Sawtooth Spire i'm bound by the feeling that's so easy to fake

@Phaedra was somewhere nearby; Stag could hear as well as smell her trail. Since they had moved to the rendezvous, he had taken to visiting her on his morning walks, and had found her company easier than any other wolf in Sagtannet. Whether that spoke miles to her personable demeanor, or his juvenile temperament, he didn't know -- but he knew her smile when she saw him was sweeter than any rosy sunrise.

With a clutch of bubbleflowers in his mouth, Clownfeet Cera cleared his throat as he saw Phaedra's form ahead, his tail wagging a mile a minute.

stag was a savant with his nose—he outfoxed her nearly every day despite her best efforts to hide from him. this morning, she wasn't hiding. instead, she sang a "sweet" little song to herself as she chased baby garter snakes around the grassy knolls. 

♫ lil snaaaaaaake
i'm going do cadtch you
wheder you like id or noooodddd
da more dat you slither away
da more chance you meed you snake godddddd—♫

the ahem cut her macabre melody off, then the familiar sight of clownfeet manifested in her gaze and her mouth gave way to a dimpled smile that lingered as she knelled: "stinkendzehen!" spotting the spray of dandelions held in his mouth. she bounded after him and waited patiently for his delivery, tail awhirl at her hocks as per usual. "wha' ya wannas do doday?" phaedra extended a cant of her head towards him, a wheedling grin perched on her lips. 

Oh, it was a beautiful melody that filled the verdant glade: full of all the goodies -- pitch, compelling story, and promise of death. Stag was bemused by how macabre it was, when Phaedra represented nothing but the highest cherubic order of whelps. Surely not even butter melted in her mouth.

Stinkytoes McClownfeet grinned as she spotted him and gallumphed over. "Mauffshcen," he returned affectionately, his moniker for her muffled by the assortment of blaseblume in his jaws. He dropped the clutch deviously the moment she was close enough, so that the spray landed in little cascades around her. "What does the dragon want to do today? Slay snakes?" He looked around the copse quietly, wondering if snakes could hear and if they could -- if they had the sense to scatter. "You know snakes are good for gardens? They keep the hase and nibblers away."

she giggled and corkscrewed bouncily as the flowers rained down on her and around her, her jaws lurching through the air to try and catch one before it hit the ground. most of them landed in grass, on her shoulders, or on her crown. no matter, phaedra stirred her fur up until she was puffed up like the dandelions strewing the soil. "yow secred word ids lächeln. wanna hindt?" she arched her brows, lips pursed.

"dey do fasd fow me." she muttered dimly, reflecting on the effort she'd spent pursuing them in relentless apollonian circles through the alpine glade. 
upon being informed that snakes were good for gardens, she smiled laconically at his correct use of hase, a word she'd taught him on a different day, but phaedra's expression was burdened with heaviness of heart. "doesn' madder, when mama an' papa bringed us here, had da leave my garden der." her ears lopped pitifully. 

As flowers rained down on the cherub, she seemed to dance in place. Stag was caught in that moment just a second longer -- he would remember it for a long time to come. The dart of sunlight through her fur. Her closed eyes. The flowers as they felt mutely downwards in suspended motion, while soft giggles filled the glade.

He was jolted  back to the present by Phaedra's newest word. His brow crinkled as he repeated it to himself, making nothing of the clue she gave him. "Is it... sick?" He knew that wasn't it, but now he was into teasing category. "Scowl? Frown..?" His face shifted into an exaggerated frown. "Seizure?" He started to convulse, the grin returning. "Oh. Is it -- stinky?"

