Sawtooth Spire dear god: thanks, if you loved me the vegetables would be extinct

Stag was about the worst audience a starving child like Phaedra could have; her artfully mastered dirge about child-abuse and six counts of willful neglect tickled his ears, but did not rouse sympathy. His brow wrinkled as he looked at her bumbling towards him; she was like a little fuzzy pinecone.

Only really, really loud.

Up until one of his clown feet sent a cartridge of dirt splattering towards her. Stag held in his breath, fearing the mini-avalanche and what new pipes it might open in Phaedra's chilling symphony -- but this time, all that she managed to summon was a kitten's gentle mewl?

Adorable.

Stag's ears airplaned. Never had he ever dealt with anything like this. For each step she took towards him, the more upset and full of overwhelming anxiety he became. He didn't know squat about pup-rearing, but he somehow sensed she was dangerously close to a hidden threshold that must not be passed, at all costs.. He shifted uncomfortably, looking to his left and his right like a very unsure pedestrian about to cross the world's busiest intersection. Surely at any moment, Wylla or Mahler would reappear, right? He scanned the sky just in case, as if one of them would come drop in by plane, drone... or canadian-goose/harpy in Wylla's case.

Clearing his throat, Stag tried as gently as possible to push Phaedra back under the den's eaves. He did so the way one might tentatively push back a bucolic piranha, or COVID-19 patient -- his pawpads serving as buffer between her noise-factory and his body (slightly more important). She was round, so she'd roll back into place, right?