Nova Peak If you must mourn, my love, mourn with the moon and the stars up above

Wylla remained giddy with each day spent upon the peak, and found she had ample energy to burn establishing their claim and maintaining their borders. By now, their perimeter had a healthy collection of scent markings and it would be impossible for passersby to overlook their presence. At early dawn, she departed for the northern border, but found she was satisfied with the strength of the markings there. After a very quick and short patrol that carried her to a dreary, drizzly sunrise, Wylla abandoned the borders to traverse the territory proper.

Although her meandering path from regrowth to old pine forest to rocky ridges seemed aimless, she actually had a destination in mind. They hadn't established a pack rendezvous yet, so she couldn't be certain where @Phaedra was and therefore she wandered, but between her teeth she gently clutched a stem of fireweed. A peace offering, she supposed, but she held it out in front of her as though she thought the pretty violet blossoms would summon her reserved daughter from wherever she hid on the mountain.

wylla: pspspspsps

while the battleship-grey mother hunted for her daughter, she became the prey to the thing she sought.
phaedra blinked as the spindle-shanked matriarch hiked past her without even a glance, meandering rather in her contemplations (or so it seemed to her)—maybe it was just the flowers clogging her sinuses, but she seemed to have misplaced her sharp sense of smell from carrying the perfumed blossoms. whatever the reason, wylla's milkglass daughter watched her pass with an impish smile on her face, motioning to caintigern with a pitch of her head to go elsewhere. 
the huddled foxweasel didn't need to be told twice. he bound away into the cover of some grassy frith near a shady recess of trees, just in case he needed the more protected crannies of the branches above. 
phaedra twisted her lips in deep thought—was she still avoiding her mother because she was so faint-hearted that she could not cope with one vase-shattered-on-the-wall argument? she did not want to be. she'd stopped sleepwetting before they'd departed the sunspires, and though the bad dreams recurred, she did not speak of them or suffer night terrors. instead, she had swallowed a key to the door of a secret world that she would never share with any other. 
except caintigern, of course. who would believe a weasel? he was her best friend, besides.
either way, she couldn't avoid them forever, but phaedra's recent unavailability was more circumstantial of her parent's preoccupation with staking their claim here; they didn't have eyes on the backs of their heads, which gave her, for the most part, carte blanche of the place.
their new homestead seemed to do all of them a bit of good. open spaces could be coursed without fear of spearing oneself on the cuspidal, vermil crown of the sunspire's grand summit—endeared as it had been to most that had lived there.
the peak here provisioned them all with an expansive repertoire of terrain to explore. even phaedra had mellowed out in the time since. she enjoyed roaming the swaths of flowers, acres of rainbow freckles to gild the green. the buttercup petals felt like especially soft velvet against her face, and made the sky strikingly blue.
it made her think of her before-home and the secret garden there, hidden like treasure amidst thick forestry near the cave her mother had birthed and raised them in. the peach tree, and the fairy ring, and the terrible backwater that dwelled behind her lids.
just as much, it made her think of thade. he never cared for flowers as far as she knew, but she thought of him often nonetheless; thought enough for everyone who managed to forge ahead despite the missing puzzle piece that completed their small family. no matter how many times she looked under the couch, the piece was never there. still, she looked. just in case. everytime she thought to, she looked.
presently she was edging the marked paths, whisper-footing through the briery newgrowths when her mother passed by. she stood still, and once she was sure caintigern was unget-at-able, lashed the tip of her plume with brattish intent. her gemgaze remarked the fireweed bouquet cradled in her mother's mouth; did wylla know those were a mild laxative this late into summer? phaedra knew that from personal experience. 
muddy and wet from the rain, phaedra pogoed out of the bushes and demonstrated the most terrible shriek of a boogeyman she could muster from her lungs at her mother's behind.
how 'bout them apples? she smiled, sweetly hitching one foreleg over the other.

Flowers were remarkable things. The cloying scent went largely unnoticed by Wylla, as did the fact they made her nose-blind as a day old whelp. She passed by Phaedra's hiding place without seeing or smelling her daughter, which was testament to just how distracted she was. The recent buoyancy in her step could be mistaken for relief that they were out from under danger's thumb, but there was more to it than that. For the first time in ages, she felt almost happy.

