Sun Mote Copse Time and time again

Perhaps Sugar needn't have worried about agreeing with Fen a moment ago, because her cousin's own remark could've been taken as crass too. She didn't mind though; in fact, she smiled. Her face assumed a more sober expression when Fen shared the news of her own late mother, the younger of the two once more forgetting that her cohort couldn't see her facial expressions.

This time, she hardly hesitated on saying exactly what came to mind: "That's a lot of dead people." She smiled humorlessly, though she honestly found this phenomenon extraordinarily fascinating. Was it usual for so many parents to die, leaving behind children? Or were they just unlucky? And did that mean Sugar and her siblings were even more fortunate than she'd ever before realized?

"The ground gets a little uneven here," Sugar remembered to warn as the two of them approached the far eastern edge of the copse, not far from the riverbank. "There was a flood here not too long ago, because the earthquakes shook a giant rock loose from the mountains and it fell into the river. I got caught in the wave, along with Bronco and Elfie." Just now, the riverbend came into view, along with the boulder. "Kinda like what happened at the grove, I guess..."

She slowed to a stop well away from the water's edge, thinking almost too late to notify Fen by giving her a gentle tug on the tail. Once she let go, Sugar said, "Pick a direction: left or right."