Sawtooth Spire you just wanna know those peanut butter vibes

backdated march 22nd

command over her sight had not improved much, but as days went on she was more inclined to keep the blue of her eyes revealed so she could stare at the shapes of her brother and mother as either milled about the den. often she stopped playing and fell into a trance, gaze fixedly studying stirrings amidst the denmouth (a squirrel, chipmunk, the ever-watchful @Mahler) or nebulous shapes of insects skirring across her line of sight.
presently, as one such shape, a sojourning yellow-jacket, tarried by, she quickly lurched forward and clapped her budding milkteeth with surprisingly accurate aim around the thing and held it in her mouth. 
the wasp furiously droned and whirred and swarmed in its clammy stockade, a muffled sound that only @Wylla would be able to hear but it was the mouthfeel that phaedra thoroughly delighted in. it felt like the rumble she knew how to make in her throat, but in her mouth. at first she shuffled her feet excitedly, treading a measure back with surprise  … then grew stock-still, on the verge of tears as a stab of pain bit her tongue. the flesh of her gums was stung by the wrathful brute as well. 
a distressed knot formed on her brow and her mouth yawned wide to shriek with the shock of it. immediately, the wasp darted out and, bestrewn with slobber, cast about on the ground before flying out into the midday sun. 
phaedra wailed and crawled towards her mother, smacking her mouth dumbly as the stings smarted and her pugged nose began to swell. 

mahler had not been present to see the unfortunate choice of snack his daughter had made. he was, however, alerted by her squeal, and swept her up swiftly from her trajectory toward wylla. doktor in service, mahler inspected her with gentle nudgings, clucking his tongue in baritone rumbles over phaedra's predicament.
outside the den was a stone with cool moss, and it was here he carried her, never bringing her out from beneath the motherly eye of his lover. settling phaedra near the pleasant shade of the wind-cut boulder, he lay down, hoping she would find the temperate surface to the liking of her stung mouth.
and in lowering his head, he sought the milky blue of her eye, smiling despite himself to see that little phaedra had been granted a new and wonderful sense.

midway to her destination, phaedra felt herself nudged over and then scruffed by the in-house doktor (he did come in handy, for the child’s frequent visits to his post were beginning to bear out rumors of diablerie amongst the bloodline. what a scandal! child borne of wylla—forged maverick?! such petty gossip …)
with a soft huff, she assumed the roly-poly position of tucking all extremities inwards and hung from his jowls with a dim look made comical by the mild inflammation swelling her snout and cheeks. 
stationed upon the mossy slab, she sprawled and fussed, and then felt the soothing analgesic of the cool moss pour from her belly, to her toes. she stilled, and let her chin rest on the rock vert. the coolness cupped her face lovingly in its palms and mitigated the throbbing sensation, but she still gnashed on her tongue where the stings still pulsed and irritated.
it did not occur to her that she could suckle from the moss as she suckled from her mother’s breast; it would be an ungainly feat anyway, maneuvering her gums against the moss with little relief to show for it. 
enjoying the coolness underbelly, she did not budge, but an afflicted complaint puttered from her throat as she wrestled her tongue against the roof of her mouth.   

poor phaedra. precocious already. mahler shifted closer, lavender eyes observing his little peapod closely. her mouth was still swollen, as he expected, though there was precious little that could be given a child this age. and so he adminstered himself as curative, laving his tongue carefully over her miniscule features and swelled lip.
"it is not so bad. i suspect he is dead now," mahler murmured, thinking dizzied fatherly thoughts of hunting down the wasp and grinding it to dust beneath his paw. he nudged phaedra gently. "it will pass." had this ever happened before? her first pain then; it worried and cut the softer parts of mahler, though above all his logcal self remained figurehead.
"ah vell, at least the moss is pretty to look at."

