Lural wrote:"I miss them. I know it was only just a dream, but it was so real. The friends I had, the bonds I made. I miss them all terribly. I know I will never see them again, but deep in my heart, I just... I think maybe I will. Maybe if I wish it hard enough, the swamp will hear me and grant me time with them once again. Even if just a dream." He smeared the drawing of the strange constellation as he laid down. "Two of my dearest friends were a pair of totoma, brothers. Twins even. Why, even though I knew them for ages and ages, I could never tell them apart. They were always arguing and fighting. There was one time we were at a lake..." He stopped to think of how to explain that. "It's a large body of water surrounded by land. It's so deep you cannot see or touch the water. This lake took 2 days to walk fully around, and about a day to swim. Oh, swimming it was a disaster... If it wasn't for that nanny raven..." He realized Mist probably had no idea what he was talking about...

Web explained that the twins had been arguing again about the lake itself. They had only just discovered it, and since one could not see the other side of it, one said it was the ocean, but the other said it couldn't be because the water was not salty. They had made a bet that one could walk around the water and find his way back, the other would swim to the ends of the world. Web couldn't talk them out of this, of course and the twins had dove head long into their challenge. Of course, neither toma knew how to swim, and when the water was deep enough that he couldn't touch the water, the toma floundered and splashed about so much that the giant raven who looked after the boys swooped in and snatched the drowning toma and plopped him back on dry land and cawed at the pair in such a way that Web knew they were being scolded.

Lural wrote:Web continued on, explaining that the three of them, together, marked the nearest tree to them; this was after the raven had her fill of scolding the toma boys, and then set off. Web and one of the boys went one way, the other boy and the raven went the other, and they circled around the water until they met each other on the other side. Of course, then the boys argued again, both claiming to have been the one to say it was a lake. It never ended with those two, really. But he loved them dearly.

When Mist glanced up, Web stopped talking, and he too glanced up at the sky. He could smell the rain in the air, but he only laughed a little. "The raven didn't care for the rain. She very nearly seemed to hate it. ... If only because her toma boys were so pig-headed they would be out wrestling and fighting in the rain until they got sick, making more work for her, the poor thing." He flashed Mist a smile. The other still seemed to be listening to him. This was encouraging. "One day, it was raining so hard that the valley of talking flowers nearly flooded."

Lural wrote:Web was surprised when the other started getting excited. "What, the flood?" He cocked his head to the side. They had floods here, that wasn't unusual, nothing to get so-

"Oooooh, you want to know about the Violets and Lilys?" That would make more sense. "They're quite helpful little things... when they wanted to be, you see. Though never ask them for directions. It's hard for a flower to know which way to go when they are rooted to one spot, I dare say."