"I beg your pardon?" Dwin feigned being insulted, when Sylvie indirectly claimed that witches were stinky. She added a shocked expression and even lifted one forepaw as if attempting to place it to her chest, but the canid anatomy did not allow her to do that. "I belong the to the proud tribe myself," she said. "You better watch your tongue, Miss Toadstool," she bumped her shoulder against Sylvie's playfully and then went ahead to see, if Towhee by any chance was here somewhere. In this stench scent capacities were useless.

"Nah - I did not, but that hag certainly went in for some cooking," Dwin explained, casting a brief glance in Sylvie's direction and then turning her attention back to a pool, filled with bright blue water and fumes coming up. "But - you have to admit - after that crappy weather we have had recently, getting warm here is quite a treat. Don't you think it would be nice, if we had something like this at home? Kind of like... camp-hot-water-spouting thingie."

Despite Sylvie being Dwin's senior age-wise, she still seemed like a bit of a child to the younger sibling. In a good way - really - and not just because she was her sister, but rather there was an inherent kindness about her that Dwin felt drawn to. Not for the first time she found that she loved seeing Sylvie's genuine smile and hearing her laughter. She felt both privileged to witness it, but also fiercely protective, because there were so many people in the world, who could destroy and not even realize that they had done any harm. She was also ashamed that during their first encounter, she too had been one of them. 

"Well, now that I have let you on that secret, I will have to sacrifice you to the pool gods. No way around it, the only thing I can offer you is that you can choose the pool of your liking and final words," Dwin replied with a toothy grin. "Yeah, but maybe it is good that this place is so far. This year's Blackthorn batch could scare a devil out of hell," here her mind turned to Frolic, who had willingly decided to try her odds with becoming food to the Big fish of the lake. "I think that pool gods here stand no chance either," she replied. 

"Mom told that long, long, long time ago, when even she was not born yet, our grandmother Osprey and grand-uncle Peregrine lived near here," she told. "At least that's, what I gather from the vague details of "a place with water that burns like fire and never freezes"," this - again - was a not a direct quote from Maia. Rather Dwin's interpretation from the bits of information she had collected, when she had cared to listen as a kid.

"Do you think - we could summon her ghost here?" she asked.

"Yeah, I do not want to fight you. I may have the skill, but you can always suffocate me in that fluffy coat of yours," Dwin replied. She had been about to say something along the lines of overpowering with mass, but she thought that it would unintentionally hurt Sylvie's feelings. If her sister's self-confidence was so low already, her body-image might be even worse. 

"Yeah, for the first few days with our Frolic-zilla let out in the world, I expected something apocalyptic to happen," Dwin agreed. "Like she would have upset the world order, or nibbled at the titan's feet - the one, who holds the weight of the sky on is shoulder. Or stolen something more valuable than fire from the gods. Or something of equal cataclysmic consequences," she spun the yarn, smiling. "But it seems that our little sister of ours has been behaving for now."

"Frankly speaking, I have not the slightest idea," Dwin shrugged. "Remember the stories about the Oracle of Delphi? The ones, who lived in caves, sat atop toxic fumes and could tell the future?" as per usual she could not remember the exact details. "Maybe, it works similarly. I do not really recall, whether mom told us anything about it?" she furrowed her brow, trying to remember. 

"Did you get all scared from the intoxicated prophets screaming scary nonesenses?" Dwin asked genuinely curious. Mom had been good at telling the story and her siblings - she could not recall, which of the two brothers - had been even better with sound effects. "I could literally hear the screaming and screching voices in my dreams for days, until it turned out that it was Aiden, if I remember correctly, doing all this. When I found out, I almost ripped his head off," she told.

"The only thing that refrained me from doing was the chance of him returning as a vengeful ghost and haunting me for all eternity," she finished. "I am not breathing that stuff in," she told, pulling away from the fumes. "I have a feeling that I will be unable to smell anything but rotten eggs for days to come. That stench is over-powering!" Dwin scrunched her nose and sneezed twice. "Do you want to take a swim? That hag I told you about liked to cook herself in the water. She looked very comfy and relaxed there," she suggested, leaving out the fact that she had been very skeptical about Towhee's antics to begin with. 

They spent the rest of their time in friendly banter.