Our beginning

Distractions

As we started our last hunt before getting the cabin straightened up and heading back home, I noticed Zeava watching us. I would have to make sure that only Mark and I knew of her existence until we returned next month, that way everyone got to meet her at the same time. Going to see her again had made Mark feel a bit better since I came back with so much great news but now he worried that one of the kids would see her before we left.

She was needed so we could "accidentally" find the mustangs before we left though. I didn't really care about another hunt since we had caught enough food already and would be back in 4 weeks or less.

Everyone was excited to get going but I told them to take it easy with bagging anything on the way up the mountain. "We're heading for the meadow on the top of the cliff to see what's up there. No reason to hunt before we get there since it will only slow us down if you get something to big to carry in a bag." They all agreed and followed my lead, Mark got in the back to make sure no one wandered off and to keep an eye on their body language maybe serve as a distraction if needed.

Zeava did a great job being our guide without letting anyone but me see her, I was very impressed. I loved watching her movements and seeing her glide through the tree tops without making a sound our disturbing anything as she moved.

"Johnie! Look at that!" I heard Mark whisper a bit loud to get his attention, hopefully he didn't notice her. Mark was pointing out a very handsome buck off in the distance that was watching us in amazement, I'm sure it could see Zeava.

I followed her with complete trust that knew what she was doing and that she would bring us the safest route that she could bring us. It seemed that the creatures throughout the trees would stop and almost bow their heads as we passed by. They all knew her and respected her presence here, I wondered if they knew something that I didn't. There was no way that all this respect was because of her children and her perhaps being the last of her kind other than her offspring. I'm sure I won't find out more until I come back in a month but it's something to think about, I was considering writing about all of this in my journal.

As we approached the clearing at the end of the dirt path, I could hear hooves stomping and snorts from the stallion that lead them and protected them. Zeava had slipped into the herd of mustangs and I could see them bowing to her so gracefully and then dancing with her as she slipped back into the trees to go back to her cave with her young ones.

"We'll stop here and just watch them, I don't want to scare them off since we don't know what will happen to them if they leave our land."

Everyone agreed to stay on the edge of the trees and I wandered off for a moment to say goodbye for now. "Thank you so much, this is the most amazing thing that you could have ever done for my family and appreciate you so very much. It seems all the creatures here do. I'll leave you some more fish creations in the box on my cabin porch before I leave but this will be farewell until next time. I'll return as soon as I can." I wasn't ready for goodbye but this was what needed to happen.

"We shall see each other in 4 weeks and I will await your arrival. Thank you for your generosity, I've loved your food creations so far and I'm excited to learn to make them myself. Your family is looking for you so I'm going to make my way to mine. Safe travels, your land will be protected and I will give you all the details when you return." she put her head on my shoulder and I leaned my head onto hers and then she ran up a tree and disappeared.

"Mom, you have to see this!" Brian ran up and started ushering me back to the open meadow.

When I got to the clearing, I couldn't believe my eyes.... Johnathan and Raven were being pushed around by a mare that looking like she was going to have a foal at any moment. She was being playful and loving about it but it seemed she wanted them to do something for her, which made me curious of why they were her aim. Then I remembered that they both had my dehydrated veggie cubes in their pouches.

"Hey..." They both looked at me, "She wants those cubes.... feed her!" I laughed.

They started to get them out and Johnie put his on his flat hand so she could snuffle it off his hand, then Raven did the same. The mare was beautiful, her tail was mainly black with brown highlights and her mane looked pretty similar but her body was splotched with different shades of brown kind of like a calico cat and a single black spot that looked just like a heart.

"How about we call her Sweetie? She's such a pretty Mama.... ohhh.... guys, did you see that?" a gush of clear liquid went to the ground and Sweetie made a noise I had never heard a horse make before. I was right when I thought she could have her foal at any time because we were about to witness it happen.... "Back up you two, she knows what she's doing...." We found a fallen tree and sat down out of the way while she gave birth to not one but two beautiful foals and then when they stood up to start wobbling into a run she brought them over to meet us.

One of them looked like Sweetie and the other looked like the stallion that lead the herd which was pure black, " We should call the leading stallion Noir and the foals Sunny and Cher...." I giggled as one of them licked my face.

"How about we can Sweetie's mini Love and Noir's mini Dusk?" Alex asked.

"That sounds perfect! Look.... Noir is coming over here to see his children! We should probably get back a bit, we don't know how he'll react yet." I was nervous because he's a huge stallion, I had never seen a horse the size of him in person.

But.... he went straight past the foals and his mate... his eyes were met by mine and he was walking straight up to me. Everyone backed up into the trees other than me, I felt it would be rude if I walked away from him and he wasn't acting hostile. I knew that he had seen me with Zeava and that he liked her, he put his nostrils into my hair and blew warm air onto my neck making my hair go up. Then he put his cheek on my hand and rubbed against it so I returned the gesture by giving him a tender scratch on the side of his face. He could smell her on me and he probably knew that I was who had been putting hay, alph alpha and other treats out for his herd. His eyes were extremely dark brown and the most amazing thing I had ever seen, his eye lashes were long and shiny black and his coat was ohh so soft as he nudged my cheek. I slowly reached into my pocket to get him a treat and let him nibble it from my hand.

Today was an amazing day and none of us would ever forget it, he slowly and gracefully turned around to go visit his new borns and I turned to walk over to my children. "Let's leave them to have their first moments in peace, we'll stay a bit longer when we come back next month. We have some amazing stories to tell when we get back home. If you'd like to, you can hunt on the way back to the cabin. I'll stay in the back of our group to let you all know if I see anything, shouldn't be hard for you all to lead us back if you've learned how to track properly. Let's go, lead the way." I nodded in the direction of the path.