"I don't know what's gotten into her," Pakku complained to his mother. "She wasn't nearly this wild when we were younger. Now she wants to run off to the Earth Kingdom together! Can you fathom that?"
"Kanna always did talk about going off to see new places," Tupaarnaq said, more placidly than Pakku thought the situation warranted.
"So did everyone else!" Honestly, sometimes Pakku wondered if Kanna hadn't grown up when all of her friends did. When Pakku did. It was like she was still a little girl dreaming of far off places and exotic peoples rather than a grown woman concerned with carrying on the tribe.
Tupaarnaq shook her head. "Not the way Kanna did. She packed and steered the canoe; everyone else was just along for the ride."
That idea set a thrill of disquiet through Pakku's bones, as if the ice underneath him a shifted so slightly than only a waterbender could notice. Kanna had been a steady presence in his life for years and the idea that he had misjudged her so strongly was profoundly unsettling.
She would settle down as she got older, in the way that people did. Pakku was certain.
