Jade Fern Grove the phonograph that plays your favorite albums back

Anybody welcome, though be warned if you're not apart of the forming Jade Fern Grove pack, ooo~

Eagerly, he played through the grove alone. Of course, he had ditched his siblings somewhere at some time ago. It had been a fleeting attempt to follow after someone who was skirting by and Pasha had lost them long ago too. He was finding that he quite liked this place a little better than the mountains, and maybe that was because of the easy freedom he had to explore and learn, and of course, grow.

Here, he didn't have to worry about going off some rocky ledge his parents warned him about. Here, he didn't really worry about being corralled even though that happened still. No, the world was his oyster and he was content to play, play, play. He hopped on the log of a fallen tree of generations past, still not quite heavy enough to push in the soggy rot that rested on top of it. And he drew in the smell of the musty wood, interested in it as long as it took him to get over it.

Especially when he found the toad sitting at the other end of the log, eyeing him just as much as he eyed it at first. He thought it was simply another part of the mossy log, but it moved the moment he moved to investigate it. With a yip and a start, he pounced after it, every fiber of his being projecting WHAT ARE YOU.

the postal service — brand new colony

He did not care for his new home. He had found it flourishing with plants but even this did not comfort him, for his mind was overwhelmed with thoughts that he had a hard time managing. When he was younger, he would look at plants, collect them, dry them, store them, and even use them, all without having a single thought as to why. He had simply acted. Now, his mind was filled with their names, their uses, and the symptoms of maladies he had never heard of. He could not so much as glimpse a leaf without being accosted by a voice inside his skull that was none to pleasant to listen to. It was gruff and loud.

He trudged through the ferns of their territory, his white ears slicked against his equally white crown, as if he could block what he heard in his head. Sprawling, broad leaves concealed a dip in the ground, left when some tree had been uprooted in a wind storm, and he tumbled arse over muzzle as he stepped into it. He tumbled hard, and dirt and grass stained his white coat. He snarled at the ground as he pushed himself back onto his feet. "Just great," he grumbled, shaking himself off.

He heard his brother then, and with his face scrunched into its usual scowl he headed toward him. Swift found Pasha pouncing after... something. He walked nearer, hoping to see what had his brother so interested, but as he drew close to the log, the toad sprang toward him, causing him to backpedal quickly until he tripped and fell on his rump with an alarmed gasp. "I HATE THOSE THINGS!" He snarled, feeling like a fool for tripping — again.

Pasha did not give it chase far, for both he and the toad were startled by the sudden appearance of Swift. Of course, all Pasha really saw of Swift was him falling straight onto his rump, which prompted him to chuckle. But as it were, it seemed that Swift knew what it was... and with the toad pinned between them and giving them uncertain looks...

"What is that," Pasha said, tentatively sinking towards the earth to shimmy a little closer to the toad. It side-stepped towards Swift with the same uncertainty of moments before. "So weird lookin'!" It was, it really was. Lumpy and all folded up, eyes all weird on its head. Definitely one of the weirdest things Pasha had ever seen.

"I don't know!" he barked, shooting daggers at the toad, on whom he placed the blame for his latest show of clumsiness. He hated it for that, as he hated so many things these days. Pasha was curious about it, but the smaller Frostfur was convinced it was harmful, not only by way of causing his fall, but in some other unknown way.

"Don't go near it!" He darted forward to shove a paw in front of Pasha, rather ineffectively blocking his route. "What if it bites!" He shifted his leery gaze from his sibling to the offending amphibian. "What if it can make us sick?" He was certain, this and just about everything else, was out to get them.

ITT: ku doesn't remember how six year olds talk at all, which is roughly the "age" they'd be irl ahaha. I NEED TO BORROW SOMEONE'S SIX YEAR OLD AND HAVE SOME CONVERSATIONS.

"What," Pasha said when Swift exclaimed he didn't know — the boy thought certain his brother knew. Well, crud. But even though he didn't know what it was, he seemed hellbent on it being some instrument of pure, unbridled evil. That much Pasha gleaned off of the way he now blocked him, which made the two-toned youth's jaw set uncomfortably.

"But we don't know what it is," he protested with a whine. "What if it gives us magic powers?" He moved around the blocking paw of his sibling to pace a little closer, which only prompted the toad to hop away that much faster. "Besides, Swift, it's scared of us! Look!" He barked then, startling the toad into hopping away from them just a little quicker.

I do not hang out with kids at all so I am winging it lol.

It was an instrument of pure, unbridled evil — he was sure of it. Though he was ever the pessimist, his brother wondered aloud a more optimistic potential, and Swift canted his head as he considered this for all of a moment. "No," he said with a shake of his head. "We don't know what it is. So it's dangerous." There, that was rather irrefutable logic, or so he thought.

His brother moved toward it, stirring the toad to hop away, which caused the white pup to flinch in mild startle, and snap his head to focus squarely on the suspicious amphibian. He shot his brother a sharp, sidelong glance. "It's a trick!" He was certain, following that thing would bring doom.

The way that Swift was hissing and hollering out orders gave Pasha enough pause to wonder just who on earth made his brother the boss. Reaching that age where he was less and less likely to be pushed about, the tan-coated Frostfur could not help but puff his chest out defiantly. He didn't think that poor little critter was going to pull any tricks. It was scared of them!

