Briar loved all of her children equally and would always deny anyone that said otherwise, but she couldn't deny that she was quite taken with her bright and thoughtful little Talyssa. She had always taken more after intellectual pursuits than anything else her father had taught them lessons on—even though she did end up mastering her skill in fighting as well—so she was more than eager to encourage that in her daughter as well. Still, she could see that their father's craving for adventure and exploration hadn't missed little Talyssa and she saw the value in letting this inquisitive young girl see more of the world as well so she decided to find a way to combine the two ideas!

She walked with Talyssa out to the edge of The Hallows' territory, crossing over into the neighboring lands that had once belonged to Fenmyre prior to their disbanding. The river that crossed through the land was dotted with large beaver dams, the large rodent-like creatures lumbering through and dragging along sticks and logs from the surrounding forests. She felt like there was a lot to learn from the beavers and how they effected the land so this felt like a good place to start. She found a shaded spot under one of the trees and she smiled as she settled onto her haunches, her braided tail curling around her as she looked down at Talyssa with a smile. She pulled the little girl in, sitting her between her front paws so that she could better direct the girl's gaze. She pointed out one of the dams, asking, "What do you see?"

"Briar Carpathius"

When offered the chance to get out beyond the territory and explore for the first time- really explore- she could hardly contain her excitement. It was quite literally bursting at her seams- a very obvious spring to each stride she made in her mother's shadow. But all and all, it was a quiet trip. Talyssa's attention was too absorbed in the details of the white-trunked aspen grove to keep up any kind of conversation. The movement. The engagement. The life that surrounded them. The sun-kissed autumn was gone, and spring was now in full force. The more she looked, the more she saw. The more her wanderlustful heart sang.

It wasn't long until she heard the flow of moving water take hold in the background. However, it was very different from the sounds that the ocean made. This held a certain serenity, a lazy trickle over smooth stones. When the river came into view, Talyssa was mesmerized- completely engulfed in the beauty of her surroundings. So when Briar lead the way to the shaded spot, it came to her as a surprise when they abruptly stopped. Her pale blue gaze immediately sought out direction in her mother's face- though, she wasn't left wondering for long.

The giggles that ensued when she was tucked in between her mother's forelegs couldn't be helped. But when her gentle voice pointed out one of the haphazard wooden structures that cut across the river, she tilted her head in thought. Whatever the pile of limbs and trunks was, it seemed to be preventing the river from flowing freely. The creek was broader in width on one side than the other, causing a small amount of flood on the side from which the stream was being fed. "That huge pile of sticks is blocking the water." She observed softly. With a fascinated look, she tilted her chin back so she could look up to her mother from where she sat. "How did it all get piled up like that?" Talyssa asked out of genuine curiosity. If anyone knew the purpose of such an occurrence, she was confident that it would be her mother.

The giggles she pulled from her daughter made her smile, her braided tail brushing across the grass behind her. Briar had always wanted to be a mother and now that she had children of her own it truly was as much of a joy as she had imagined it to be. Sure, they brought their own stress and worry with them, but that was a small shadow compared to the bright, overwhelming happiness that they gave her. With her inquisitive daughter settled between her paws, she turned her attention to the world around them, waiting to see what Talyssa would pick out first. She of course pointed out the big pile of logs and sticks that was an obvious obstruction in the river that was flowing in front of them, but then she looked up at her with a very good question. Briar smiled and lifted her paw to point out one of the round, brown-furred, flat-tailed animals as one crawled out from among the sticks and another began to walk out of the tree line dragging another branch over to the mound they were working on.

"See those? They're beavers. They use the wood they collect to build their dams." Lowering her paw, she playfully ruffled the fur on Talyssa's head. "You know what's really cool though, is that it's not just a big pile of branches. They live inside there too. They make a den inside the dam and they swim up into it. So it might just look like a big pile of sticks to us, but that's home to them." She pointed out the swell of water that had grown in front of the dam, adding, "And there, where the water is collecting, could be a pond one day. Maybe frogs and fish will live there and other animals could come and drink from it or swim when it's hot." She liked giving her children glimpses into just how big the world was and how one effect could lead to another. Nature was full of examples of this, but this was a fun one to show her that was still pretty close to home. Looking down to her daughter again with a grin, Briar asked, "Isn't that cool?"

