Sawtooth Spire erbärmlich

hearing her name so sternly pronounced she turned her head to look at her father, having already forgotten she’d even invaded the realm of “adult language” (very poorly executed invasion, at that). ”mahlew.” she said baldly, blinking at him. she’d heard her mother call him that many times, and saw nothing wrong with referring to him like mama did. of course, mama had also inadvertently painted her bairn an entire rainbow of four letter words. 
her sticky situation was not becoming any less sticky, though papa was incredibly brave, she thought, for licking the absinthian, y u c k y tree glop from her forest tailored coat. she arched her scrawny back against his ministrations, then started to scuff her paw against the ground to work the adhered leaf free, finding that she was only collecting more foliage in doing so. giving in with a huff, she was listening to her father’s response to her question with both ears but maybe a small army of braincells. what had that topic been again? 
o right-o, les bébés, mamas, et cetera. phaedra’s ears strained to their lengths and she screwed her eyes up at him as he revealed to her, very insouciant, that babies came from mothers.
wat
absolutely ludicrous. phaedra burst out giggling, gave him a smug “ur fuckin with me” look.
”your papa has helped lots of mothers” his opinionated daughter nodded at this. ”ya i do dadt, nod ads muchly prolbbly.” she remarked casually as she pulled the leaf stuck to her foot off with her teeth, dry heaving at the sap that came off with it while recalling all the times when wylla had said how helpful she was. for instance, phaedra was helpful for not eating her own vomit after too many berries (in her defense, they taste the same going up as they do going down, so why be wasteful?).
she also remembered one moontime when she was blethering with the owl that lived in their trees, and mother remarked how it’d really help me out if you went to sleep instead of hooting back at the damn owls. among other very helpful things she’d done. that was just one mother, though. helping lots sounded like a tough row to hoe. a whole lotta hoes to row.
”papa, you gwood ad helpin’. “ she earnestly praised him, despite getting the whole concept entirely twisted. it sounded really hard, because it was really hard for her to be helpful when she wanted to be the opposite. either way, the birds and the bees talk may have to wait a few …. aeons. 
at mention of snake, she canted her head. ”seen a sneak? ja! well i do da sneak up on thade and mama and make den go ‘ah!!’! has you papa?” she pressed in turn, sidling against the pillars of his legs with a sweeping tail.