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It was merely intended as a statement of fact, an observation and assumption. Perhaps orphan wasn't the correct term for her and her siblings either, not when they didn't care or need for those mysterious parental figures, but it was close; they did have something taken in their absence, something lost.

"No. We don't need anyone like that," Dark Water asserted, looking down at her hooves and turning the tip of one against the ground, "You had no one before them, right? I only have my brother and sister, they only have me." They were together in their loneliness. Their abandonment. They weren't orphans in the traditional sense; they'd been thrown away.

Dark Water kept still and quiet while she watched him. She imagined, briefly, what it would have been like for her to not have her siblings, and for a moment she only felt hollow. When picturing the opposite, of White Death or Gloomy Glade on their own, with no one, least of all her, her chest grew hot with anger. If they hadn't managed to be together that would have been the result of their abandonment.

In all honesty, she felt nothing toward their wayward parents. All they served was a means for them to exist and that was fine for her. If that had been true, though -- if they had all been separated -- she could feel the anger concentrating in her hooves, urging her to stomp.

She refrained.

"I do," Dark mused, glancing back to Wicked, "The difference between ignorance and intelligence is the willingness to learn. If someone chooses not to take new knowledge, then they're ignorant. You just didn't know."

Dark Water sighed quietly and lowered herself onto her haunches. "I'm sure it was easy to feel like the only foal without one. Everyone is so... together... closely knit. But we-- we are the outsiders, as you were." Once more she looked to Wicked Stitch, settling firmly on his mismatched eyes. "How does it feel? Being cared for."

The dark filly thought over what Wicked Stitch was saying long and hard. She listened intently, her eyes half lidded and brows subtly upturned -- whether from interest or sadness was unclear. Dark Water had trouble picturing this family as he described but the feelings toward his siblings rang true. There was only one problem with it for her; she was the one who would always be there for her siblings but she wasn't sure they could be there for her, or if she would even allow it. Allowing them to shoulder her burdens would turn into a vicious cycle; she was their pillar of strength, their support beam, the middle ground that kept them afloat when they were in too deep or pulled them down when they needed to lay low. She wouldn't allow them to do the same for her, as all too often she felt like she was drowning.

Her eyes narrowed at Wicked Stitch's question. She scrutinized him, every inch of his face, each n** and tuck. "No," Dark Water stated flatly, "Not for my family."

But that wasn't wholly true. Her expression softened after a moment, as did her voice. "I would just like it... if we could speak more, sometime."

It was rare she ever spoke to anyone besides her siblings at length. They were her family, they were the only phonies she needed. ...But were they all she wanted? Friends were mentioned so frequently by others, in passing conversation. Could this one... could he be a friend?