"I don't think it is, you'll see!' he announced loudly, perhaps even to rival Swift's moodiness as of late. And so Pasha set off, marching right after the hopping toad as he closed in that distance... and perhaps to some sort of chagrin somewhere... went to scoop it up in his mouth.

His brother puffed out his chest, and Swift leaned back in response, flattening his ears. None of his boldness remained, at least not in this situation, and while he had attempted to dominate and resisted challenge earlier in his childhood, he no longer did. Pasha marched off, and Swift stared after him with narrowed eyes. Convinced that the toad was a harbinger of evil, he bided his time to be proven right... for all of a minute before he darted after his brother. He went to seize Pasha's tail and pull him back... but his hesitation had been long enough that he got there only in time to watch his sibling pick the toad up. Swift gasped, and stared wide eyed.

The toad was scooped up in his mouth, squeaking uncomfortably as Pasha mashed it as gently as he could between his teeth. Proudly, the young Frostfur craned his head back to present it, as though he had gone and found some golden goose egg that would save them all from some horrible disaster.

He turned towards Swift, only to find that his brother was right behind him and more importantly, was utterly horrified. At least that was the only way he could aptly describe the expression cast upon his fair-haired sibling. It amused him. "See," he tried to say, though it were muffled from the decidedly foreign creature in his mouth. Nothing bad had happened to him, though the toad definitely didn't taste good.

Actually, it tasted downright awful, but Pasha was trying to prove a point.

Swift raised a brow. He regarded the toad — and his brother — with suspicion, still, even as the amphibian rested between Pasha's teeth and Pasha seemed no worse for the wear. He said and did nothing for several minutes before he took a tentative step forward, and leaned in to take a sniff at his sibling's mouth and the creature within. His nose wrinkled; it did not smell pleasant.

He shook his head and took a step back. "Fine," he grumbled. He still had his doubts. The boy took a seat then. "So what are you going to do with it?"

For every minute that seemed to pass, the more awful that toad truly seemed to taste. And Pasha was willing to believe that it had emptied part of its bladder in his mouth. But he didn't show any displeasure from it, if only as a front to his brother that everything was okay. Still, when the inevitable question came up, Pasha was happy to spit the toad out and keep it in place with a foot. Not too much pressure though, he didn't want to hear that awful squeak out of it again.

"I dunno," he said with a shrug. "Guess we could bury it, or somethin'." Peering under his foot, he was met with an expressionless response from the toad. It didn't seem to care one way or another what they did with it; the toad was already dead on the inside, as far as it was concerned. "We could scare mom with it," he suggested cheekily, a mischievous grin spreading on his face as he looked to Swift. Perhaps that would spark his mother out of her funk. Alternatively, she was probably just as likely to scare her children by chasing them in response. Or not be impressed at all with the "gift". It was hard to say.

Shifting his attention back to the toad, he voiced his thoughts again.

"I wonder what it is, though. Isn't it cool?"

His suggestion would have been to throw it away. He had no interest in burying it, nor taking it to his mother as a gift or as a prank. He had no interest in it what so ever. He had hoped to prompt his brother into discarding it for lack of it having another purpose but even if Pasha did not know what to do with it, he thought it was cool. Swift shifted his mouth. "Ehhh..." He did not think it was cool. He still thought it was trouble.

"Go ask Mom," he shrugged. He could kill two birds with one stone then; present it as a gift or a scare and get his question answered.

What he thought would spur his sibling into a little more of a jovial response failed. It fell flat on his face and wiped the expression from Pasha's face a touch. He didn't know what more he could do to fix that and found that he simply wasn't going to try either. So instead he moved to scoop the toad back up, who this time didn't even try to get away from him as he let up on it.

In spite of Swift's uncertainty, he pawed at his brother for him to follow, not even making the attempt to try and talk. Already, the awful taste was keen to stick around in his mouth again, though it had yet to leave it to begin with. And so what if Swift wasn't interested in possibly startling their mother; Pasha was pretty game to do so on his own anyway. Whether or not his brother came along for the ride was up to him; Pasha had already turned back towards the den in a little eager march.

lmao I feel so guilty sometimes for Swift's grumpiness.

The change in his brother's expression caused the Frostfur son to frown and splay his ears. He was beginning to understand that he was not a pleasant creature to be around, that he could bring others down, but felt that he could not help how he felt about the world. Pasha treated the world like it was his playground, giving not a thought about the dangers that could lurk around the corner. Perhaps it was because, unlike his haphazard brother, he had not had his nose stung by a wasp, got his head stuck in a hole with a mad fox charging him, and had not experienced a bobcat attacking him and his mother. He also had not been sprayed by a skunk, nor had he fallen in foot-trapping mud chasing some swamp creature. In other words, Swift had a number of first-hand reasons for suspecting everything to be a trap, while Pasha did not.

Pasha pawed him, and with a sigh he turned to follow. He was no longer the bold, independent boy that had lived on the mountain, and he was much more willing to follow rather than do his own thing, unless it involved his plants. The two sons headed home in relative silence, with Pasha eagerly marching ahead as his grumpy brother trailed behind, dragging his feet and hanging his head.