Heron Lake Plateau i was playing Rock Paper Scissors with imaginary friends

Liffey hadn’t been sorry to learn that her friends wanted to leave the Plateau. It was a beautiful place—bright green grasses stretching across plains, glittering blue waters curving elegantly through, with a line of rich, dark trees marking one edge and open skies another. She knew from experience, you could get lost watching the herons sweeping across the lake and listening to the crickets and frogs singing their melodies from their hiding spots on the shoreline. It wasn’t till you came nearer and actually walked along those waters yourself that you realized the wet, sodden ground beneath the grass that made it so unpleasant.

Liffey has learned the plateau was better admired from a distance, yet here she was, moving tediously across the wetlands. Her search for her daughter had yielded nothing, but she wandered still. There wasn’t much hope left in her, though there hadn’t been much from the start. It was longing that drove her, and an inability to settle until she’d exhausted her options. She was a mother, and it simply wouldn’t do for a woman in her role to settle with sitting back and hoping her offspring was well and happy wherever she’d gone. She needed to know, and she needed to do her best to find out.

She had been exploring the Plateau for any signs of her daughter for about an hour when she spotted a little figure bounding along ahead. Liffey knew it wasn’t Wisteria, but she was curious enough to call out a ”Hey there!” and find out who it actually was.