(Untitled)

[river_meimei]

The days are getting shorter, and colder. It's well into autumn now, and before too long it'll be too chilly to be comfortable without heavy jackets and boots

Comments

[duck_bill]

Splashing out from the lake is a small, green, and slightly shivering... creature.

Not that Ducky will admit to the shivering. Nope nope. Tiny wet footprints track in a weaving path up over the mud, across the grass, and incidentally into River's way.

[river_meimei]

River jumps, staring wide-eyed at the tiny dinosaur in her way.

She's not scared, though. Just very startled.

[duck_bill]

"Is not too cold it is too late to be in the water, yes yes-"

The scraping of River's boots is what makes Ducky look around, and then, after a moment, up.

And up.

And up. It's a long way when you're six inches high.

"--Hello!"

[river_meimei]

"October," River says blankly.

She's still staring, rather.

[duck_bill]

Ducky doesn't mind.

Or rather, doesn't notice. Obliviousness is a part of life when you're a child.

"I am called Ducky!"

Apparently that came across as an introduction.

[river_meimei]

"Ducky," River echoes.

And then her face breaks into a sudden smile, and she drops into a crouch.

"You're wet."

[duck_bill]

"Yes!" agrees the piping voice earnestly, "I have been swimming. Big-mouths like to swim, yes we do!"

[river_meimei]

River giggles.

"Little soul," she murmurs.

"Cheerful in the water. Won't ease it. Swim and laugh."

[duck_bill]

"Yes!" she laughs.

"Everything looks funny, not like in the air. And there are bubbles."

[river_meimei]

"Turn the air inside out. It's all in the tension."

She's still grinning, her face alight with the soft warm smile that only babies and animals can coax from her.

[duck_bill]

Ducky does not quite understand what that means - but the voice is nice, and this human-pilot... or human-something it nice too.

"I do not need the air under the water, nope."

[river_meimei]

"Amphibious."

River lifts a hand slightly -- offering Ducky her fingers, or the maple leaf she's holding, or both.

"Feel the water and remember it. You can touch skin."

[duck_bill]

"It is easy to remember water when it is in a lake."

A small nose investigates the fingers, before Duck's head tilts at the leaf.

"It is red. They are not green?"

[river_meimei]

River giggles silently at the touch of his cold nose.

"Sometimes," she tells him seriously.

"It's autumn. Chlorophyll runs away. Hide for the winter."

[duck_bill]

"Hiding?"

Sorry, River, you lost Ducky at 'autumn'. But she continues cheerfully peering upwards.

[river_meimei]

River studies him for a minute.

And then grins more, mischievously, and touches two cold fingertips to his nose.

"Right there."