Never fully, and never all the time; a piece of her remained in the Sunspires where she'd left her son. That hole ached the most in the afternoons. She remembered having to nose Thade awake on many occasions, discouraging the boy from sleeping too late, but he'd always grumbled and groused and clapped his paws over his eyes. Eyes whose final colour she didn't even know. His absence would always be felt. At times, she thought she saw his ghost skimming the rain clouds and her heart shuddered in her breast. Her eyes still filled with tears now and again; guilt nibbled at the edges of her psyche most days.

But for the first time in ages, she allowed herself to be happy. That was enough to blind her to Phaedra, so the shriek from behind was unexpected and unwelcome. Wylla's guard hairs spiked along her back at the same time she jumped, hind end rocketing up to eclipse her shoulders and tail squirreling away between her thighs. No amount of agility in whirling around would mask the reaction from her impish daughter's sights. The fireweed fell to the ground as her face contorted into a snarl, but it faded when recognition filtered past the alarm.

What the fuuuuuuu-uh-lying foxes are you doing! she cried, amending her curse last minute and delivering it through a broad wolf's grin to try to hide her exasperation. She was reminded suddenly of a much younger Tiercel, before anger built and burst between them, and another nail—whore—pinged in her heart, sending a wave of unwanted pain through her.

phaedra could have no possible idea how much inner-pain her mother harbored in the port of her heart, as children were quite only aware of themselves and cared merely aboout their own experiences in the world, up to a point. phaedra was perched on that point like a gargoyle on her cathedral plinth, and it was up to chance if she would emerge from the chrysalis of grotesquerie into a being of comity and and conscience and empathy or not.
there were the late bloomers, and then there were the guttersnipes that called their mothers rude names, like whore. tsk. but she was still only a child. there was hope for her yet.
inside wylla had to be some number of mortar tubes, because she went up in smoke the moment her mud-caked witchlet let the goblins loose from her soul and sicced them on her. she made for a very beautiful firework display as she sparked off only to be recalled back to earth with a fairly displeased look on her face before she realized who stood behind her. phaedra watched it unfold with awe couched in her face, gaze following her trajectory up ... and back down, and not without some impressive acrobatics inbetween.
it was like placing a cucumber next to an oblivious cat.
she'd discovered her forte.
a tinkling gigglesnort lurched phaedra backwards onto her haunches. her mother's flower bunch, now strewn across the fenny ground, caught phaedra's eye again, but wylla's shrill, restrained shout made soldiers of her ears.
she puckered her lips and cast her eyes about, shrugging in response only to meet her mother's tournesol gaze and say, "lookin for addtention i guess. wha'dre YOU doin in my swamp?" she stomped her feet in the mud, making noises that probably closely resembled what gremlin mating calls sounded like.

Eventually, the galloping of her heart was bound to stop, but it was a long time coming. She was still huffing through her nose when Phaedra stomped to punctuate her query. What was she, three blind mice and a gaggle of dwarves toting a casket?! Last I checked, this is my swamp! she pointed out, tipping her lip at the last minute into a smirk that hid how startled she still was, but you can have it if you pay rent.

Three deer hooves a month, and throw in a mushroom or two if you want your very own cache.

I was going to give you these flowers so you can start another garden, she said, unaware that Stag had already constructed one for her, but now they've touched the ground, so they're not special anymore. She returned her daughter's pout with an impish approximation of her own. Phaedra had actually saved Wylla from swallowing any parts of the flower, which would've launched her right into intestinal distresstinal, but she didn't know that. She was too busy trying to playfully guilt trip her daughter for scaring the bajeebus out of her.

