Sawtooth Spire when everything was broken, the devil hit his second stride

Silence stretched taut between them. While Phaedra scrambled past demons in her own mind, Wylla futilely tried to imagine what thoughts might be tumbling through her daughter’s head. She could only scrape the surface of Phaedra’s torment and emotional trauma. Having grown up entirely without a father, she thought she understood, but Tachyon’s total absence was infinitely better than Phaedra losing time with her papa in broad sight of him. She couldn’t possibly know how that felt.

Eventually, Phaedra began to surrender to her body’s needs. Relief washed warm through Wylla’s heart when the girl suckled water from the laden moss, then requested more. She failed to even notice the difference in tongues. She complied at once, leaving Phaedra with the first moss ball while she fetched another.

This went on for a time while Phaedra began to recover, Wylla playing porter for every request her daughter made. When she seemed more stabilized, Wylla helped her back to bed, and resolved in the morning to be a better mother to her sun-spun child. She would watch more closely for signs of neglected needs, be more attentive to the silent signals Phaedra gave, and try to be the best parent she could be. She would fail, but she owed it to her daughter to at least try.