Pond words were still land words in her mind, but she didn’t continue the argument. But a land word did pop up. “Mosquitoes.” She said it with a deep Ecith accent. Why? Because anything said in that accent is fun to say. It is also the only way she had heard the word. She went back to cracking open clams. Not arguing was getting harder as she was learning his logic. Salt was used to prevent food from spoiling. To salt something already bad would make no sense. “Preserved. Like salt cured ham.” She said deciding preserved water sounded better than spoiled water.
She listened as he explained that he was the thief and not the monkey. But he tried to right the wrong. And almost payed his life for the theft. His lesson was learned.
“Don’t foolishly think that by walking on land that you will be safe from the sea and its inhabitants.” she looked at a small crab as it shuffled past. “The sea knows no bounds and has no logic.” and with that she was done with being serious and smart. Fluff suddenly jumped up and began running towards the woods. Kaiko immediately got to her feet and began the chase. Was she ever going to learn that chasing was going to lead to her death? Probably not. But the baby otter did not get very far before she had caught it. Luckily this time it only got to the tree line.
She pulled fluff close and looked around. What had spooked the pore baby. Nothing in the trees and nothing in the sand. She looked over the gleam of the sea. Something big dipped below the waves. With its disappearance came knots in her stomach. “I think we should avoid the beach.” She said, “Which means I'm going to half to sleep on land.” she said that knowing it was something she had never done before. Sure, she had slept on a ship many times but never had she slept on actual land.
