It was like watching water flow over rounded rocks, the way the kid sat. It was naturally poised, like nothing Harley had seen before, and she knew some graceful people. And the way she leaned against the wolf spoke of long familiarity and deep affection. It was really sweet. Awww.
Harley did her best not to gag.
The answer about not remembering was just a little too enthusiastic, suggesting some previous trauma. The human brain was amazing when it came to protecting itself, spawning all kinds of interesting conditions and disorders. A little selective amnesia, especially in such early years, wasn’t so far out there. Harley decided not to press the issue. Not this time anyway.
“Yeah,” she nodded in encouragement. “You talk really good for somebody that learned so late. It’s hard for people to learn when they’re grown up. The brain,” Harley tapped her temple with one finger, “develops early, when kids are really little. First coupla years, babies are like sponges, and their brains grow really fast. That’s when learning is easiest. So you did really good.”
That was the simplest way she could think of to explain how neural pathways were formed. Given the speech patterns she was hearing, it was better to keep the words small. Not that the kid was stupid, because everything Harley’d just said was true. Took somebody pretty clever to relearn to speak, even if she was old enough to have learned to talk when she lost contact with other humans. But if the girl didn’t know the words, then they wouldn’t mean anything to her.
“So you learned to talk later. When you met humans again, right? How long ago was that?” Firekeeper had been with the wolves for about a dozen years, so how many of those were with the wolves alone? How much human influence had she had? How--
Her train of thought was broken as something hot and foul wafted past her nose, and she turned to see that Bud and Lou had come to sit right behind her. There was something to be said for a better diet. When she’d been feeding them, they hadn’t had breath that smelled like that. What had her Puddin’ been giving them? Whew!
“Sit!” she commanded firmly. Then she grunted as they did just that. Bud flopped down, his solid body hitting her back with his full weight. It threw her forward so that she nearly squished Lou’s head as he attempted to set his chin on her knee. It took a moment of tussling to get everybody in place so that they were all comfortable. And by all, Harley meant herself.
Well relatively. Lou’s tongue lolled out the side of his mouth as he watched the wolf, and there was definitely saliva dripping onto her boot. She’d deal with it later, she decided, as her fingers lovingly ruffled fur. She was just glad they’d actually listened this time. “Okay. What was I sayin’ before?”