Sawtooth Spire i’m looking down the barrel of a string-bean

she anticipated it now, the membrane of the frog’s throat engorging like a balloon, and delighted even more in the funny roo-roo-room sound that came from its bumpy, mucus-slick body. she felt compelled to lick it. 
bereft of any hunting prowess whatsoever, the bullfrog sidestepped her giddy lunge and hopped through the ferns—presumably to find his wayward missus. 
before phaedra could accompany her new croak-and-dagger preoccupation, mahler bodily intersected her path and her attempts to body-swerve him to continue past were unsuccessful.
scruffing her, he toted his daughter back to the den with an air of irritability, though she was too busy trying to squirm out of his grip to notice it. a most dreadful feeling curdled her stomach like old milk once he plopped her back at the threshold of the den wherein the castaway slept.
papa turned his back and started away again to look for her brother,  but phaedra, heedless as ever, pursued him in gamely skips, seizing his bottlebrush tail in a vice of puppy teeth and tugging back playfully but rough, as though there was an unconscious undertow of spitefulness astir.