The Place
The Bog Hollows is a hollow of black bog and warm water, and the warm is the whole of the place, because a bog that is warm is a bog that is alive, and the alive is the law. The hollow sits in a fold of ground between the white hills and the black river, and the fold is the measure the frogloks trust, because a fold that holds the heat is a fold that holds the leap. The surface of the bog is a constant shimmer, a black-brown that is more water than mud, and the shimmer is the color of the warm, which is to say it is a color you can feel before you see it. The water is warm to the ankle in every season, and the every season is the constant, because the hollow has no winter that lasts, and the not-lasting is the law. The sky over the hollow is a flat grey, the color of the fold when the rain is near, and the rain is near, and the near is the calendar. It smells of warm mud and sweet rot, a smell that is the hollow and is also the warning, and the one sound under the rot is the splash, a loud wet crack from the center of the bog that is the leap being read as a word, and the word is the oath, and the oath is the loud. There is no landmark the way a bog has a landmark, but there is one: the First Leap, a standing stone at the edge of the hollow, the oldest stone and the first leap, and the stone is the door, and the door is the splash. What makes the Bog Hollows itself is the leap: the hollow measures everything by the splash it makes, and the splash is the word, and the word is the loud, and the loud is the kept.
How They Live
The Frogloks keep their hollow in the leap, living in holds of black mud and warm water, their chambers above the waterline and their entrances at the waterline, and a hold is raised one leap at a time, because a leap is the season and a leap is the calendar. The holds are low and round, a pale thatch over a darker mud, and the pale is the roof and the darker is the law, and the law is the heat. Light comes from the hollow — the warm shimmer of the water, which glows faintly in the season of the rain, and the glow is the daylight, and the daylight is the kept. Food is the hollow: the small game, the bog-fish, the sweet rot that the frogloks call the sugar, and the salt the traders leave at the edge, and the sugar is the staple, because the sugar is the leap, and the leap is the loud. Water is the hollow, and the hollow is the water, and the froglok drinks and leaps and remembers in the same warm shimmer. Heat is the warm in every season, and the every is the year, and the frogloks have stopped asking the bog for more. The defense is the hollow itself — a visitor who steps into the bog is already in the word's path, and the word is the alarm and the welcome and the sentence, because the bog has a depth that does not show, and the not-showing is the law. The day is not measured by the sun, because the fold does not let the sun in, and the not-letting is the law; the day is measured by the leap, and the leap is the clock, and the clock does not lie about the splash. Every froglok that hatches must make one full leap from the First Leap before the hollow will call it one of its own, and the leaping is the naming, and the naming is the only thing the bog ever gives back.
People
Home of the Frogloks, whose hollows are counted by leap. Thirty holds at the last count, and the count is kept by the leap-wards, which is to say the count is as reliable as the splash, which is to say it is reliable until the mud takes a hold. The leap-wards lead, and rank is decided by the height, because a ward who leaps the First Leap the season the mud is high is the ward the hollow trusts. Nothing that cannot splash is welcome, and the not-splashing is not an insult, because the hollow has a word, and the word has a loud, and the loud has an end. A surface trader who once watched the hollow from the far bank called it a place that talks in water and keeps its promises in heat, and the calling was the truest thing he said and the thing the hollow paid the least attention to.
In Stories
The place where the leap is the only honest thing, and the thing is the word, and the word is the oath, and the oath is the end. The Forgotten have passed the hollow once, on the way to the white hills, and the passing was on the far bank, and the bank was the decision. Uaellaen heard the splash once, in the season of the rain, and the hearing was the loud, and the loud was the only thing that lasted.