I wanted to ask for your help with something, she shared, on a more serious note.

no! she was a goblin! goblins ate mice! "you mussa checked long ago, 'cause MINE now," she disputed her claim (squatters rights, binch!), and cackled as the morass squelched between her toes. she worked each pale phalange into the mud, throwing her mother the arch look of a car salesman. "you can have id back, but you hafda eat a slug," phaedra snickered with cheek. 
the inner-goblin was forced back into its gaol and phaedra quit her schlepping, filthy plume fluttering at her hocks in a question mark when her mother addressed her ruined flowers. she remarked her mother's pout with a smart-arse look. phaedra may well have surefootedness when it came to setting guilt-trips, as her eyes plucked up from the blossoms to her sassy mother, "uuuuum they come from d'ground! theres a whoooole field of em. also they make you poo all over if you swallow any," she made a brief grimace, and then the conversation flowed into something far more intruging—  
"you need my help?" she gawked. phaedra, as most children did, aspired to be as helpful as possible to grown-ups, because children were rarely, if ever, regarded as helpful in any fashion. they were the pimple you just wanted to fuss with constantly because of their annoyance and in-your-faceness, generally speaking.
she dithered on the balls of her feet. "okay, you may ask," she nodded with as much feigned solemnity she could muster to match the seriousness of her mother's voice. 

Well, la dee fuckin' da, said Wylla under her breath, ignoring Phaedra's insistence that she trade her swamp for eating a slug. Okay, so what if flowers came up from the ground? Maybe their blossoms only became special after they sprouted and lifted from the soil, then what? What did Phaedra know?! More than Wylla, of course, who balked when her daughter revealed that the flowers would make her shit her brains out if she ate them. Fine, then, that's the last time I try to contribute to your garden, you urchin! Delivered humorously, of course, rather than the harsher and more serious insults she'd once flung at a very young Tiercel.

She very nearly snorted at the way Phaedra agreed to help. She was glad her daughter seemed less withdrawn here, no doubt in part due to the mysterious friend that climbed on her and made her fur smell like food. Maybe Star was right. Maybe being friends with a prey animal wasn't the worst thing in the world... though Wylla certainly still believed it betrayed a proclivity for mental illness to be friends with one's food, she dared not think ill of her own once-cherubic daughter, let alone speak it aloud.

Well, she said, flopping down on the wet, marshy ground with a squelch. She'd regret that later when the water seeped up through her coat. Oh well. I was hoping you could teach me some of your secret words, she shared. To surprise your papa, you see. Also so she could understand a little of what the two muttered between themselves, but that was beside the point.

"my garden an't need poop flowers, so pfpfffft!" she pinched her eyes shut and blew a spittling raspberry, scrunching her brows together. she didn't know what an urchin was, thoough, so she folded her cards and just planted herself on her rear.
wylla sat across from her like they were in a business meeting, her own haunches flumping in the muck with what sounded like flatulence letting loose from her behind. phaedra suppressed a wheeze of laughter, catching it in her cheeks. "ooooooo you farded, didn' you?" she teased, plume beating a tattoo against the earth. 
she shed her childish idiosyncrasies when wylla imparted that she wanted to learn some of her father tongue, expressing her rationale—that this was a surprise for papa. a conspiratorial smile begged for use of her lips.
hope in herself was a worm-eaten drupe, so the emphasis on wylla hoping for her daughter's help made the girl dimple. she considered—only in a pithy thought, of course—using this as means of finessing some higher privileges for herself ...
ultimately, phaedra was just heartened to feel useful, when all she had felt for months was like a burden.
"ja! that means yes," she said. mahler's dearth of presence in her formative months had made her command over his tongue the middling sort, but with the treasury of words she did know, phaedra could figure most of it out herself so long as it didn't get too complicated. 
"wha'ya wanna learn?"

Why hadn’t she expected the mud to make such a traitorous sound? Scowling, Wylla promptly replied, no! I would never. Must’ve been you.

And so began their lesson. She observed how strange it felt to be the one doing the learning, while her daughter played her role as teacher. Not so long ago, Wylla was teaching Phaedra the basic life lessons that all wolf pups must learn. Soon, maybe Phaedra would be able to teach her mother more than just secret words in a secret tongue. Perhaps she would puzzle out some tricks of her own for getting by on this mortal coil, and perhaps Wylla would learn a thing or two from her clever progeny.

