Somehow, she'd gotten herself turned all around. She wasn't sure which way she'd traveled from the Frostbreath Steppe but nothing was familiar, nothing made any sense at all and by now the girl is exhausted. Her knees are particularly sore and swollen; every step she takes just hurts. Yet she pushes onward, hoping against hope that she'd find someone soon. Clutching her fuzzy wings against her sides in a vain attempt to comfort herself with a 'hug', the girl unknowingly wanders east. She travels deeper into the forest, deeper into the mountains. Bellanaris stumbles on places where the smells of other horses are far more concentrated, perhaps even fresher, but each time she finds no faces and each time.

And each time, her hope sinks a little further down like a stone sliding and tumbling down the slope towards the darkest depths of the ocean floor. Mamae had gone, slipped away from home into the ocean, a mermaid disappearing beneath the waves to never return. Or so she thought. Her young mind couldn't even begin to fathom anyone coming back from that. Even her father was nowhere to be found (though perhaps that was because she'd wandered off, slipping away from the desert without so much as a hesitant glance over her shoulder.) Bella had traveled far, though, and by now she'd grown a bit - taller, but more lanky. The girl hasn't eaten as much as she likely should have, leaving her more awkward than other foals her age that have been well-fed. Her horns have been growing, four of them - the two in the front have a larger circumference and are a bit taller than the two in the back - though they have yet to start curving backwards.

Bella was so lost in her own thoughts, her own worries, that she doesn't even notice when the surroundings change. Stopping rather abruptly, her earthen green gaze widens as she takes it all in. Overhead everything is dark, granting the illusion of someone turning out the lights. Or had she really traveled so far and for so long that it really was night? She almost panics, almost falls to her (rather swollen and painful) knees and bursts into tears. She can feel them welling in her eyes, boundless salty puddles obscuring her vision and a sudden lump in her throat makes it a little difficult to breathe. Bella squeezes her eyes shut, sending some of the moisture tumbling down her nose and cheeks - just a tear or two - and after a few hiccupping breaths, her green eyes once more search her surroundings. Everything is dark and red here, the waterfall and the pool of water it flows into looks like something out of a horror movie. Her active imagination easily shifts the red water into blood and the thought simply makes her skin crawl. She stands out here, her pale form completely at odds with this darker, more morbid section of Helovia.

Yet, she's far too tired to keep moving. The girl shifts to settle herself in beside a tree, grimacing over the flood of images from her active imagination as she lowers herself to the ground. Sleep does not come easy, but as she tucks her head in towards her chest the weight of her eyelids is greater than her willpower. And she is thrust into a fitful, restless sleep - fleeing from the bloodied yeti of her nightmares.