Duck Lake reality is a lovely place.

Once upon a time, there was a wolf named Lake Bhitheas. And, believe it or not kids, he really loved lakes. Not just lakes, of course, but all forms of water whether it was flowing along a riverbed, washing up in waves on the ocean shore, or trickling lazily along a creek. He even liked the rain, and always felt a peculiarly, wonderfully mixed feeling of excitement and peace whenever the symphony of thunder and rainfall performed their aria for the world.

It was really a mere coincidence that his affections matched his name. It was custom for the Bhitheans (they refer to themselves as such because who really wants to muddle their tongue with "Bhitheases") to name their children based on some sort of pattern. It was often different for each generation; Lake's great-grandmother had given her pups names that all started with the letter "T". His grandmother (a highly complicated woman) named hers for the manner in which they most often carried themselves. Lake's mother (most fortunately, a kind and delightfully simple creature) named them for the color of their eyes.

This lake, however, did not match the cold, gray stretch of water next to which he had been raised. It was too bright, too clear, and too.. well obviously, blue, for that. Lake preferred his lakes this way though. The water splashed softly against his legs as he walked along, just a few short feet in from the riverbed. He wasn't doing anything in particular besides merely enjoying the feel of the cool liquid against his skin on such a warm day. A twinge in his stomach reminded him he was actually hungry, so fishing was likely an eventuality. For now, though, he took a sharp turn towards the opposite shore, took a few eager bounds until his paws could no longer touch the mucky bottom, and then proceeded to paddle happily about.

I was gonna start my first thread at Arrow Lake, then I saw yours! Hallo! :D

The sound of a splash in the distance caused Turquoise to slow, then stop, her right ear twisting like a satellite dish honing in on the source of the noise. Once she located it, her smudged muzzle followed suit, pointing the way as she broke into a ground-eating lope again. Up ahead, she saw the telltale sparkle of sunlight striking water and, soon enough, she made out the shape of a lake. Out there in the water, she spotted a wolf. Her turquoise eyes narrowed and she licked her lips.

"Hey!" she bellowed when she reached the shore, her stockinged paws digging into the soft earth just shy of the waterline. There was a hint of an Irish brogue in her voice. "Hey, you! Can you tell me where I am, by any chance?" Turq was almost certain that home lay east of here, based on her memories and corroborated by what she'd learned by word of mouth, but she needed to put a name to this place to be one hundred percent sure.

Before the stranger—an unremarkable timber wolf, by the look of it—could offer any sort of response to her abrupt and likely rude inquiry, Turquoise made another query: "You fishin'?" She tried to keep her voice light, yet there was an edge to her tone and her lips remained in a grim, impatient line. For what it was worth, her ire had little to do with the other wolf, though he was a male and Turq didn't have much time for those.

It had a lot more to do with Rivet, who insisted on living in a corner of her former lover's brain at all times. Some days, Turquoise recalled her ex fondly, happy for the photographic memory that allowed her to study every plane of Rivet's lovely, dark face. At other times, it bothered the hell out of her and she wanted nothing more than for Rivet to get the fuck out of her head. Today was one of those days.

Yay I'm glad you joined! Hello hello! ^_^

Lake dove his head under the water and paddled back towards the floor. He had it in his head that he wanted to leap out of the surface of the water like a whale (he had seen them at it once--it was flippin' sweet), however he had long since learned that he didn't have the anatomy or strength it took to really succeed at it. So, he burst straight back up out of the water as though reaching for the sun, then evened himself back out so that he was parallel to the ground.

He was shaking his head to clear his ears of water when he suddenly became aware of the other wolf's presence. He twisted himself with a swing of an arm so that he was facing her, stretching his neck forward and perking his ears to hear her better even though the motion proved to be unnecessary--the power of her lungs was rather impressive. Not being blessed with the same vocal strength, Lake swam swiftly closer to the shore until his paws struck ground and he could stand upon all fours.

Lake's knowledge of the area was similar to hers--an educated guess at best, based on what he'd learned by strangers along the way. He parted his lips to advise her, but his voice clung to his throat as she suddenly spouted off another question to her. The second question brought a grin to his face (that is sooo not how you fish, thought the fishing/aquatic activities snob), however he backtracked, not wanting to leave any of her queries hanging.

"Well, I'd say you're by a Lake," Lake responded with a smirk, knowing she wouldn't understand what he meant, but knowing she'd definitely appreciate his humor once she did. "If you're asking about this lake though," he gestured to the water around him with a sweep of his head, "If I'm not mistaken, this is Duck Lake." The presence of the massive cluster of ducks at the opposite shore that he noticed over his shoulder seemed to support his hypothesis, at least.

