Whitefish River And you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone

Why ever had her fellow herbalist been dubbed Speedy? Steadfast, more like. The wisp of thought was wry; a bit embittered by the throes of her own woes. Woes that felt so selfish of her in having when those of her son must be unfathomable. The touch of a dark nose upon the thin shoulder drew her momentarily from this reverie, before sundering her right into another; when had someone last sought to comfort her? It had to have been ... moons ago, no? when she was wilting and weary and so ridiculously hopeful. 

But she heard the words the other had to say, and remained quiet for a time after.  "I was once told how 'amazing' of a mother I would be, and yet ..."  shaking her shorn skull,  "And yet, I still stray, and my wandering seems to never be sated. But, I am a herald, now, too. Would that I could take my daughter with myself, upon forages, at least, I ... I cannot get through her fury. Her stubbornness,"  so much like her own! Would she hate to love, love to hate that, too?

And then, after yet another moment of quiet,  "I was giving Dragomir tell of my first learnings of plants, and how I ... how I detested it, at first. It was not until my first patient, however, that I came to understand that there is much else one can do besides brandish their brawn about. And, even then ..."  another rueful sway of her head,  "I got into several skirmishes, so soon after delivering; I was so terribly sorrowful. So selfish. Still selfish, when I've thought myself selfless. Ze only repentence I can assume up is to be here for my children; how, then? How, when I still long to roam?"

The tattered line of her mouth only thinned more.