He'd wait for her answer before he continued, though he looked forlornly past her at where their old den site had been. "We can make a new one. It'll be easy. I'll help make a border with rocks because I am stinkendzehen," (That is strongest deer, wouldn't you know). "It'll be even better. With more flowers and less snails this time."

her face went on a journey of expressions at each of his guesses, between giggle-snorts at him pulling funny faces and whatever this image is emotive of when he guessed seizure and began to imitate an apoplectic attack. "heck ids seed-sure?" she asked with an exaggerated roll of her eyes and a grin when he surmised it must mean stinky. "mmm you know whad sdinky ids already, silly!" she said, vaguely giving herself away. she straightened her shoulders up. "mmm ok, wadch me," she instructed, and when he had his full attention on her, she pulled the biggest smile her face could possibly bear up, her cheeks cramping and her eyes forcing shut. all those little baby shark teeth on full display, it was certainly frightening! 
she relaxed her mouth and moved her jaw so it felt less stiff. "well ifs you need anodder, ids on ma face every minude yow wid me! easy peasy now, ride?" she said, and pantomiming another charming smile with her brows raised demonstrably. 

after he'd presumably guessed correctly, they moved onto the matters of her garden and her disappointment in losing what, to her, had been the very essence of inviolability when it came to negativity and bad feelings. not having that safe space anymore made her feel vulnerable to not only the world but to the worst of her own emotions.  
stag offered to help build her a new garden, and she smiled wanly at his pledge of less snails. she fixed her stare to her pale toes. "idt wads spetchal garden," she revealed with torsion of homesickness in her gut. "how do we cadch da spetchal to pud there? where do find id?" she sighed, thinking of special as a very physical and tangible thing, rather than something wrought from the heart. 
her own childish thinking aside, there was something unimaginably special about that garden that couldn't be replicated, but only she would be able to figure out exactly what made it so when she was much older.

No, not stinky? Stag missed the reference.

First a dimple of a smile, then a bald grin -- the clues clicked into place, though Stag played clueless a moment longer. "Is it..  big teethies?" He grinned in turn, his tail swaying. "Oh, something you are when you're with me..?" He looked up to the sky as if thinking hard on this one, though he knew the answer by now was likely smile - "Is it sassy?"

That clearly wasn't the answer, so Stag grinned in return, every shiny surface of his teeth visible. "It's smile, amirite?" He felt a tug in his heart to hear she was smiling when she was around him -- how could something from the mouth of a babe be so saccharine and sweet?

"We can make our own kind of special." Stag inferred, already nosing about to find a good plot. "You pick the place. Think hard - what about it made it special? We can find little charms to place around it to really make it your own, and if you think really hard of the things you love and enjoy while you're digging or planting or even holding a rock, those good thoughts will transfer to the deed you're doing -- it is good luck." Stag may or may not have pulled this last tidbit out of his behind -- but he did firmly believe that things as small as a rock could hold good and bad energy depending on who had last touched it.

he was getting warmer! she prompted him to keep guessing with a lift of her brows and an encouraging nod of her head, all while her belly dished up giggles from some endless treasure trove of mirth and amusement.
when the bells of her laughter and tittering ferried on the wind and echoed off the mountain walls, she briefly wondered if her papa could hear her from his grotto with nyx, and if he could, was he remorseful? would he feel prickings of conscience? or would he dare feel peace for what he had done, knowing someone else was watching her grow? the man had not descended from his covert post in a number of days—or she had not seen him if he had— so she perished the thought with a shake of her head, returning her attention to the only male constant in her life.
she dared not ever breathe a word of it, but the child'd grown a rather fatherly fondness for stag.
he was different from mahler, though the man had for all practical purposes brought the boy up himself. dearly she loved her papa, even though she was presently very cross with him. she had needed him, and he wasn't there. 
the yearling, on the other foot, was a goofball, without a severe bone in his constitution, and most importantly: he was always game to spend time with her. all phaedra ever wanted was a sense of security and stability, and stag was doing well to accommodate that whilst her mother hunted and wore herself to a shadow trying to helm the pack, alone, while her children's father tried to homogenize his two households that did not wish to yoke together. 
now stag, stag didn't have an authoritarian bone in his body. he made her feel like his equal, and when she woke up in the mornings, it was him she wanted to see second (after mama of course). not just because he brought her bubbleflowers, but because he had instilled in her something mahler had failed to uphold. trust. 

sassy! phaedra nipped at his armpit, knowing it would make him squeal. "assy? mmm nuh-uh." she parried, having not a clue what the word meant, yet epitomizing it all the same. she clenched her own armpits in self-defense, watching him winsomely. 
when he grinned, his black gums revealed themselves to be a scabbard for a row of ivory scythes. phaedra drew back and stared, "yow teefs aw big!" she said, sweeping her tongue over her baby shivs. would hers get that impressive? her attention span briefly relocated to a new zip code as she considered it before she remembered the purpose of his pearly-white reveal.
"smile!" she exulted, satisfied. her chest swelled with a sensation she couldn't put a name to, but would later recognize as pride. "stinkendzehen make phaedra lächeln soviel." the bairn looked at him sidelong to see if he was able to understand her exclamation enough to glean its meaning. had she taught him soviel yet? whaeever—a word for tomorrow, perhaps.