But today, it was words. And Wylla, having paid almost no attention to the mumbling language shared between Mahler and his daughter, was woefully ill prepared. What’s my name in your secret language? she wondered first, followed by, and yours? And papa’s? At no point did it occur to her that names were exempt from language.

Or that she already knew hers, and oft shuddered at the Dracula-esque drawl that marked it.

phaedra gave her mother a strange look and palpated her thoughts for an answer apropos to the request made of her. her parents did not have names that translated to the secret language (hers, however strange, did) so she decided upon a more scholastic response.  "you, mama, woul' be mutter, papa is vater, 'n me ... phädra."
perhaps favorably for wylla, her father's "draculian" burr hadn't stuck to her tongue in consequence of his absenteeism. it sometimes returned to her unbidden when she was speaking to him, but she seldom fell to the lot of such moments.
"names d'usually change" or at least, birth names didn't. nicknames were numerous and oft-times like pop rocks in apprenticed mouths.
the palebrow'd girl bunched her lips together and teethed on her lower gums. an afterthought, after the woman had already gone under the tutelage of her bilingual daughter: "affer i help you, will you answer me a ques'ion? jus' one, thas'all" 
even if wylla refused the barter she would help her regardless, but phaedra had asked because she couldn't bear another moment of being wrought in this troubling penumbra.

Oh, said Wylla, feeling astoundingly dumb when presented with the knowledge that names didn't change. That seemed obvious, in hindsight. She pursed her lips and tried to think of what else she'd like to learn. Before she could even conjure up something (there was a particular phrase she was looking for, but she didn't want to ask it right off the bat in case Phaedra latched onto her intentions and beat her to the punch, that would be embarrassing for her), the sun-spun Skarp asked for one question in return.

You can ask me however many questions you want, at any time, said Wylla, unable to mask the confusion that wound through her tone. Why do you think you can only ask one? The immediacy of the assumptions she made was startling, but characteristic. Who but Mahler would've made her feel so unsure of herself? Wylla was wholly unaware of the role she'd played in Phaedra's turmoil, having believed she was the better, more reliable parent all this time. She was still completely oblivious that their daughter had overheard their shouting match.

at her mother's couched confusion phaedra lifted her shoulders as far as she could to her ears and averted her gaze, in doubt and worried there would be an unforthcoming response to her question. her eavesdropping on their passionate argument had put her out of humor for a time, but the question etched on the rafters of her mind was perhaps something wylla was not expecting.
or maybe she was. maybe she couldn't answer it at all.  
"i don' know. its jus' ... well, this one is impordan issall." she felt flustered, flushing hot and tingly behind her ears like she was sucking on something sour.
she twisted her lips pensively and then decided it would be better if she asked after helping her mother. it was one part avoidance and one part half-understanding how it might curdle the mood of their meet.
"whadya wanna say d' say d'him? your names ... ? " she trailed off with an amused wrinkle on her snout. "you coul' say küss mich papi!" she giggled, closing her eyes and demonstrating with a kissy-kissy face, making smooching noises forbye, in case her puckerfish expression didn't get the message across.
the fact that she used daddy in place of mahler wasn't intentional, but he was her daddy, and her brain was great at crossing linguistic wires.
maybe ... he'd like it though? something to chew on, wylla.

Wylla made a thoughtful sound in her throat, but didn’t say anything more on the subject of Phaedra’s question. It might be for the best if she had only one important question, because that implied it was a weighty one, and Wylla wasn’t sure how ready she was for those. There were a hundred things her daughter could want to know about. All of them were complicated.

She parted her lips to say what she’d really meant to ask, but then spluttered when Phaedra filled in the blanks for her. Heat crept rapidly over the sharp lines of her cheeks, flushing full across her muzzle. If not for her fur, she’d be bright red. Hell no, she retorted. Not in a million years would she ever speak to Mahler in such a way.

Besides, everyone knows he’s turned on by doms, calling him daddy would just make him flaccid.

I wanted to know how I would tell you, she emphasized with a slow, overly deliberate exhale, that I love you.

