Bronte had not been sleepy that day. She fidgeted inside the den. Between pestering her brothers and pacing back and forth, she found there was little to do. Often, she looked outside. Tempted to go out and explore just a little bit. But what if her mom or dad came back and found her outside?
Huffing, she plopped down right at the entrance with a little pout on her face. Minutes ticked by with little going on. Then she spotted movement. A wolf was approaching. Bigger and older than her, holding something in their mouth. Her curiosity piqued, Bronte rose to her feet, trotting up to greet the newcomer. She yipped excitedly, standing on her back legs, tail whirring.
There was only one kid awake at present, which Dwin found to her liking. She remembered well, how fights and quarrels would break out, if there were four contender for the toy rather than one. Plus - she would never admit it, but having just one tiny potato to wrestle with meant that she could take the toy away any time she wanted. She was not sure, if she would not be conquered, if all three of Teya's brood pitched in the fight.
"Hello, Pascal," she greeted the little girl after she had put down the root for the kid to inspect. Pascal was a combination of "potato" and "rascal" that she had come up with. Because at the present moment these little forest elves were just that. "How's life been?" she asked, leaning down to have a whif at the kid. They had the pungent smell signature of milk, wee, dirt and wet dog, probably, natures way of making the kids easy for the parents to find and disgusting for any predator to try.
She blinked curiously. "Paa...passcal?" She mimicked, not quite grasping the strange new word. She crept further outside, closer and closer to the bigger wolf. Then, between their paws, she finally noticed the gnarly looking root.
With several deep, inquisitive sniffs, she nosed it. Then parted her young jaws, to mouth it. Only to be greeted with the taste of dirt and earth. It had an odd texture. Not at all pliable like meat or filling like milk. Making a face, she drew back, rolling the root away from herself. Curiously, she glanced up at Ceridwen, as if to ask where the heck she had found the thing.
Only one came out, Dwin waited a moment to see, if any other would come and have a peek, but they did not. She let Pascal inspect the toy and felt a little annoyed that the pure distilled awesomeness of this thing was not obvious to the kid right away. They had a lot to learn still. So, when Teya's daughter looked up as if asking a question, Dwin guessed the source of curiousity.
"That's a foot of the Walking Tree monster," she explained helpfully. Asked if this was not a lie (after all she had pointed out to Teya the moral wrong thing of lying), Dwin would argue that adding some colours and exaggerations to reality did not make it untrue. Quite the opposite - she had, in fact caught her foot and tripped over the tree roots on many occasions. And asked to choose, which version of the story you liked better - the one, where you emphasized your own clumsiness or the one, where the clumsiness had been caused by an outside evil force?