"Kid," came the low voice.

Looking up she saw the figure of her biological father, Rameses Vaeron, who was leading his massive horse Megladon. The beast was nosing his pocket, likely looking for an apple or oats. Personally Celandine liked the horse, although she preferred tera'k - huge musk oxen-like mounts who were favoured by fauns and other ungulates. Smiling a little she waved at Vaeron who nodded back.

"You sitting on your own?"

Celandine blinked, because it was obvious that she was. No one else was beside her on this bench. Unless there was someone invisible, but then she didn't know. Uncertainty came to her face and she looked to the side, carefully raising a hand to poke the air.

"I think so," she replied.

He chuckled softly, although he did not smile. Large scars that had once cut deep into the facial muscles on his cheeks restricted his expressions. Instead his lips twitched and the sound was a little hollow, but she knew the meaning.

"You're avoiding it all?" He asked.

Celandine huffed and looked over at his horse. "How is he?" She asked as Megladon snorted, very disappointed that his snuffling was getting nowhere.

His handler pulled out a carrot from the opposite pocket and held it out to the horse, who ate it up greedily and without hesitation.

"He's good. You aren't."

She didn't answer that. Because it was the truth. She wasn't. It wasn't that she was jealous of this new brother or sister she was going to get, it was that they would he the life she had never had. They would truly be raised, from birth, by their mother who had only seemed to see Celandine as some sort of legend. But Celandine had grown up and now didn't want to be that 'princess' that everyone saw her as. Indeed she was good at fighting, and good at all the proper things, but it wasn't them that grabbed her interest most. Instead she liked a quiet corner and she liked to knit.