Blackfoot Forest The stream will take us home

She had left the hollow again, needing to escape the suffocating feeling of the place. She hated that Mahler had made the home she loved so much a place she could no longer stand to spend large amounts of time in. For the sake of her son, she tried never to be gone longer than a day or two. But she always dreaded returning home. She knew soon the women of Diaspora would begin to grow round bellies, and she wasn't sure how she would be able to stand being there for any period of time. Just the sight of the hollow in the distance as she returned home caused dread and despair to swell in her stomach, sometimes so strongly that she thought she might vomit. But, she had survived worse, and she would get through this somehow. 

She made her way slowly through the trees, glad to be able to breath again. She, of course, took up her normal task of searching for signs of her missing children; it was second nature at this point, she had been searching for so long. The scent of a stranger filled her nose once she had made her way fairly deeply within the forest. She followed it, wanting to know who was hanging around so close to her territory. She found the young woman after some time, and she stopped a short distance from her, releasing a short chuff to alert the stranger of her presence. She looked young but older than her own children; old enough to cause problems, for sure. She fixed her with a cold, shrewd stare as she waited to be noticed.