Arrow Lake we'll do it all, everything, on our own

Well, it was really wild that her mom didn't have any idea what she was out there doing all that time. Piper glanced toward Indra with a small expression of curiosity. She wondered if her aunt had even told Laurel what her plans had been. She had been out there for a great deal of time on her own. Surely, Indra would not have allowed Laurel to continue on living and thinking that her daughter had just run away. The young Redleaf girl could not imagine something like that, so she did what she could to force it from her mind.

When her mother asked her where she had gone, the girl looked at her with a smile and a wag of her tail. “I went to look for Lucas,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. It was almost as though she expected this to be common knowledge already. “I told aunt Indra that's where I was going and... that I didn't want to tell you because I was afraid you would stop me,” the fiery girl shared in a moment of honesty with her mother. Her expression was not one of remorse, but had been hardened by her time on her own. She was no longer the lost little girl that she had been in the valley.

“But I went all the way to the ocean and some really nice guy gave me this rock in a trade so that I could bring it back just for you! I carried it all this way – made sure to keep it safe,” Piper remarked, nudging the stone toward her mother with a loving gesture. There was pride in the champagne color of her gaze. She had done it all on her own.