of the Forest to always have with her.

Her attention was diverted by the gold mare. Again came that sudden plague, the shadow which threatened to throw inky, sticky blackness over all she worked diligently to keep shining, golden, and new. Talya swallowed, her mind steeling itself against… well… itself so she could look at the mare and tell herself over and over this was a stranger she stared at. This was a stranger she never knew and therefore her perfect, happy little world could not be troubled. How could a stranger affect her glee? They couldn’t! Therefore, this mare was a stranger!

Talya looked to the Goddess of the Forest and giggled. “I WISH!” She exclaimed. “I would love for Goddess Persephone to be my mommy!” She smiled up at the Goddess of the Forest. “That would make me…” A soft, humming noise of thought emitted from her lips. “A demi-god? Woah!” She smiled wide.

She looked back at the mare, who’d said she was Evaline, but Talya decided she must only be thought of as the stranger. “My daddy?” She worried then, suddenly, and she didn’t like the way the worry felt. She looked, point-blank, at this mare – this stranger - and she felt the pinch in her gut. She saw the dark shadows creeping thick up the ocean waves at her back. Talya shook her head firmly, attempting to physically dispel them. “My daddy is near.” Was all she said, because she couldn’t lie in front of the Goddess of the Forest, no matter how much she wanted to tell the gold mare her daddy was nowhere near.