"... well i'unno that one, so," phaedra said after a contemplative beat in response to her mother's exclamation toward her suggestion. mahler never used their not-so-secret-anymore language for "unsavory words", not even a word like hell, so if that's what wylla sought, she had to go in search of some other german dragoman. 
she pressed the pads of her feet into the mud, smearing her legs in this and that direction "eheheheh," until her mother's voice raked up her ears again. her eyes and then the rest of her face followed suit, blinking at the pulse on her in the equation. "you wanna say d' papa you love me? dat is the surprising him?" how very dare you ... she screwed up her eyes and her lips shriveled like a prune. 
her braincells needed to hold a council meeting for this one. her eyes skirted to the left, then stared empyrean in thought, before making some sense of what she was actually being asked. "oooooooh," she rolled her gaze back towards wylla and tilted her head with a queer look, "really? you wen'—" phaedra did an impression of her mother's ponderous sigh, "—like you was gonna ask me how d' say something like," she paused and raised her brows, "eh i unno," and made a curious hm sound in her throat. she shrugged.
"ok, you say: ich liebe dich, phaedra. ich, i, liebe, love, you. i mean. dich, you. ich liebe dich!" she instructed. it wasn't the hardest sentence to commit to memory, and fortunately for wylla there were no syllables that would impede her daughter's tongue.
"ya sure you don' wanna say summin more like, sie furzen im schlaf, phaedra? same thing, jus harder way. and more impressioning if ya ask me." poker-face. 

How fortunate for Wylla that practically the entire pack's glut of children could speak it, then!

Alas, she wasn't interested in learning another language in its entire, or even for the simple pleasure of cursing in it. She merely wanted to show Mahler a tenderness she reserved for him, and him alone. Phaedra seemed to catch onto her scheme for a moment, causing her face to flush, but then the girl trailed off and dropped the thought. Maybe she hadn't picked up what Wylla was putting down and maybe she had—she wasn't about to ask.

Her daughter offered two different phrases. Ick leeb dick? It sounded preposterously like something a child might mutter under their breath to rouse a round of giggling in an elementary classroom. The side eye she fixed upon Phaedra then communicated her sincere doubt that that meant I love you at all. She was much quicker to believe the second phrase, and equally quick to latch onto it being a more prestigious and impressive way to say it.

See fur zen im shluf? That seemed far more likely to mean what she wanted to Wylla than lick my dick or whatever Phaedra said a minute ago.

the kind of nectarious, perfervid love her mother meant was not a form phaedra herself was aware of— that low-sighing feeling of saudade.
not yet.
she was conscious to the spectacle of love that latchkey kids well knew; a fire escape type of love. to the moonflower it was just a thing you said to anyone who made you feel warm inside, and not to those you wanted to slingshot into the sun. 
suffice to say, wylla's request hadn't unbosomed her to any vulnerability that her daughter was like to pick up on. that's why she was volunteering more interesting alternatives! she was being helpful, by helping her mum come up with more advanced turns of phrase.  

a crunchy look came unbidden to her face as wylla attempted i love you. the first half was close enough, but the stress she put on the ending was ... well, what it was. phaedra bellied her cheeks out with a breath, exhaling: "ih-leeb-deh," more slowly this time.
maybe she was talking too fast. the secret language was a very rapid-fire tongue, but in learning, haste made waste.
as for her second option, wylla seemed more interested. phaedra suppressed the chuckle that threatened to barge from deep in her tummy, playing it off with a small titter that seemed like she was mere amused by the amateurish enunciation. "almos'! ze for-tzen em shloff," she again relaid, slower this time, tail papping against the wet earth.
"yes, tha'll do more nicely." phaedra nodded sagely.

Wylla pressed her lips squarely together when Phaedra looked like she was about to laugh. She felt stupid for asking her daughter to help her in this endeavour now. It seemed a certainty that Phaedra would privately mock her now; she would do the very same if Lusca had ever asked her to teach a language that was difficult for an untried tongue.

She attempted the second phrase a few more times until she was satisfied with the sound of it. It still came thick and clumsy on her lips, but it was close enough. He'd get the idea. Then it was Phaedra's turn to ask her question, and this writer will never know what the question was, or how Wylla responded to it before they parted ways.