Of Crows and Songbirds (Part 2)

Ky also glanced around and shrugged. She didn’t have the first idea.

"She might be in the library, come to think of it. Or outside."

“Does she like being outdoors a lot?”

"Well, that's where the plants and the dirt are, right? That's her favorite pastime--studying things outside."

Ky smiled a little and nodded. “It’s very interesting. I used to spend hours exploring outside when I was a kid.”

"Ooh, what did you explore?"

“I liked the little creek behind our house,” she said. “There were all sorts of things there. Little crawdads. Mussels. Leeches and dragonfly larvae, though I didn’t like those. But I found them when I was looking for the crawdads. And there were these teeny tiny fish I liked trying to catch. Only ever managed it once, but I was very, very proud of myself when I did.” She smiled a little. “While snacking on the berries, of course. I could reach some without having to get out of the water.”

(Childhood calling me backkk)

"That sounds like absolute heaven." She smiled. "Childhood sounds like it was a wonderful time for you."

( :’) )
(also sucks to suck, I fuck around in creeks all the time still lol)

“It really was.” Ky smiled, remembering it fondly. “I built this little resort for the crawdads out of mussel shells and mud and would try to coax them into eating the water bugs on little skipping-stone makeshift plates. They never did, though. I don’t know if they even eat those… but these ones most definitely were just trying to do their best to get away from me.” She smiled sheepishly. “Can’t say I blame them for it.”

(That's fair; I do that when I go camping with my family. There's nothing quite like pulling a struggling crawdad out of the water and fishing around under the rock for them)

"Did you ever get pinched by them?"

(Nice! After I said that I realized I can’t actually claim it lol it feels different than what Ky is describing. Especially since most of the wildlife I harass these days is in terms of getting it out of my net… though I do absolutely scoop up things I do not need to haha I’m definitely the toddler of the group — “what’s that?!” “Ooh look at this!” “Whoa did you see—“)

“All the time,” she laughed. “It doesn’t hurt too much though.”

(That's such a great way to be though! A wise someone once said that you don't stop having fun because you grow old, you grow old when you stop having fun.)

"I remember when we ran into one down there--Ewan was very little, maybe five or six, and he got pinched. We'd never seen one before and I kind of panicked! He had a little cry and then was fine, but it scared me to death."

(True enough! And thankfully my coworkers find me funny haha I most often work with this lady who has teenage children and we joke that she is my supportive mom encouraging me to explore my interests hahah)

“Aww! Poor kid.” Ky smiled a little. “And poor you. I guess I never thought what it’d be like if you’re not used to them. I always went into it knowing fully well I was probably going to get punched.” She laughed a little.

(Also reminds me of how recently I got pinched by a crab as I was getting it out of the net and I go “ow!” And toss it but it holds on to my finger and pinches worse before it loses its grasp and falls and plops dramatically into the water in front of me and idk why but my gut reaction was to go “bitch.” And my coworkers lost it on my delivery haha didn’t even hurt that bad was just RUDE xD)

(Aw that's so sweet!
And that sounds absolutely perfect XD that's the best response possible to a crab pinching you)

"Arianna assured me it wasn't poisonous, but yeah...I overreacted a little." She chuckled.

Ky smiled. “Is she from a warmer climate?”