"ow own spetchal?" she chirped, sniffing around in close proximity to stag for any signs of peach trees (in the general run of things, the sign was peaches scattered around a tree; it really took an expert like her to discern). when she was asked to decide on a placement for her new garden in the wide-open garth, she cast hopelessly about. "asdwaeus an' thade couldn' ged pas the biding bushes do ruin da lasd one," phaedra said, referring to the spines of the purple loosestrife. she'd been sticked once, and that's all it took for her to forge her own prinzessin-sized path around the briar. "i don' see any of dhoes here." she scuffed her paw against the earth, eyes clocking their surroundings.
when he informed her that she could transfer good luck to rocks and charms by simply manifesting love and joy into them, she sucked in her cheeks until they were hollow. "whad ifs ... somebodies only had bad thoughds? whad happens den?" she wondered openly with eyes very interested in a pinecone pinned under her foot.
what he spoke of, it sounded so much like magic. but she knew that her insides were a cauldron of hellbroth and hexes, and phaedra didn't want a garden at all if it existed to make her feel sad. 

Laughter filled the glade, though it was overshadowed by a fleeting feeling of abandonment on Phaedra's part. Stag did not know the inner workings of the girl's heart, and had he known of the melancholy that threatened to set up shop in Phaedra's conscience, he would have held her all the tighter.
Jerking his elbow away with a giggle, Stag delivered the much anticipated squeal that was customary of him when he was assailed by needle-teeth; he gave no riposte, for already Phaedra was nimbly flitting away like the mischievous faerie she was. "My teeth are big?" Stag grinned, bearing every row. "All the better to ---" He leaned in with a sloppy lick -- "GIVE YOU KISSES."

 He did not follow through, for Phaedra's soft quip was enough to stay him. Lachen -- laugh, maybe? He wasn't sure what soviel meant, but did not press as the conversation naturally transitioned back to a matter of importance: Phaedra's new garden.

"Our own special." Stag confirmed, rolling a rock with one of his big old clown feet.  He didn't see any loosestrife either, but if need be, they could fashion their own barricade to prevent pesty brothers from intruding. "We can always find some and plant it around the perimeter.." He suggested, scanning the vicinity for any sign of briars. 

Finding little besides rocks and pinecones, Stag put them together in a small pile as he thought of Phaedra's most recent question. He gave it careful consideration before he replied. "Those objects probably become bad luck.. But I don't think you need to worry about that -- you are good, Phaedra. Only good things can come from you." He nudged her softly as if to hopefully push her away from such dark thoughts. "Go pick a place, and I will start putting stones around it to keep your sdinkenbrüder at bay."

the lick sent a shock of fur up her cheek and she smushed his face away with a paw, taking up arms against this doting blitzkrieg. the threat of more kisses was enough to send her scuttering a few paces away with a shrill noise that flushed all the birds from the trees above and spooked a nearby squirrel up a tree to the safety of her drey. 
phaedra pranced back when it was clear the threat was set to rights, made her comments, and they promptly knuckled down and got to work on the garden, colloguing meanwhile.
phaedra was instructed to find a place, and she delved into the task, although all this talk of bad luck was a bur stuck on her mind. she swallowed thickly. stag assured her of her goodness, but something within her mind cater-cornered from that belief. her father had said something similar on that terrible day in the backwater, she remembered. still, she struggled to regard it with certainty.
just in case, as she went, she was careful not to impress any bad thoughts on a thing she touched. even the soil. "ich bin nichd schlechd. ich bin nichd schlechd. ich bin nicht schlechd. ​ich bin nicht schlechd." she chanted underbreath, trying to convince herself just as much as the things around her, gazing sedulously at the ground as she fared forth.
when she finally looked up, she stopped in front of a tree with branches that pooled across the earth like a drapery of curtains. she peered up at it, then glanced around, gaze landing where an ivory-bloomed dogwood stood.
there was no peach tree, or fairy circles, or bushes of fox-plums, but there was this. 
"here, i think." she called to stag, closing her eyes and forcing whatever flyspeck of goodness she possessed within her into this spot. phaedra flexed her claws into the topsoil, whispering, "only good," to herself.

