With spring days growing longer and sunnier Esma found herself drawn to explore more outside the safe confines of the Riverclan. The discovery of the first flowers - a crocus of sort - and then as the days went by, more green plants sprouting out of the ground, had prompted her to expand the area she was interested in. It turned out that she had a very good memory, when it came to plants. With the difference of her recognizing them by their scents rather than names or looks. Part of that was due to her eyesight not being very well attuned to the details, her world was more like an impressionist painting than a photograph. But she did not know that it could look different and this did not bother her. 

Another reason she no longer stuck around her home was her mother's new preoccupation with the younger siblings. She had not visited them to see up close, preferring to keep her distance and joining adults for hunts. Esma did not feel jealous of them, nor did she harbour any ill feelings towards her mom. Rather she felt indifferent. No connection to them at all. They were alien to her and being a person, who had a difficult time to include new people in her group of acquaintances, she did not even try. 

Esma's new hobby of memorizing plants by scents had brought her all the way to a maplewood forest, where she discovered that from a gash in one maple-trees' trunk sap was trickling down. It was watery and smelled sweetly and the girl moved closer to give it a taste.

When addressed, Esma's first reaction was to freeze in place and only, when she recognized a familiar and friendly face, she eased up and smiled sincerely at the man. John. The man with One and Only God. The person, who had inadvertently steered this potential loyal sheep from the world of Atka and Sos on a path less travelled and unkown. And seeing him here now made it clear to Esma that part of the reasons for her being so far away from home was that she had hoped to run into this fellow again. 

"If I was under the wing of your God, wouldn't he guide me and tell me, what is safe or what is not?" she asked, approaching him to greet him properly by canine standards. "Or... if I were to perish, it would mean that it was your God's plan all along. Or if I survived, it would mean that he had protected me. Which one would it be?" she asked, smiling, genuinely curious, not mocking. 

"So..." Esma began slowly, after taking time to think through every word that John had told her. "... there is no way ever that your God is wrong, is it?" she asked. After all it felt as if this loyal follower would find an excuse or an explanation that his God did, never entertaining a thought that he or she (she had forgotten, whether she had asked, what gender that God was) could make a mistake. But then... come to think of it... Ash Paw had never implied that Atka and Sos could be wrong too. So... in a nutshell, the gods may have taken a different form, but they had the common trait of being perfect in the eyes of their faithful disciples. No more, no less. 

"Why shouldn't your God share his plans with you? Doesn't he trust you?" she asked the next thing that she found odd and curious. "What do you imagine that grand plan being?"

Esma did not particularly like this answer. There had been a time, when she too had believed that her mom stood above everything and all, that she knew better and it was not Esma's place to question. But over time and an accumulation of many little moments of observations g, had revealed to her that adults were just as prone to mess up as she was. "In that sense you are truly a child to your god. You never grow up for him, do you?" she asked and there was no mocking in her tone, but something else. Gentler. Genuine curiousity and maybe just a hint of her teasing him in a good-natured way. 

"So, your god has spoken to your ancestors only and not to you directly?" which was in clear contrast with Atka and Sos, who - it sometimes appeared - that Ash Star was communicating daily with. She could not remember exactly, but her mom had even met the fearsome duo too. "But then those plans are not too specific, are they? How do you know, what to do to fulfill them? Or will it happen regardless of, what you choose to do?" she asked. 

"I..." Esma began and paused, thinking about her place in this world and purpose. "I do not know. Yet. I do not think that my god is with the Riverclan. And I am not sure that I particularly understand your God. But mom says that the world is a very big place... so there might be a god for me there as well. What do you think?" she asked. Moments earlier she was a young smart woman, now this flash of unsuredness of things brought her back to, what she still was. A child. 

Esma found it odd to have such a firm belief in a being that no one had ever seen or even spoken to. At least the bears had a way to talk to her mom. Though... while the idea formed into a thought she furrowed her brow... she had always taken Ash Star's word for it. And had for a while as a kid believed in the bears even if it was her mom's word she would have to count on. What if... that was an assumption on her part that had had nothing to do with reality. 

"I think I would want to see my god in person rather than trust my imagination," she said - again not mocking the man, but rather giving an idea of, what her worldview was. Down-to-Earth and pragmatic. Esma preferred to believe in things she had seen with her own eyes. Because there was no other way to confirm them being real. "Does the wind always blow you in a direction you want to go?" Esma asked. 

"I have time," she responded. An eternity, in fact. "What will you do on the western coast?"

I have time," Esma replied. John's remark on, how she should trust that the god created the Earth made her smile and prompted her to ask: "Isn't the Earth one, who knows for sure, how it came to be? Rather than looking for someone from outside, maybe I should learn to listen, what the Earth herself is telling me?" She looked down at her dusty paws, her gaze stopped at the fresh green stalks of grass sprouting from the brown soil below. Wasn't that the true wonder? On, how life could be created again. And again. 

"I will remember that," out of everything John had told her about his god, she liked this idea the best. That sometimes things happened because they happened. Maybe it was not the way he had intended it to sound, but she would memorize it that way. It gave her a sense of freedom instead of the perils that came with predestination and one's inability to escape that. 

"Oh, that must be unfortunate," Esma responded, but it was more out of politeness than actual understanding of, why this was so important to the man. Her siblings had left and disappeared early on and only now had they showed up again. And - she may have missed it - but she did not remember Ash Star sending anyone out to look for them. Less so go anywhere herself. Or maybe she had and Esma just had not noticed. In any case - she was under impression that people just appeared and disappeared and, whether you worried about them or not, did not make much of a difference. 

"Are you their father?" she asked. Having grown up only with a mother figure to fill the shoes of both parents, a father was a mystery to her. Perhaps... it occurred to her, that looking for lost children was, what fathers did. Maybe her father was looking for Esma somewhere else? While she had never truly cared about, who her father had been, the idea that someone would care enough to search for her, was oddly gratifying. 

John's response made Esma wonder, what was that made a wolf a mother or a father? Would she love and respect Ash Star, even if she had not given birth to her? Besides - how could the girl possibly know that this had happened? She had been told and this particular adult had always been around, but she did not remember being born. So - her logic of only believing things that she could actually see was not exactly working. "I think that my mom would still be my mom, even if I found out that I was not hers by birth," she told him. In the end, what made a mom... mom, was the combination of actions towards her. 

"Where are you heading to?" she asked. 

"I will think about it," Esma replied and to her surprise she felt she was not entirely opposed to the idea. Up until that point she had not been too keen on leaving Riverclan's lands behind. More out of safety lately than anything else. John's words were reassuring and offered an opportunity to explore the world without the burden of constantly looking over her shoulder, expecting something bad to happen. 

"I have to go now," she said, getting to her feet. She would have loved to continue their discussion, but she thought that even John had more important tasks at hand than to spend time entertaining her.