honored memory

"Oh, yes! I had to be very careful," she said, carefully declining to mention any of the times she'd merrily raced along the rocks. That had been during the summer, right? When the water was low? "Adulthood" was coloring all of her memories, making her more honest and good than she may have been. Growing up was a strange thing. There had to be some allowances for misbehavior or all that excess energy led to worse ends. "But maybe in the summer time, at the very, very hottest part of summer - " And yet, they had never known hot. Silently, she wished for spring, " - we can race together on the flat rocks. Once the water gets low, great big ones from near the bottom of the riverbed are visible. Those ones are safe." There were points in the rapids that never became safe, but the stretch before them could sometimes ease to a trickle in the height of summer.

"The ocean is the biggest river ever. It separates our continent from other parts of land, like the islands across the channel, and probably other places much further away." Some land masses could be seen close to the Boreas coast. Theo imagined there must be other places out there, she just couldn't figure out how anyone got from point A to B. Some wolves occasionally pulled up on shore from far away lands, tossed in a storm, but she hadn't met one herself. "Once you're a bit bigger I'll take you to the beach by the ocean. Then we can count seagulls together and go fishing, okay?"