"To answer your second question: No, I'm not fishing. You have to be a lot quieter and less.. splashy aroundy to fish successfully," he replied with a smile. "Why, are you hungry? I am an excellent fisherman if you require my services." Lake glanced briefly at her physique as he offered. She was a bit larger and grumpier-looking than he generally preferred, but who would turn away a blonde?

When he pointed out the obvious, Turquoise glared at him, clearly not amused by his wit. Then he actually said something useful and she turned that name—Duck Lake—over in her head for a moment. One of her eyes scrunched up and she stuck her tongue in her cheek as she tried to recall something at the edge of her memory... finally, she grasped it.

"Is this Glacier Park—or something like that?" she questioned brusquely. This information corroborated her suspicions and Turq now felt significantly more oriented. This put her in a slightly mellower mood, though not by much. "Well, then, I'm not that far from home at all," she surmised aloud, turquoise gaze distant for a moment.

Her eyes sharpened like knives when next he spoke. "I know that," she snapped, though she hadn't. "I don't need your 'service,'" she leered. Even as the words left her mouth, Turq realized she was being a rude bitch. Even though he was a male—and men were basically good for nothing in her books—he didn't deserve either this verbal lashing nor the daggers she was giving him with her namesake eyes.

"Sorry," she said almost flippantly, "I don't mean to be a giant bitch. I just... have a lot on my mind," she explained. She hesitated, then moodily included, "I'm Turq," which left an opening for his own introduction and, very likely, a subsequent conversation, neither of which she particularly wanted.

Lake canted his head lightly as she responded to his words. Those he'd spoken to had only referred to this place as "the park", so it wouldn't be that far fetched to think it's proper name involved the word "glacier". He shrugged and nodded lightly at her comment, mildly intrigued by her reference to "home", but not enough so to pry further.

Her next comment was pretty pissy, as far as pissyness goes. Lake gazed steadily at her, not offended, more just.. curious. His mother had taught him long ago that when people are cruel or harsh towards you for seemingly no reason, it wasn't you. Even when rage was directed towards you, it most often had nothing to do with you. Lake couldn't see what he'd done wrong, and so all he could wonder when she snapped at him was what someone else had done wrong to her.

"You're fine," he assured her nonchalantly, starting to walk forward towards the shore. After pulling his last paw out of the water and onto dry land a safe distance away from her, he shook the water from his pelt, though not so vigorously that he was likely to be drenching the female. Once "dry", he turned his attention towards her again with a smile upon his maw.

"My name is Lake," he replied, grinning slightly with anticipation as he expected it to click in her mind now what he meant by his comment from earlier. "I hear you're from around here?" Lake himself didn't know the area in the least. He had only come here because it just so happened to be in the direction in which he had randomly decided to head.

As expected, he gave his own name, shortly after exiting the water and giving himself a hearty shake. Turquoise did not immediately pick up on the earlier reference, not that she was in the right state of mind for a joke anyhow. Her cool, shrewd gaze followed him and her expression froze quizzically at his rhetorical question, only for her to realize he was referencing what she'd said a moment ago while staring over yonder.

"My family lives east of here," she said vaguely, rolling her tawny shoulders. She almost mentioned the decision that so afflicted her, partly to explain her rotten temper and also because she could possibly use some advice, but then she remembered that he was a guy and a stranger at that. Turq certainly did not need his help, nor did she want to give him any real information about herself or her private matters.

She wanted to simply walk away but she didn't even know what direction to go, so instead she hovered there on the bank, eyeing Lake a moment before observing, "Your name is Lake and you're swimming in a lake," rather tonelessly. "How ironic." Her eyes gleamed subtly and she shifted her weight from one black forepaw to another. "Besides the obvious, what are you doing here? Just passing through or...?"

Lake's smirk deepened at her reaction to his name. The way she said it was as though she were mocking him, but even if she was, he was amused all the same. He at least thought he was funny.

"I think 'just passing through' is probably the best way to describe it," he replied with a casual shrug, "The plan is subject to change, of course, if you can even consider it a plan in the first place.." Lake had left his home over a year ago without any idea in his head as to where he was going or what he was looking for. He figured it would come to him along the way. Apparently the tawny Bhithean had a long way to go until that happened.

"I feel like you might know how that goes..?" Lake added, peering curiously towards her bright eyes. He of course had no way of really knowing that, but for some reason, he figured he probably wasn't missing the mark by much.

