Outlaw loved the pack he now he belonged too with the only regret being he missed Meadow who first brought him in it.  That was fine though.  She might come back someday and there were many other wonderful wolves here.  Who would have thought there were so few dogs?  Wandering the area he made his way towards one of the many pools of waters to look into.  Outlaw just loved the water, growing up on an island had made him feel most at home playing in it. Outlaw’s eyes rolled upwards as a small seagull landed on his hat, “Hi there Sailor!” Outlaw liked his new friend as they both had common interests. “Ready the sails! Smooth sailing ahead!”  The bird could talk but it had an interesting way about it, frequently going with words that had to do with water.   Outlaw grinned and moved forward pretty sure that’s what the bird wanted.  As he moved along he spotted a pup at another one of the small pools.  He hadn’t met the lad yet and he seemed a bit older than the others.  Outlaw made his way towards the pup, tail wagging, and a big smile on his face.  Sailor was perched on his hat, finding it quite the nice spot for a free ride. “Hi, there! I’m Outlaw.  Pleasure to meet you.  Oh and, that’s Sailor up there.”  An outgoing and friendly tone which of course was really his normal state.  The dog waited calmly hoping to see the pup return his name with a smile.  "Welcome aboard," the gull offered to Grim Speech:"Life is but a game " Sailor talk Think

Happily minding his own business spying into a pool of small water near the edge of the falls. He was staring down at his reflection, hardly paying much attention to the world around him, when another approached and introduced themselves, accompanied by a small mount. It took a second for Grimshaw to notice that the other had spoken really and turned from his thoughts to the older male. What was on his head?

He'd never seen a hat before, much less a bird riding atop someone's head. He was taken back a bit, lost for words in the moment before his thoughts collected and his brain registered what the older man had said. "Nice to meet you, too... I'm Grimshaw." His words where mechanical, repeated time and time again to the various members of the hallows he'd met in his time here.

The mechanical words didn’t seem to bother Outlaw, nor the overall sense of disinterest the pup seemed to show off.  Outlaw lay down near the kid as if invited.  “I sure do love the water,” looking at the pool near them.  “You know, I come from an island called the Forgotten Isle.  So I grew up with water all around me.  You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff there was to find on the beach and under the water if you went out a ways.”  Outlaw glanced curiously to see if Grimshaw was at all interested. “I sailed over here on a raft I made.  I saw some fish bigger than me, some even followed with my raft for a while.  They talked with all sorts of whistle-like sounds.  I can’t whistle, but it sounds nice.  I got this hat from our island too.  A bunch of dogs like me live on the island.  Well, not totally like me as a big variety of colors and sizes and all but still.  Dogs instead of wolves for the most part.”  Maybe something he said would catch the kids fancy.  If something did he could aim one of his stories down that path. Most kids enjoyed stories.  So how about this pup?  He was still a pup but clearly was going to grow larger than Outlaw.  The dog wasn’t all that big to begin with nor did he have a thick coat to make him look larger than he was. Speech:"Life is but a game " Think

The man laid himself down next to him and glanced at the water before going on about his opinion of it and into a story about where he had come from. It was good for him to listen, to get his mind off his own thoughts about his past. He spoke of sailing over on a raft, whatever that meant, and how he met other animals swimming alongside it that spoke in weird sounds that he apparently couldn't understand. The hat, which he was questioning about in his mind, had also apparently come from the place this man had come from. What was it? The forgotten isle? He'd never heard of it before, but frankly he'd never seen another that looked quite like this strange man. He was small from an adult and oddly shaped compared to the rest of the wolves around here. What was a dog, anyway?

Outlaw went on while Grimshaw listened, questions bubbling in his mind. Where would he begin? Should he even ask questions? Finally, something blurted out. "What's an island?" He asked, looking at the older man finally.

Outlaw had hoped to get Grimshaw to join in the conversation and find something of interest in all he said.  The young dog had never considered someone might not know what an island was.  Having grown up on the island it sounded like being asked what grass was.  Oh well, maybe it was a strange thing to a pup that had never seen or heard of one?  It made sense now that he thought about it. “An island is well,”  land surrounded by water of course Outlaw thought, but this land probably was also, right? It might just be a much longer path till he found more water.  How far, Outlaw had to wonder?  “You know around here you can find the ocean a bit to the east?  On the island, there was water on all sides.  It’s a smaller piece of land and no matter which end of it you’re on it's all water at its edges, far as you can see.  The ocean gets real deep too."  The depth of the ocean had been an impressive sight that triggered even more of Outlaw's imagination and surely others also would find it fascinating?  Of course it was more impressive to look at than just hear about. "So you can wade out in it a ways, and if your real clever like uncle Karnek you can even figure out how to go underwater and down a short bit.  Find funny things down there.  I can’t hold my breath all that long or swim down as well as he could though." Outlaw had only known a few dogs who had figured out how to actually go deeper under water.  Maybe someday he would figure it out.  When I went sailing I could see some of the fish just go straight down.  Their shadows would get smaller and smaller so it has to be super deep.  Sure couldn’t see a bottom from the raft I was floating on. Yup, Outlaw could rattle on for ages if he was the only one talking.  However, if what the pup needed was someone to listen to and take his mind off the bad memories Outlaw could easily give him that.  The dog didn't know what was troubling Grimshaw but in Outlaw's way of thinking what was better than a good story? Well, maybe treasure hunting but maybe the story.  Both things were pretty fun. Speech:"Life is but a game " Think

Grimshaw listened as he spoke, but struggled picturing it all in his mind. He'd never seen the ocean before, much less heard of it, but tried to follow along anyway hoping it'd all come together in the end. Unfortunately, it did not. He was left puzzled, trying to imagine a vast expanse of water that was even deeper than the pool he sat near. He'd never seen water much bigger than here, except maybe a river or two when he was a bit younger. But an ocean? He'd never heard of that before, but part of him really wanted to see it. Maybe the ocean was close enough to visit? He certainly hoped so. He kind of wanted to check it out.

"Ocean? Is there one around here?" He asked, curiosity filling his otherwise empty, silver eyes. His imagination was reeling with the possibilities of whatever an ocean was, what he could find there. Maybe he could take Bowen there one day? That would be nice. Take her someplace nice in exchange for what she'd done for him that first night.

“You never saw the ocean?”  It was another thing hard for Outlaw to imagine when it was the most common sight in the world to him and that there was one so close to them. At least the pup was curious which seemed an improvement from how he’d look when Outlaw walked up. “Oh sure, it's not too far at all.” Outlaw turned his head to the east, “It’s that direction.  Maybe you’d like to go with me to see it later?  We could look at it from the cliff or on the shoreline.  It’s really impressive to see how endless it is from the cliff, but on the shoreline, you can feel the water lick your toes and how the sand feels in your paw pads.”  Outlaw loved being in the hallows and getting to see the wonders of the different landscapes was great, but nothing had equaled the view of the ocean. Outlaw’s tail was wagging behind him, mouth open in a grin, “If you haven’t seen it, then the Ocean will be something that will touch your soul at its beauty.  There’s nothing quite like it.” To Outlaw at least this was a true statement. Speech:"Life is but a game " Think