undeterred by her emotional impulses, the youngling did not wring out all her tears over the situation. as the stings irritated and welled up, phaedra swallowed thickly to combat the blister on her tongue. leaning into the soothing warmth of her vati's ministrations. she closed her eyes. it did not do much to alleviate the throbbing, but his treatment was at the very least a liniment for the soreness that lived on her nerves.
maybe next time she would decide against making an aviary of her mouth for short tempered, buzzing anomalies. really only because she could not yet identify the ones without weapons of mouth destruction. everything else was fair game.
meanwhile, her father clucked. in the solitude of his mind, fatherlike protocol had him holding conference with revenge. however, in the course of thought, he settled on mercy and remained at her side instead, which she liked very much.
the spongy, amphibious greens offered a small reprieve. she welcomed the coolness on her belly, and curiosity drew her mind away from her smarting gums as a ladybug crawled just a hairsbreadth away from her nose.
cleverly, instead of exploring it with her mouth (as one could imagine, the last encounter was still unpleasantly fresh in her mind and tongue), phaedra simply let her eyes accompany the tiny pedestrian on her journey and tried to attract the details of the black dots on scarlet to her sight. squinching her eyes, a fascinated hum crooned from phaedra’s lips as the ladybug took a detour up her pale toes. her eyes lingered sidelong, then suddenly phaedra felt uneasy about the winged commuter coming near her face. there was a black knot in her stomach. 
unsure of herself and this, phaedra cast her attention to her father with stark vulnerability set in her eyes. "mmmm.." she trembled out to him. what's it doing? 

"es kriecht nur," her careful father murmured in his guttural way. little phaedra had suffered greatly at the other end of another insect today. he could hardly hold the babe's fears against her. reaching out his much larger paw, mahler offered its broad scuffed toe to the scarlet lady. 
"it cannot bite us and it only vants to climb high and then fly away," he went on, aware his words tumbled upon ears that could not quite yet discern them. but that was the nature of it, the gargoyle mused to himself. he could talk and talk and talk and phaedra must only listen in her own way. a father's delight, came the new-shining thought.
mahler ducked closer then, observing first the bug and then his daughter's face, seeking to assuage any of the lurking fears that might reside in her still-stung face. perhaps if the pains continued, he could devise a poultice. when she and thade were older, a trip to windholme would also be in order.

she froze when his paw loomed near to offer his own king-sized toes for the vermilion demoiselle. the beetle odysseyed this new estate for a while, her antennae and teensy tiny black legs strutting upon what must have felt like a great grass veld by comparison of her fay size. she was very brave for this in phaedra's opinion (of great import, of course), and the moonmade girl rid of herself of any extant scepticism and scooched in closer to watch as the insect ferried on her daddy's foot. 
before long, having hiked a long ways up mahler's leg, the polka-dotted shards on her back unfolded like pretty origami and their new friend whirred away, probably off to crawl on some other girl's face.
phaedra's attention adjourned from creepy-crawlies to span back to her mahler, only to find him hovering in close proximity. her eyes trailed upwards to meet his. "OOOOER!!" the nonsense spasmed from her like a hiccup, and the use of her tongue in doing so summoned up the smarting pain from the seige on her mouth. she clamped her mouth shut and persistently rubbed her leg over her snout, beads of wetness collecting in her tear ducts.

"poor phaedra," mahler groused, thinking again of the wasp which had harmed his little sproutling. and he had wanted her to enjoy the summertime buzzing of the bees, but now it was doubtful she would be able to withstand such a noise. 
he crooned back at her once, caretaking over the edge of her wounded mouth until such a time as fatherly heart decided it was only wylla and her milk which could soothe the crucible of pain.
"ve go back, ja?" mahler rumbled, tail beating twice upon the earth behind him before he glanced wanly in the direction of the ladybug and began to gather phaedra up for a respite from her long day.

poor phaedra, indeed. she was gonna kick that yellowjacket's candy ass when her teeth came in proper.
she grizzled grouchily as soreness nipped at her cheek flesh. she continued fussing with her mouth, forgetting all about madame scarlet.
cool moss could only do so much. the doktor’s orders were firm—mother’s milk was the only course of treatment. it’s soporific qualities would wane her consciousness of the pain, which had a shelf life of an hour or so, and the swelling would not persist long. a day, perhaps. two if karma was feeling bitchy.
she would revisit moss and ladybugs some other day.
with a thin cry for her mother, the child started shifting off the moss when mahler had her gathered in his maw and returned his daughter and himself to the den.