He was probably wrong.

He confirmed her suspicions, then posed a mild question of his own. Turq felt a flicker of irritation at his probing, then remembered that she'd asked him first. "Yeah, I guess," she said, unwilling to give away anything else. Her tail twitched and she shifted her weight from one stockinged paw to the other.

Unwilling to make small talk, Turquoise opted for another track. "So, your name is Lake and you apparently like lakes," she said in an observational tone that bordered on snobbish. "Does that make you a narcissist? That would be like if I went around bedazzling myself with turquoise stones," she said with a slight sneer, forgetting that she hadn't given her full name until just now.

Back to the "Lake likes lakes" thing. He was sometimes surprised that people found it so hard to believe, but he had never before been called a narcissist for it. The idea, while a bit rude in its vocalization, brought another grin to his face. He snorted lightly at the suggestion, deep steel blue eyes glinting in fascination.

The blonde wolf's next comment confused him slightly, but only for a moment until his eyes brushed across hers and the name "Turq" clicked into place. "The sad truth is, I'm named for far more narcissistic reasons than that," he admitted with a sly grin, "I was named for the color of my eyes." Something about her attitude towards him amused him deeply, and he couldn't miss the opportunity to raise her ire even more than he already had merely by just existing. It was all in jest, of course. He wasn't aiming to actually offend, just to engage in a good round of friendly banter.

Turquoise opened her mouth to make some sort of clever retort about how his eyes were far too gray to resemble a lake, then realized that he was teasing her. Her eyes narrowed and she said rather darkly, "I guess neither one of us is directly responsible for our names—unless you named yourself?" Her ears, rimmed with charcoal, fell backward and she peered past his shoulder for a second before her gaze suddenly cut to his face. "You know, we and our parents are freakin' lucky we didn't follow the typical pattern of changing eye colors as we grew."

After a few beats, she said, "So the real question is: would you have liked lakes no matter what, or did being named Lake predispose you toward an affinity for them?" Turq thought she sounded rather intelligent. The tawny she-wolf would never, ever admit it, but she was actually warming to the conversation, especially its bantering aspect.

Lake chuckled lightly at the look on her face for a moment before shutting his lips tight, tail wagging as he listened to her response. He shook his head in reply and for a moment was touched with worry that she hadn't actually taken his comment very well. It lasted only a second before he relaxed, and the tawny wolf let free the laugh that had been welling in his chest for a while now.

"I've actually enjoyed the water since before I even knew my name, so I suppose it would have to be the first," he replied, "But then again, I actually wasn't named until my eyes had changed color, around when I was three and a half months old. So perhaps it was a little bit of both..." Lake paused thoughtfully before adding, "I remember being a pup though, even before I was allowed to go outside, loving the sound of rain and playing in the little puddles that formed near the mouth of our den. I dunno, Maybe I really have just always been a water-loving weirdo."

Lake dropped to his haunches as he spoke, turning his out across the water. Questions formed in his mind to turn on her, however he held his tongue for the moment as she didn't seem to like his prying. "Or maybe I've had a subconscious desire to drown since I was born and this is just my spirit's subtle way of trying to help me achieve my dreams," he said with an air of seriousness that clearly suggested he wasn't, gaze turning back to his companion.

09/06: I'm gonna edit in a conclusion and archive this.

Ironically, Turquoise did not have the patience for Lake's hypothesizing, despite being the one to start him on the subject. While he talked and talked and talked, she began to fidget and she rolled her eyes once or twice. Shut up, shut up, shut up, she found herself thinking, not actually interested in the reasoning behind his affinity for lakes, after all.

Finally, he seemed to be done talking. Turq had the impression that he'd made a joke and she should laugh, yet she couldn't even will herself to play back that part of the conversation in order to process it. The one thing she had heard during that long ramble was that he hadn't been named until after his eyes had finished transitioning, which meant he'd been nameless for the first three plus months of his life.

"You didn't even have a name until you were three months old?" she asked incredulously, effectively ignoring everything else he'd said. "What the hell did your parents call you until then?" she wanted to know.

She hung around just long enough for Lake to explain the pros and cons of going through early childhood essentially nameless. Turquoise then seemed to grow either bored or fed up with the conversation. Rather abruptly, she started to depart, with the excuse that she needed to get her bearings. Turq then loped away directly, heading neither in the direction of home nor toward any other particular destination at the moment—just anywhere that was away from him, or anyone else, for that matter.