"Briar Carpathius"

In the beginning, her mother's response was simply a paw to guide her attention. Talyssa followed the gesture to her eyes to see a slow, lumbering movement of an interesting looking animal. It kinda reminded her of a big, slow squirrel. But instead of a bushy tail, it was big and flat. Best of all, he was dragging a branch towards the big wood pile. Talyssa gasped in delight. "He made the pile?" She asked in wonderment.

Though, as Briar began to explain, she looked upwards momentarily- tilting back her chin to check in with her mother, before finding the strange new creature once more. "Beavers." She muttered quietly, trying out the name for herself. The busy pup cast a glance towards the wood pile- or dam as her mother called it, before excitedly returning her attention to the Beaver and its task. She was vaguely aware of the affectionate tousle of her aware, but was absorbed in her observations. However, at the next release of information, she leaned to her side so she could see her mother's face a little more comfortably as she tried to make sense of the dam being hollow. "How can that be, though? It just looks like ... a pile of sticks. If there was nothing on the inside of it, how does it stand? How does it stop the water?" Talyssa had so many questions, not even beginning to scratch the surface with the ones that had already rolled off her tongue.

Following her mother's gesture once more, her focus returned to the build-up of water on the creek-fed side of the dam. She envisioned a spread of water much larger- like the pond that was described to her. But as she looked around the Aspen forest ... there were so many trees around. The spotted trunked trees went on as far as the eye could see in each direction. It brought on another train of thought. "Would that change the forest?" She asked, wondering what the impact of these beavers would cause on the entire territory.

Briar chuckled at her inquisitive daughter's questions, adoring the way her bright little girl put together information and figured out things from what she was being told. "The beavers are very good at what they do," she said as Talyssa asked how they could possibly have a dam that stayed up and blocked water if there was nothing inside. "They put those branches and logs together just right to make walls just like the bricks in our castle and instead of mortar there's mud. They build up the sides and make a roof over the top. I'm sure it's very hard work, but don't they make it look easy? They're very strong despite their size and their teeth are very, very sharp." The beaver they had been observing drug his branch into the water and swam it easily out to the side of the dam, tucking it into the side and trimming off a piece that didn't quite fit the way it wanted.

Briar lifted her gaze to glance at the forest around them as well as Talyssa asked if the future pond she described would change the look of the forest as well. "It could," she agreed with a nod. Bringing her attention back to her daughter she added, "It would take a very long time for that to happen though. The world is always slowly changing. In fact, I heard when I was little that we didn't even used to know that Auster was here! The land bridge that connects us to Boreas where your grandfather and cousins live didn't used to be there at all. So sometimes it's big changes like that and sometimes it's little changes like a beaver dam making a pond. One day when you come back here with your kids or grandkids maybe this spot will look completely different." It was wild to think that one day she might be a grandmother or even a great grandmother if she was blessed enough to live long enough to see that come to pass when she had only just become a mother herself, but all of this talk of the passage of time made her realize that it all went by much faster than she would ever want.

"Briar Carpathius"

She was still not entirely sold on the explanation of the beaver's dam. Or at least, not until her mother made the comparison to the castle. It was then she started to look at it as a structure, rather than a haphazard pile. The castle could stand on its own, and it was hollow. The construction of this shelter was just quite a bit more primitive- and it was something she could certainly appreciate. Her pale blue gaze returned to the beaver as placed his material in a place that it felt needed reinforcement. "Yeah, he certainly knows what he's doing." Talyssa observed with curiosity, though it didn't hold her attention for much longer. She was much more interested in learning about the big picture.

The idea that everything was gradually changing was fascinating to her. She tried her best to imagine what a pond would look like in the middle of the aspen trees. Beautiful trees. She wondered if they would be able to survive the expanse of water. Perhaps some of the closest ones would drown- but she doubted that one little pond would be enough to make a drastic change to the entire forest. Yet, as her mother went on about the discovery of Auster, she supposed that anything could be possible outside the scope of what was known and what was hidden beyond perception. The idea that when she was a grown-up and had her own family that this place could potentially be entirely different, really put that into perspective for her. "I guess if everything is slowly changing it's easy to miss. I'll try to make sure I pay close attention." Talyssa mused- mostly because she didn't want to miss anything from lack of attention to detail.

With another sweeping glance of the forest around her, another question came to her lips. "What else is there to know, Momma?" She asked out of academic enthusiasm. No matter how much time her mother spent explaining things to her, in never seemed enough.

