Swiftcurrent Creek kindertotenlieder

sorry about the length x_x

perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Mahler (apart from the chromatic intrigue his eyes held) was the clement nature he possessed, even in the presence of a bustling child. it was unlike the vexation she often received from mother, although the volatility of Wylla did little to trouble her daughter, and being that they so obviously shared genetic material, Tiercel was shaping up to be a blowhard of her own right. it was the distinction that made interacting with those less mercurial far more relevant to her interests. the calmness fulfilled a subconscious need.

it did not occur to her that the man with floweret eyes was speaking in any language foreign to her. all language was, on the whole, foreign to her. she could recently grasp consonants, but her command over dialect was troglodyte-esque at best. she expressed herself chiefly through throat static and declamatory visual presentation, but ever and again she solicited her underdeveloped vocal chords. her blue eyes widened eagerly when he flashed the scut under his paw, the spirit of curiosity winnowing through her like a bracing breath of wind through the sward beneath them. 

tail, he demonstrated. her ear flicked to register the word, but her brain cataloged the artifact under the same name as everything else: ”iss,” she whispered assuredly, certain of its placement in her inventory of mementos. she drew up to the tail. hirsch. gunpowder black ears wrenched towards him, eyes following with a strange look—close, but no cigar! ”issssss.” she repeated, firmly as a young child could—elongating the 'sss' sound as if to clarify her locution. 

she went back to investigating his tribute, following Mahler's notion to sniff it with inquisitively quivering nostrils. tactually, it was reminiscent of the rabbit’s pelt from weeks before, but for her that memory was long departed, weeks too long for her present reflection. hirsch, he rehashed, and this time Tiercel gave the suggestion some thoughtful meditation. the adults repeated things to her a lot, and the only way she could appease them seemingly was to try and wrap her mouth around their iterations. she turned his word over in the palm of her mind like a well preserved fossil, lingering in her study of the mauve gaze leveled to her height. ”iw... ssh.” she attempted, mutilating his mother tongue with the incompetence of callow youth.

she repeated the word, but quietly and to herself, ”irwshh,” then pivoted on her heel to strut around the tuffet, glorying in its novelty with a heft of her chest and a bellow. "IRWSHHH!" Mahler’s ensuing input, in light of this, went in one ear and out the other. es ist für dich, mäuslein; the linguistic avalanche spotlighted a lack of comprehension in Tiercel, but it bore no meaning to her amateur ear and without a second thought she gathered the plumose object into her mouth.

she explored her world exclusively by placing her teeth on and around it, so her initial impression was that this offering was meant to be consumed—though that impression was quickly realized to be false, and replaced with the belief that it may be more readily appreciated as a plaything instead. the fuzz stuck unpleasantly to the roof her mouth and tickled her gums, and attempts to expectorate resulted in sputtering and rearing her head as the floss clung steadfast to her tongue.  

when she was at last able to successfully eject the not-candy, Tiercel gave her head another definitive shake, one ear folding itself inside out as she did so. ”oop!” she declared, dancing away lightly on her toes. the tail, now damp with slobber, was lowered at, and the taciturn man was looked to for guidance. so what do i do with it? her features appeared to construe. she had no brothers or sisters to teach her tug-of-war or keep-away, and her mother's patience was modest when it came to accustoming herself to the role as playmate as well as disciplinary ground zero.

she sidled up to the prone zeta's side with reservedness, opting instead to try and tug at his ear as the toy's potential went yet untapped.