The breeze blew through and toyed with what few loose hair had escaped from the braid, picking them up and trying to carry them away. Theá's eyes had closed, her ears splayed backwards as she tried to shut out the shouts from Sweeper. She was offended, she was angry, but why? 

[i]Sweeper said I was weak, that I could have done better than what I already did.[/i] 

[i]She only said what she thought; she misunderstood us. Listen to her; she's apologising, crying even.[/i]

[i]Destroying the town wasn't enough for her? A few charred remains is too much to be left after utterly obliterating several square kilometres of terrain.[/i]

[i]She is Silver Sweeper, remember? Of all of our siblings, she is the one most likely to say something she doesn't mean, or say something with a meaning entirely different to what we hear! She misunderstood our question, we misunderstood her. She realised her fault when she saw how we were slighted. When a god begs you of something, you do not decline, not even when you are a god yourself.[/i] 

Theá sighed and let her ears stand up again, having once again lost an argument with herself. She opened her eyes and let her gaze fall from the sky to the horizon. She shook her head. "Do not demean thyself, Sister. While you may not have my destructive powers, you are no less powerful or skilled than I. As for your question, I am all right. It took a lot out of me to regenerate a wing; it will take me but a day to fully recuperate." 

While Theá spoke to Sweeper, Winterjet kept her attention on Bright Scroll. "Weirder things than a pegasus with the maw of a wolf? Huh... That's... mildly disturbing, actually." Her eyebrows knitted together as she tried, and failed, not to image what it was like to spend all day in a place where things so weird happened. At the same time she flexed her leg and the ice covering it shattered, removing the reflective surface before she set her hoof back down on the ground. 

"You sound like you admire her a great deal, Scrolls," Winterjet continued after a short while. "More so than what one would expect of normal followers." She tilted her head to the side, a few tresses of grey hair falling in front of her eyes. "I mean, either there are the ones that follow them because they're divine but act, well, 'normal'," she spread out her wings, making air quotes with two of the primary feathers. "And then there are the fanatics that grovel and do everything, even the smallest and most ridiculous request, that the alicorn asks for... You seem like neither to me; you're more like a long-time friend, someone who genuinely cares for her."

Theá felt a presence. It was old, and well known. Had she not still been fighting with herself and trying to let her hurt feelings subside, she would have smiled. As it was, she simply spoke up without looking to where she knew he was. "You may be right, Arcon, but you know as well as I do that Mother is never far off. Should she so desire she could be here at this very instant, then give the both of us a spanking for being naughty." 

Winterjet snorted, trying not to laugh at the bad, yet still funny, joke... though she had a feeling that Theá was completely serious. 

Said alicorn turned around and first looked at Sweeper, noting the teary eyes and how Bright Scrolls was doing his best to soothe her. Her eyes became notably softer at that sight, and with another brief battle in the silence of her own mind, did what she knew was right. "Do not apologise, as it is I who should do so. I lost my temper as I am prone to do." Another sigh, one of many that day, escaped her, and then turned to Arcon, giving him a respectful nod. 

"And it's also good to see you, Brother. As to your question, it was a infested with the Cult, not a living—well, living and sane—pony was there. I fought them for a time until I stopped to let my wounds heal. One Smiling Doll made it through my barrier with the help of a hoofful of unicorns and my wing had been cut clean off. The result of that is what you see before you."