Maria pulled Spirit in to the village, the dark night blanketed it, the stars burning brightly. The black raven, oddly enough, wore a summery dress, only the girls who had been there longer had seen her wear one. If anyone, especially one of the Turner Canyon Boys, seen her wearing a dress, oh the humiliation that would follow. She dismounted in one movemnt and led spirit over to the paddock, she unbridled her and took off the saddle slinging it over the wooden gate. She closed the gate in behind her and let the moon's rays light her way across the paddock to the water trough, she pumped some water inot the trough and smiled as Spirit gulped it down.

"There you go lady."

She smiled and patted the mare's neck once before she walked back over the paddock and jumped over the fence, almost about to just head for her bed before she noticed one of her girls sitting on the fence with a horse, she frowned slightly.

"What keeps you up so late Elektra?"

She smiled slightly as the breeze blew across the village and her dress billowed around her ankles, Maria knew the names of all of the girls who lived in Ihanktowana. She moved forward and leaned her forearms on the fence and looked up at Elektra with a friendly smile.

Maria smiled, she knew exactly what Elektra meant, for the whole week leading up to the anniversary of her mother's death, she could never sleep either, but then again, Maria was more of a night person anyway, you never found as much trouble at night as you did during the day. She frowned slightly, she missed her mother something terrible, her mother had always helped her through hard times, sometimes she wished she could speak to her mother about what was going on in her life but she couldn't and it killed her most days. she sighed lightly.

"I know how you feel Elektra, my mother died when I was seventeen, pneumonia."

She sighed lightly, of course it wasn't as harsh a death as Elektra's mother's but it was a death of a parent none the less. She flicked a strand of black from her face and looked down at the ground for a second, seeing her mother's face in her memory for a second before looking up at Elektra again.

Maria frowned a little, her mother had promised so much to her too, like a good life and even through all the horrible times she had eventually got what her mother had promised, it just hurt that mother couldn't be here to see it, but without her mother's death she wouldn't have helped so many girls find their way.

"My mother promised me the same thing before she died, but if she could see me now she would be so proud, I hope"

She smiled a little as she watched the horses, when elektra asked what her father had done after her mother died she kind of smirked.

"My father was never there, he got my mother pregnant and then buggered off, she was cut off from her family, her tribe and her life, but we did ok."