Briar truly loved how curious and studious Talyssa was. Her endless questions and desire to learn was never a bother for her and she would sit with her to answer her questions all day if she had the choice. Her daughter asked what else there was to know and Briar couldn't help but chuckle. There was endless amounts of things in the world to know so that was an impossible question to answer, but she could at least find something else about their current surroundings to teach her. She hummed for a moment and let her turquoise gaze roam over the landscape and the skyline as she tried to pick out something to teach her. Her answer came in the form of a building cluster of large, fluffy clouds that were beginning to slowly drift across the sky and create shadows across the ground ahead of them.

She pointed them out, bringing her daughter's gaze up toward the sky. "Did you know that there are a bunch of different kinds of clouds?" she asked, peeking down at Talyssa to see her face as she spoke. "Learning different kinds and shapes of clouds and watching for the color of them can help you guess what the weather is going to be like." She smiled and asked, "If you were going to give those big, fluffy clouds a name, what would you name them?"

"Briar Carpathius"

There was just something about her mother's laughter that just made it seem as if nothing bad could ever happen. It brought a sense of comfort- a casual happiness that set the baseline for their scholarly conversation- though she was happy to wait while Briar thought of something new to explain. After all, the warmth in her tone of humming reminded her of birds singing. It enticed her gently swayed along on a reflex. But when a flash of movement in her mother's gesture towards the sky, she was all too eager to straiten up and listen.

The idea of different kinds of clouds was interesting. She had realized that they didn't always look the same, but not that they were different for a reason. "No, I just thought they swirled into different shapes." She answered softly. However, as Briar went on to describe the different criteria and conditions that clouds might appear, it all made sense as to why they often times looked different. Once she was prompted to describe the fluffy clouds currently overhead, she was initially at a loss for words. How did one name clouds? "I don't know ... Happy Clouds? They look pretty happy." If you could read emotion from clouds. Perhaps that was just a reflection on her own encounter. "They look like they would be soft, too." She added, glancing up to her mother briefly with a smile, before returning her attention to the sky.

Talyssa's assumption that the clouds simply swirled and moved into different shapes wasn't entirely incorrect and it was the adorable kind of observation that a pup would make that made Briar smile. She waited for her daughter's idea of what she might name the fluffy, slowly moving clouds that dotted the otherwise clear, sunny sky, curious to see what Talyssa would come up with, and she was certainly not disappointed when she heard the simple yet perfect name of "Happy Clouds". Briar grinned and giggled softly, nodding with agreement as she looked up toward the clouds that Talyssa described as happy and soft. "I think that Happy Clouds is a way better name for them! They do look very light and soft. It makes you wonder what clouds feel like, doesn't it? Unfortunately I think they would just be kind of windy and wet, but it's fun to think of them as soft like the alpaca's wool."

Bringing her turquoise gaze back down to Talyssa again, she explained, "They're actually called cumulus clouds. They're one of the kinds of clouds that sit lower in the sky so we see a lot of those and they can get pretty big. When they start getting higher in the sky and breaking up into smaller clumps they turn into different kinds of clouds. Sometimes clouds can be long and wispy too like stretched out pieces of wool. The ones you really need to look for though if you're out traveling are the ones that can make rain." Bringing her attention back up to the sky, she pointed out the passing cloud again and added, "If you see any clouds that are fluffy like that one but that are getting really, really big and tall, that means it's probably going to rain. Or if there are some that are long and flat that cover a lot of the sky and look kind of grey then those are also a kind of rain cloud."

"Briar Carpathius"

After she offered her mother what she thought the name of these particular kinds of clouds would be, she was met with laughter. It was contagious, and the girl couldn't help but answer with her own giggles. However, when Briar made the effort to continue with their lesson, Talyssa managed to get a handle on herself. It brought her a sense of joy that her mother thought that Happy Clouds was a better name. Though, she became slightly disappointed when Briar made the observation that they probably didn't feel like much at all. But it was okay. It wasn't like they could be touched anyways, so it was an easy feeling to overcome.

For the actual lesson, she was very impressed with just how much her mother knew. The girl committed the true name- Cumulus Clouds- to memory. She listened intently as they were described to her, eyes fixated on the sky above for a visual aid. And she did draw the connection that when they did swirl around into different shapes, they became different kinds of clouds, like her earlier assumption.

The idea that you could predict rain from the different kinds of clouds was a bit of a novelty. "Wow, that's neat." She observed. It was certainly a bit of knowledge that could come in handy. But on the topic of rain clouds, another thought came to mind. "Does thunder and lightening come from clouds?" She knew that it happened in the sky during a storm, but she wondered if such fluffy look clouds could be responsible for such a racket.