"Interesting - yeah, right," Dwin did not agree. "Having friendly ghosts to hang out with is one thing. Having a horde of ghosts that are haunting you for eternity is not fun at all. They will blame me for their untimely death. And - what if they continue to haunt me after I die?" she asked. "What if they prevent me from passing over? Say - they yank my soul back to this world!" here was an idea for a story. Except the young Blackthorn did not have the skill yet to weave a tale out of ideas, which she had plentiful. 

"Do you always tell such compliments to girls? What was it - dead seal, a gnome - now a failed fish?" Dwin chuckled. " I heard that you are supposed to say nice things to girls. Do you have a girlfriend?" she had heard that it was such a thing, when people got older. Couldn't say that she had any interest in that yet, but she already viewed Val as an older, wiser brother. "Well, I am not in a hurry to run off just yet..." she did not understand, what had prompted him to assume that she was about to run off and leave just yet. "What will happen at night?" she asked. 

"A person cannot die twice. Gods... ghosts - even less," Dwinn pointed out, but she had to admit that Val's argument was an interesting one. Had there been any experiment on attempting to poison ghosts? Banish them, if they did not leave you in peace? "Plus, why should they trust me, if I attempted to poison them in the first place? They would think that I was lying  - at least that's, what I would be considering, if I had been on the receiving end of the poison," she said. 

"Insulting girls does not make them like you better. Boys have thicker skin - my sister Dee never understood the fun of the game of insults, though - what does she know of having fun..." Dwinn remarked and this was true. To be honest not all adults (males included) understood the essence of the game either. "Oh - that sounds amazing! Ash Paw - the wolf I met - told that there are caves that glow and sing - do you have them in your home, maybe?" she asked. "What are loa?"

"Well, you are not dead either - so, you are just speculating without any proof or basis," Dwinn shot back with a grin that morphed into a laugh. Because the existance of ghosts was an entirely separate topic and there too were more speculations and conspiracy theories than actual facts. But sometimes having something supernatural and esoteric to colour your daily life is better than proving them to be fictional. 

"Well, between me and my brother Jay we rarely call each other by our names. It's insulting nicknames only and I have no doubt that he would destroy anyone, who attempted to harm me, and I would do the same for him," she pointed out with confidence and had no doubt that this did not change the way he felt about his sister and vice versa. That was their special way of showing care to one another. Dee - on the other hand - was made out of a different material. The two indications that these girls were related were their looks and love for stories. As for the rest - Dwinn had learned that often her rough sense of humour and ideas of, what was funny, fell flat with her sibling. So - she preferred company of those people she could feel free with and not awkward. 

"Oh, I will stay on the beach - not a fan of confined spaces. But that does sound interesting," Dwinn shrugged, remembering her mother's warning about following strangers in caves. She did find Val a pleasant companion to talk to, but in the back of her mind the reality of her situation persisted. He was a stranger - a pleasant one and interesting to talk to, but this did not change the fact that she had not found out a whole lot about him. If she were to perish here, no one would ever find out. Perishing in the exact way your mom told you not to would be even more embarrassing. Therefore it was easier to play that she had claustrophobia than to tell him outright that - sorry, guy, I do not trust you. 

"Could you tell in detail, what these loa - evil and good ones - do?" she asked.

"Well, someone - and I won't point a paw, because that would be rude - has spent all his life by the ocean and is scared the crap out of it," Dwin was never the one to have a challenge not answered. "I will walk the caves you mention bravely on the day, when you swim from this shore to the horizon and back," she beckoned in the relevant direction and only then noticed that sun had almost set. "And being eaten by a sea monster along the way and thus transported there in the safety of the beast's belly without making any effort - that won't count. And I will know that, so don't try to cheat," she added for a good measure. 

Then she listened to the story of loa, though Val's second suggestion of visiting the caves did make her shift uncomofortably and she decided there and then that, even if Val did do the swimming challenge and lived to tell the story, she would still not go, because meeting potentially evil spirits wouldn't be fun at all. "Have you met loa?" she asked. "What do they look like?" she asked questions one after another, just in case he mentioned the caves for the third time.  

They were even now and the fact that Val had not taken offense added another nice bright green tick-mark in the list of things Dwin liked about him. When on her own again later she would contemplate, how much of the enjoyment she had had in the fellow's company had been, because she had been a bit desperate for socialization and company, and how much was it because she had met a kindred spirit somewhere out in the wilds. After having more encounters with different people later, she would learn that a genuine connection between two people was a very rare thing and that chance and luck had both been at works, when she had encountered him. 

