Along the borderline

“I dunno what wolves do when they get bigger.  Some birds change colors.  Echo told me.  He said pigs change colors also, or at least they have stripes and then they go away.” Echo knew a lot, at least it seemed like he did.  “He didn’t say wolves do but, I didn’t ask.”   Nico followed Jack mulling over how he'd need to ask the bird.  Wouldn't Echo be happy when he learned Nico was right and he'd been perfectly safe.

The boy's next question had Nico’s own assuredness fade with pain for a moment then quickly shaking it off with a negative to Jac.  “Nope.  I uh,” this kid was clearly naive so how much would he wreck it? “Yeah, no.  Stuff came up so I headed out alone.”  If the kid wanted to pester he could give him the flat-out truth but innocence seemed a nice notion.

“It’s alright,” Nico assures Jack when the pup had tried so hard to comfort Echo and the bird hadn’t bought it.  “He’s pretty protective of me.  He’s bound to come back after he makes a point of being unhappy.”

That was that then and he followed behind Jack to go see this ‘ship’ thing.  Wood was the stuff that made up trees.  Wait.  Were they going to see a big stick or something stupid like that?  “I’ve seen wood float before.  Do you call floating wood ‘ships’?"  Why did they deserve such a special term?  If this kid thought floating sticks were cool he really did need to go see more of the world!

“Well, my name isn’t near as long as yours.  I’m Nico.” He took a second to consider if it was smart to tell the wolf he was a coyote.  What if he knew coyotes and wolves weren’t always the best of friends but just didn’t know what a coyote looked like? “I’m not a wolf.  I’m a coyote.  We ain’t the same species.  That’s why I don’t know what happens to wolf fur.  You know, your parents gotta kill food to give ya something to eat.  When you get bigger you’re supposed to do it yourself.  I know that much.”  Only an idiot didn’t know that.  Like a typical child, the moment Nico learned a thing anyone who didn’t know it was clearly clueless.  He’d also learned the reality of that so much more than many his age.  

“Hunting’s fun though.  I bet its more than fun than seein ships” Hesitation, “but I still want to see your ship.  I hope it's real big.  What do you do with it?”  Would big make a stick in water better?  Maybe?  How big did it need to be to fit the word ‘ship’.  Nico paused in his step, lowering his head and chest to where it almost touched the ground as he watched a funny thing moving by.  A crab was innocently moving along sideways, pinchers held up high to protect it.  “That’s a funny-looking thing.  Is it food?”  Nico thought about food a lot.

"Niko"