Indian Hemp has indeed been disappointed in Chianti. She was the first mare to show him any affection, and the first to bear him a foal. She changed him. It was Chianti that set him on the path to finding a real home and a real family. He saw their filly shortly after her birth, and he fell in love. It was in that moment that Indian Hemp stopped hating himself. He expected so much more of Chianti, but it's always been the same with her. She seems to love him like he is the only ray of golden sunlight to a girl who's never seen the day, and then she disappears. Indian Hemp won't make assumptions. It's no doubt she has her own demons. Indian Hemp is full of them too, and his own behaviors have not always been logical nor polite, but it is through Chianti that he is also able to see what others must see in him when he does the things he does. She is strange, and he may never hope to understand her.

Indian Hemp has not seen his bald-faced mare, nor his spotted daughter for quite some time. At first, Indian Hemp was upset, agitated even. He spent much of his days searching the forest in its most secret places, all the while making an effort to avoid Vercingetorix and his mares. But when his searches turned up no traces of them, Indian Hemp swallowed his disappointment, and invested his interests in Sehrish. He can't deny he worried, but he tried his best to silence the nagging voice inside him that urged him to search farther and harder. If Chianti was not happy here, Indian Hemp is not going to hunt her down and drag her back, and he is not going to go to great lengths to find her only to have her tell him what he thinks he already knows. His already fragile confidence doesn't need to be shaken like that, so he leaves well alone.

Once again, Hemp thinks he has nearly forgotten Chianti when he thinks he hears her voice. Indian Hemp was dozing lightly on his feet, head hung low and shoulder pressed against the rough bark of a white pine. But now he is awake, hears forward and sleepy eyes scanning the shadows for her red and white coat, but he sees nothing. With a sigh he shakes of the remains of sleep and step out of the brush and onto the banks of the Forest's winding creek. He lowers his yet foggy head for a drink, and doesn't even notice Chianti standing a few yards down on the opposite bank.