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It was a nice enough day, as far as late spring days were concerned, late enough in the season that the temperature wasn't cool any longer unless a playful breeze decided to lick by, with enough moody clouds in the sky that soft rain sprinkled down on occasion. The sun winked in and out between the clouds, kept further at bay by branches beginning to grow heavy with leaves.

All in all, Greed couldn't complain, except for the terrible luck she was having finding something to eat that wouldn't turn her stomach.

Fish was enjoying a fine day's breezes in her eagle shape when she felt the call of a new parent. Someone needed her! As she was in mid-dive at the time, the new parent would be getting a two for one deal that day: Fish and a fish. It was a long, silvery, slippery thing she gripped in her talons, and as she flew over the marshland, the mother-to-be was easy enough to spot. She spiralled down and dropped the fish before she landed, right in front of the doe. Perching in a nearby tree, she peeped triumphantly and gazed down at the doe with glowing eagle eyes. Eat up! her gaze conveyed.

Greed was walking away from a disgraceful display of raw, uneaten egg-- she'd felled the nest to get her prize, and not even managed the shells before her stomach had turned. She stopped suddenly, leaning back as an eagle swooped down towards her, dropping a large, slimy fish before wheeling to perch in a tree.

The fish flopped a little. Her gorge rose. She looked at the eagle with a disgusted expression, backing away a little as it peeped at her.

"I'm not tossing that up there," she informed it, revulsion clear on her face.

Fish peeped again, then hopped down from the tree and regained her Totoma shape, flowing out of the eagle's back like water. "I didn't mean for you to toss it back up; it's for you. You look hungry, and you'll need all your strength in the coming days." She smiled gently. The doe was clearly ravenous; there was raw egg clinging to her muzzle. "Eggs are good. Do you have anyone around who can help you get more of them?"

The eagle peeped again, then hopped down... and turned into a kin.

UGH. She would have preferred it stay an eagle. Greed stared at the busybody mare, looking down at the fish, then swiped her muzzle against a shoulder. "What's it to you?" she asked warily, "and what if I don't eat fish?"

She was momentarily taken aback. "Well, if you don't eat fish, then you don't have to eat it. But you're pregnant, and when a doe's pregnant, she's hungry and she needs flesh. Animal, fish, even eggs- all of that- she needs it to sustain her."

As for what it was to her? That took a second. She was a mare. It was what she did. "And it's not so much anything to me, but it's what the Motherfather wants. I get the glowing eyes and the shapeshifting, and then I go around channeling the Swamp's goodwill for parents-to-be. You've never heard of birth blessings?"

Greed huffed. "My mother was perfectly capable of having me without a blessing," she reproached. Stubbornness was, after all, one of her greater virtues.

"I'm sure she was, and it's not to imply that you're not capable. But it just makes things easier. And safer. The birthing process, for Kimeti at least, is usually pretty easy... unless the father was a Totoma and lambs are involved. But pregnancy itself? Brutal. The sacs leach nutrients from your body and you're always tired. Bringing new life into the world takes life out of you. A blessing could make that easier. If you don't want the fish, will you at least take a blessing?" Normally new parents wanted the Swamp's help. This doe confused Fish.

Greed sighed. This busybody was clearly struggling to understand that she wasn't wanted here. Her mate would be lapping this up, later, when she told him this story... unless he had a fit about it.

She really hoped he wouldn't have a fit about it. He was a handsome enough thing, it would be a shame if he ruined their fling by getting preachy.

Still. If this doe was inclined to hawk her supposed power, the doe wasn't going to indulge her. "Unless your blessing can help me find perfectly ripe berries, I really don't care."

"I... hm. I mean, I don't think a blessing can do that. But I certainly can. I mean me, personally, not the whole agent of the Motherfather thing. I know the earth's cycles better than I know my own self." Fish had to think about this. This doe wasn't a typical new parent, but that didn't mean she wasn't deserving of help. After all, Fish didn't just help new parents because the Swamp told her to. She did it because she cared about them, and because she wanted all children to have the best chance in life possible. You didn't have to be grateful or fawning or anything to get a blessing from her. If this doe truly didn't seem to want one, then she'd just quietly bless the kids and call it a day.

But in the meantime, the doe needed help. If it was berries she wanted, it would be berries she would have. "It's still early days, so things like blackberries and blueberries won't be ready for a while. Cloudberries and salmonberries are ripening, and if you go a bit further south and stay near the water and in valleys where the soil's a little damper, you'll find that there's plenty ready to go. Honeyberry grows higher up and will be in fruit anywhere it can get full sun... and strawberries. Those can be a little trickier to find, unless you know someone who cultivates them, since they send out runners rather than stick around on a single bush. But... lemme think, it's about... oh, an hours' walk from here, due east, there's a glade that's just full of them. Are you partial to any of those?"

Oh, this was just perfect. There was nothing Greed loved as much as having someone eager to please her, except maybe finding something that nobody else knew about and having it all to herself. The mare before her was clearly an expert in where to find the best forage... but an hour's walk? That would involve several hours back to the tar pits. Still, perhaps a several-hour walk back was preferable to her mate's family finding her in the company of a blessed mare.

When confronted with a glut of choices, there was one clear winner in the group. "Hmm. They'll all do-- so take me wherever you expect we'd find the most to eat, or the most variety if you expect similar bounties," she decided.

She could work with this. "Right, my girl- to the cloudberry banks we go! It's a much quicker walk than the strawberry glade. Most kin don't prize them as much as strawberries, but there's so many more of them, and more variety besides. You'll get both types, the cloudberries and the salmonberries, and then there's early asparagus poking its heads up nearby... and fresh fern fronds, too. I know a spot not far from here. It's a bit tricky to get to, but I'll help you down, and you'll likely have the place to yourself."

The silver fish lay abandoned, but it wouldn't stay that way. Fish abhorred the concept of wasted food or wasted lives. She gently picked it up, taking it with them for later. The doe might end up wanting it.

"We don't have to talk on the way there, unless you want to, but we could at least exchange names. I'm Real Big Fish. Most kin just call me Fish, though. How should I call you?"

The mare was still boisterous, even with a fish in her mouth. She sighed, following along behind the other doe.

It was a long pause before she spoke. "Greed. The Motherfather saw fit to name me Greed."

She nodded, resisting the urge to defend the other's name or offer a reasoning for it. "There's even Totoma now who hear them before birth. I wasn't one of them- I earned my name, back in the mountains. It's straightforward, the Totoma way of doing things. The way I've seen it explained, dream names aren't necessarily about who you are or what you're like or what you'll do– they're images, pictures that might not mean anything. More complicated, more room for interpretation. Honestly, I'm glad I got my name the Totoma way. I caught a real big fish, and I still catch real big fish. That's who I am and what I do. It makes sense to me. And- not to change the subject, but watch out for the low branches. In fact, you'll probably want to let me lead through here. The thorns are thick and the mud is slippery. Just follow in my hoofprints and you won't get caught."

Greed listened. Deed names were, in fact, something far more straightforward than naming dreams were. "It's tiring having to defend my naming dream from others. And sometimes kin suggest that I could just... find another way to describe my dream, but before I knew anything about the world, I knew that that was the word for my name. It's... sticky. Having kin give you a name to carry is so much more straightforward." She followed behind obediently, comfortable to take the track that the doe was moving in. She was leggy enough that she could mostly keep up with the hoofprints, and where she couldn't, it wasn't difficult to take a couple smaller steps to catch back into the other doe's stride.