Sawtooth Spire erbärmlich

phaedra wondered at all and everything, and mahler found that her curiosity often sparked his own renewed interest. had he ever looked so closely at the nodding head of a daffodil? had he truly enjoyed the quiet trickling of brooks, the thick moss upon the moist wood of a long-fallen tree? anything that the dark pastel of her eyes beheld was transformed into a wondrous thing for mahler.
her babbles and scampering and running commentary upon all that they saw kept a smile curved upon the shadowpriest's mouth, and now he delivered a reassuring lap to the paling fluff between her round ears.
"geweih," came the hushed baritone of the voice that buoyed up from the cavern of his chest behind phaedra. "antlers. they vill get bigger and bigger. he vill use them to fight other deer when he too is larger."
there were enough of these fellows in the land for mahler to consider marking this one, sparing him to see what sort of stag he would become. a gift for phaedra and for thade, something to fell during their first year's hunts.
by the time that the snows returned to the land, mahler was unsure that his affrighted mausebär would be so small as to fit just as she was in his embrace. and so he held her a bit more closely, nudged her again, felt the tooth-scour of time's passing.
"vould you like to give him a name?"