Stag laughed as he was pushed away, letting Phaedra scamper off without much protest. Fine, he would make up for the missed kisses later.

He thought he heard her muttering something under her breath, but other than keeping an eye on her form (and the things she startled as she went), Stag didn't helicopter. He was busy nosing along a small collection of stones when she called to him. Securing one in his jaws, Stag dropped his head and observed the quiet spot Phaedra had selected.

Under the eaves of pine-laden fir, there was a flat of pinestraw and loam. The earth was soft and workable, the shade just filtered enough -- Stag thought it would make a fine garden, indeed.

He dropped the first stone near the coarse bole. "Perfect." Then, he went back for more -- eventually, the collection of stones became a pile, and then a carefully constructed scree. It was rudimentary, but the first border went up in short order.

a couple more to wrap up? <3

phaedra helped with the stones as best she could, dropping mostly mouthfuls of pebbles and rockshards upon the more formidable masonry, until they'd (see: stag) erected the first segment of her palisade against the ilk of gremlins. observing "their" hard work, she sat plumb on her pale tuchis and said, "vollkommen," turning to smile at stag, "perfec'," she revealed in english.
sure, she could have given him the easier word perfekt, but what fun would that be? besides, its adjective was easier for her to say. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
growing bored, as children were wont to do, of collecting stones, phaedra gave her friend a secretly sly look and then dramatically gasped in horror. "d'd'move! be very sdill," she whispered as she crept round to stare at his face with a look of blatant disturbance, "j-jus' d'panic, i'll ged id..." 

Phaedra's sundry millwork was picked through at will by Stag, who smiled at her contributions and took special care to place them front and center, no matter how small or obscure each shard appeared. At last they had a clear wall demarking the barebones schematic of Phaedra's garden. Enough that he sat down alongside her and surveyed their work.

A few more days and the cobble-stones would be a clear wall. A few days after, a strong deterrent. In the weeks that came, a garden.. He could see it when he closed his eyes, a smile on his face as he imagined all the magic and fun times they could have, in Phaedra's garden kingdom. Where she could go for a little while to forget all the misfortune that had befell her...

He opened one eye as he heard her gasp loudly, keeping the other closed. The imagined garden kingdom was fading away, but her concern (sneaky, or no?) was very real. Stag's other eye opened slowly and he stilled, speaking in a hushed whisper. "What is it??"

archive after one more from you? mwah

"d'worry i god id, my teefs are small ..." she said, like she was meant to pluck a louse from his fur. as she drew closer to his face, her expression transformed from horror to disturbance, to a look of severity, and then, like goddess laverna, the trickster grinned cheekily.
phaedra summoned up all the saliva she could into her jowls and gave his jawline all the way up to his eyeball a long, drooly, puppy-breath lap of her tongue. she spun back and giggled, slapping both paws on the ground with a playful gnarr. "all d' beddar d' give you küsse!" she declared, daring him to exact his revenge by blowing a wet raspberry at him and jetting into the woods. 

Stag kept artfully still, waiting with ears splayed for Phaedra to pluck whatever it was from his fur. Spider? Snake? Louse? His breath was held as she leaned in, but he realized too late it was all a masterfully executed ploy and the side of his face was sodden with saliva.

"HEY!!!" Stag roared to life, his tone not unkind. Phaedra was off like any miscreant after dealing a heavy dose of mischief, and Stag pelted after her with a grin wide across his face. "That's right, YOU BETTER RUN!" He taunted after the imp, but he had no intention of doling out any revenge save an equally sloppy kiss.

The woods echoed with the pair's laughs and taunts, and as the afternoon sun slanted towards a long and golden glow, a peace came over the spot where they played -- which lasted well into darkness.