Noctisardor Bypass moba

initially, heda had tried to keep up her spirits and those of the girls by telling them stories about what little she remembered about the bypass, lightly embellishing here and there.
when that hadn't seemed to lift the melancholy, she found a den large enough for them all in dreamleaf, encouraging the young ones to decorate, explore, and gather whatever they wanted for the den.
they survived on small game and, twice, an elderly deer who had found a peaceful death in silencepine. 
heda had taken this all in stride; she had tried so hard to manage each day at a time, each hour of healing at a time, tearing more and more when she thought of her boys on the island.
we should go back, then, being her first thought as snow whirled through noctisardor, was not surprising. in dismay she stared at the whorl of white which marked the end of her fragile bliss and the very stark reality that she and they might starve here without others.