"I will give you no such promises," she interjected with a sly grin, but did lean slightly forward to hear all he had to tell about loa he had met in is life. "Why don't you just ask those yellow eyes?" she wondered, as if talking to dreams was the most normal thing in the world. "If it does not answer, then it really does not matter, whether it is good or bad - it is a creep. And a rude one too. Staring at people for extended periods of time is very impolite," she added. The next story about the vanishing lady was even less convincing and after Val had finished sharing it, she looked at him expectantly, waiting to add the exciting part. This did not come.

"Maybe it is not so much to do with loa, but rather some unresolved issues in your past? I dream often of going in the lake and fishing out the missing piece of my monster skeleton and it is only because every time I look at it in real life, I am reminded that something is missing and that I lost it there," she shrugged. "Maybe you have also lost something in the water, bush, brambles and the darkness? You would not be the first one." 

Dwin did not quite understand, why all of a sudden Val decided to play all grown up and serious and belittle all the nice exchange they had had. She did not consider him gone crazy because of an incident in brambles. And she would definitely not remember him as a crazy guy by the beach. Quite the contrary maybe with an exception of Ash Paw and maybe someone else he had been a very decent and normal wolf being. Having him engage in spinning tales and absurd theories about life on Earth had been a bonus. 

"Do you want to be remembered as "this crazy wackadoodle guy by the big water thingie sprouting all sorts of things"?" Dwin was not the kind of person, who would go rescue people, when they covertly demanded her to go all in and prove the opposite. She was all for democracy and free will - if a person had deemed themselves to be silly then who was she to argue with them. "I can, of course, but that is quite a long title for one person. Your name is shorter," she said. "And you have to work hard or do something truly extraordinary to get a longer name..." she went on, racking her brain to find the full example of the title her Aunt Wraen had given her mom. 

"To get such a fancy title like my mom got as a gift - courtesy of her older sister... let me remember it correctly," she closed her eyes and her lips moved wordlessly as she recounted the sentence. "Here it goes - [size=small]"Queen Maia Bonkers of The House Cuckoo, Queen of the March hares, The Crackers and The Not All Theres, The Rightful Queen of The One Sandwich Short of Picnics and The Protector of The Loonies, Queen of Wacko-stone, Queen of Non Compos Mentis, Away with the Fairies of the Fairy-land, Round The Twist, Of The Wall and Bats","[/size][size=small] she gave Val time to let the awesomeness of the title sink in. 

[/size]"Yeah, to get something like this, you have to be something re-a-a-a-lly special," she finished, looking at him kindly. "From what I have summed up of you, you are Jester Val of The live-by-water-hate-it-very-much Guild," she offered, having entirely forgotten that he had asked about her future plans. Never mind - this line of thought had been more exciting.

"Well, I do not know, if you treat all girls or strangers like this or just me," Dwin explained and shrugged. "Besides - I figured out during a different conversation that... that gender does not define, who Dwin is," she said. "Funny thing - really - I think that I would still be me, even if... if my shell was different," which meant - returning to the subject of the previous post - that she could not generalize Val's claims to other people. 

"Well, mom had a sister, who loved her very much," that was, what she had gathered from Maia's stories. She did not remember being told the exact circumstances under which her mom had earned the title though. "They could spin the craziest tales, when together. And they came up with funny rhyming poems too. I would recite them, but I can't for the world remember any. Not that kind of brain," she smiled.

"Do you have siblings?" she asked, realizing that they had spent a lot of time talking about and around everything, but in the end did not know much about one another at all.

"Well, you are the best Valravn I know and the only one I know, but I cannot be so confident about you being the best Elwood. There is my dad, who has the same name and who is the best person in the world. And I doubt that anyone ever would be able to compete with him," Dwin mused, thinking of the good old soul back home and for a moment there missing him very, very much. "But you can try, if you want," she offered and smiled at him. 

"So... how does two moms having kids work?" she decided that she was just enough curious to find out this even if it entailed grisly and disgusting details. She had suffered through one such story enough, which meant she had guts for round 2 as well. "I had someone tell me all the stuff about man and women, but since she had not experienced it herself and based her conclusions and facts on hearsay - I think she was not a credible source. And here you are a result of a two moms and a proof that there is another way," if she had asked about this earlier, she had forgotten. 

