She imagined that there must be some poor woman pacing the edges of the peak searching for her child that had wandered away in the middle of the night. While Irvosat had been a child and involved in such things as following her mother about and needing to nurse, her mother had always been sure to keep a keen eye on her, for fear that one of the more competitive or protective mares that tended to linger around in the fields that they called home would try to rip the painted girl away from her mother.

Parenting, when she had been a child, had been a competitive sport. Mares became aggressive towards other females to protect their young, all while the fathers and their mates stood by and watched apprehensively. Some foals were torn from their mothers' sides and swept under the caring and protective wing of another woman, who would then raise their newly found offspring with their own true born children. Irvosat's mother had been small and often underestimated by her competition. Many women had tried to tear the palomino girl from her mother's teat, but she had managed to defend the girl.

Though eventually, the grullo woman grew weary and retreated with her daughter into the trees, where the two of them lived a rather solitary life, save for the rare days when her mother would venture out into the open to be courted by a stray stallion.

Here, mothers seems likely to leave their children unattended or unwatched for long periods of time, ending in cases like this poor girl. Staring down at the infant, Irvosat thinks that her mother cannot be far, but breathing in softly she does not find any familiar scent about her skin, and assumes she is either abandonned or orphaned. “What is your mother's name?” She addresses the child, hoping that her mother has not gone far.