"Or - since no parsely grows here, kids in Sapphique get dug out of sand - like those crabby things?" she mused, her imagination now working in full gear, generating one crazy idea after another. "Or you... wouldn't it be fun if you started out in the ocean as a special sort of fish and then you were fished out and done some voodoo magic and turned into wolves? I heard that all living things come from water," she went on. "But then... if there are girls, who feel like boys inside... what if... if you start out as a fish in the ocean and you get turned into a wolf... what if you are a wolf, but feel like a fish inside? OR... you are a male wolf and feel like female fish inside? Geez..." she felll silent, contemplating this with a far-off expression on her face. 

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"Yeah, I do not want anyone put anything inside me," Dwin winced at the thought. After all there weren't many places in your body you could use for that purpose. Most were about getting stuff out and even though there weren't much limits to, where the girl let her imagination wander, there were topics she chose not to pursue. Like figuring out, whether your butt, nostrils and ears could serve a dual purpose. Somehow the thought of asking either Maia or Eljay about this also felt very embarrassing. They were not that kind of people. 

"Would you want to find out, what it is like?" she asked next, but it was more a spur of a moment question than an actual interest in, what Val wanted to do in his adult life. "I do not. Even your short story sounded pretty scary," she shared. "I think that a life would be a whole lot easier if no one had to assault anyone and, if you wanted to have children, then you simply dug them up or plucked them from trees or catch them in the river and so on. I mean, isn't it unfair that, if I ever wanted to have kids, I would have to depend on someone else and have someone else agree too? What if you do not like that person at all? Or you never find a person you like?" she speculated, because in the blueprint of her life having a family and settling down was way, way away. 

"Meaning that they are petrified remains of wolves, who refused to cooperate and wanted to live alone?" Dwin tilted her head to the side, as she asked it. This was a very interesting idea, except, what kind of loner and misanthrope in a wolf-sense you had to be to become an actual cliff? "Which means that we are getting on their nerves right now too. And that rockslides are their way of shooing away people, when they have had enough of them prancing around and on top of them?" here she remembered an old tale of a girl, who had cried herself to a stone, because her mate had drowned in a lake. Or a sea? She did not remember. 

"How long is it until sunset?" she asked Val, because he had suggested that something spectacular was going to happen by the ocean-side around that time. "What exactly we will be looking at?" she was thinking along the lines of a mermaid disco, kelpie horror show or something sad and romantic. The boring stuff.

"But, what if those rock wolves are bored?" Dwin asked, in not quite a whisper, her gaze shifting from the rocks, to the water, to the horizon and then searching for the moon above. The old white man was somewhere behind the clouds. "Maybe they like to hear gossip time from time. Then they accumulate it within themselves and then scare other visitors, pretending to be ghosts," now that was an entirely different line of thought.

"Few hours? That will be awfully long. It will get cold," Dwin pointed out, slightly disappointed that the promised specatcle was not going to take place right away. "Is there any other stuff that we can dig up? Treasure - maybe?" 

For the second time in this conversation a flash of doubt appeared in Dwin's eyes and she took an involuntary step back from Val. First rule - do not go to enclosed spaces with strangers. Second rule - do not enter forests you do not know well with strangers that you do not know at all. It was really interesting, why she reacted like this, because altogether - she had enjoyed Val's company immensely. In general, she was a very friendly and outgoing wolf, who - watching from afar - might trust just about anyone. Turns out that this was not the case with Dwin - the trust-building for her needed more time than a chance encounter. 

"Maybe another time," she refused with a kind smile and then yawned. "I am pretty tired," this was not a lie at all. She was. Dwin looked over her shoulder at the pit in the sand she had dug out earlier. A little work more and it would suit her well to protect from the winds on the beach. Or - why return to the plains? After all she had spent the previous night in a comfy burrow there. It was a distance to walk, but she could make it. If she skipped the sundown. Which... all things considered... was it really such a unique thing? After all sun rose and set every day. She could come here again. 

"I think... I think I will not stay here to see the sun going down," she told Val. They were not such good friends for her to feel any qualms about disappointing him. "I want to make to my sleeping quarters before it gets too dark. Maybe another time," she smiled at him.