Noctisardor Bypass i will hold this house up with my own two hands

PPSPSPSPSPPSP HERE PUPPPY????!

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: rated heheh for sexual innuendo

phaedra never could appreciate what it meant to be on top of grooming. the girl liked dirt, and making herself plain. in this way she was much like the lotus: fair and eye-catching and all, but with roots latched in mud and too willful to bloom in a more hospitable environment. 

washing up was therefore a whole-ass affair and seldom achieved on purpose.  

it was entirely unsurprising, then, that the thrifty youth currently looked a crusty sow. she was picking her way between the labyrinthal roots of the copse’ eldest trees, humming a limerick that sounded pleasant, but to listen to the verses was to utterly ruin the gemütlich of her melody.

"said the nun as the bishop withdrew,
'not bad for a bishop, it's true,
but the prick of the vicar 
is slicker and thicker, 
and two inches longer than you!'"

she'd heard it one day while eavesdropping on a group of lewd crows, and enjoyed the wordplay so much so that she'd practiced until it was betrothed to memory, innocent of understanding the obscenity. 

humming, she stopped to drink from a small pool fashioned from a natural sink in the center of one such elm, sure of herself that she wasn't encroaching on the privacy of a denning mother. 

well, she inferred this from so very little evidence, she shouldn't have been surprised by her err. revived by the cool water, phaedra turned to leave, wildly unprepared for the unlived-in face staring at her.

probably resembling an ogre of the mire or something worse, she held herself in awkward silence, staring dumbly back at the cherubim: 

with four to care for, it was not a wonder that at least one of them escaped sequoia and sometimes mahler. they were swiftly discovered by the bevy of on-hand adults, recaptured at once and carried home. but skaigona had not forgotten her hunt for nomi. 
today, little brow furrowed in concentration, the forest fairy flitted out into the foliage, seizing the opportunity of a commotion among the others to escape. she ran directly beneath unfamiliar shadows. here smelled of the man, mahler, of sequoia, who nursed them, of others she had not yet met. 
but there was no scent of her mother. rather than dissuading the girl, this only sharpened her youngster's determination. she had just decided to travel further, exploring each new thing as druid had showed her to do, when the sound of singing touched her floptip ears.
the girl frowned a bit, puppy blues fixed upon her path. but the melody went on, and as with all children this age, skaigona's attention levels were rather lacking. distracted, she instead scrambled in that direction, curious but with a healthy dose of wariness to be alone.
there was a stranger ahead! 
the child cowered in the brush, small nose quivering lapinlike as she watched the unknown figure lap water. this reminded skaigona of her own thirst, but she kept still, until the other began to turn. afraid of being caught, but also vitally inquiring, she stared up into eyes the hue of distant stoneway flowers. "you hun'in?"

"no," she answered at bay, voice whet on the edge of the defensive; suddenly worried that skaigona took her for someone competent. unable to pin an age on her from looks alone, the girl's eyes flit about the scenery, anticipating inbound snaptrap jaws and weaponized motherly hustle. 

but after a few erratic heartbeats, and with no iminent mother, phaedra became aware that this child was presently a little ward of the shintangle, and she felt uncomfortable at once with the responsibility imposed on her. 

her future flashed before her eyes. i swear, i only looked away for a second! and i didn't notice the quicksand...

in the manner of someone uncomfortably scratching the nape of their neck, she looked warily down at her charge, feeling like odysseus caught between charybdis and scylla in the next few moments. 

"are you hunting?" she said to the little dryad, supposing children liked being asked adult questions. or whatever.

"yah!" skaigona exclaimed, everything else lost to mind save for the intriguing stranger in front of her. "hun'in mama." rather assured that she was not about to be scruffed and dragged back to sequoia's den, skaigona was suddenly quite affable; waving small tail, she stepped forward to confidently investigate the other wolf's paws, snuffling loudly as she considered each tone of earth and plant. 
the glint of the water attracted her crow's eye again, and the pup pushed with complete lack of self-awareness past the long birch-tree legs, down to the little slope at the edge of the elm-pool.
eyes narrowed.
in the now still surface, perhaps eddied here and there by her own breath, was another pup. one that resembled her a good deal, which immediately made her tiny hackles prickle with suspicion.
the stranger was forgotten. skaigona gave a ginger sniff to the water. too low, and she inhaled a few droplets. she sneezed, and barked from sheer consternation, falling over her klutz-honored forelegs in an effort to retract herself from the pool and the mysterious image.

“oh,” said phaedra, who expected some sort of babble in response and was struck momentaraily laconic. “are… you and her playing hide and seek?”

intrigued and perturbed by turns, phaedra indulged the former first — mostly because addressing the latter head-on meant having to march a kid around knocking on doors and she really didn’t want to do that. 

the girl plucked up any feet skaigona investigated, whirling to keep track of the little puffball as she toddled up to the treewell. phaedra rounded on the tree, perching her elbows on its edge; prepared to scruff the whelp if she got too carried away with herself.

at length, skaigona did not seem one bit impressed. humor curved phaedra’s mouth, and when the reddled bairn whipped herself into a right tizzy, the girl didn’t react with much ado. 

“what did you see?” she whispered, swirling the water with her pawtip. 

in retrospect, this water was probably a vector for parasites — but it was sustained by a gentle trickle from a bolehole, and after all, she had supped from it herself. 

a conspiratorial shift of eyes, then: “can i tell you a secret about this well?”

hide and seek? she had not heard the words before, and so ignored them, assuming it only to be another of those double-handful phrases that she herself could not yet attempt. instead, she huffed at the water, retreating toward the perch of the unadult, a wolf who was not nomi nor sequoia nor mahler, but who carried the scent of the latter, and of their land. she was a presence who relaxed skaigona.
"saw! uh," how to explain, the little bumblebee who did not yet understand the concept of self?
the tiny shoulders went up swiftly in a shrug; she tilted her head back toward the woods-wolf, craning her neck around until she stared at the other upside-down.
a secret? this she did know, and skaigona righted herself carefully, stepping away from the pool to press her paws against the bole of the other's tamed tree. "yah!" the child exulted in a whisper, small tail wiggling uncontrolled at her windwild haunches. what did this one know that she did not?
skaigona waited, eyes wide.

omg it got long. no need to match! oof

maybe she had foisted too many difficult questions upon the child — phaedra did not know. her extent of experience when it came to children started and ended with this encounter, and the gist of what she did know was that they, more specifically toddlers, were nomadic molotovs made from urine, shrill noises, and some eye-watering, viscid substance from a distant planet. 

she hadn't yet formed an opinion on this little hare, who seemed eager to participate in the colloquy despite her incomplete understanding of what was being asked of her, and the charming embargo on it from her tongue.  

the vierte was presently reminded of her early girlhood, and of the time-hallowed manner in which she struggled with the correct formation of words. that she had reconciled with her speech in the fullness of time was a boon; but if she had been pressured into eloquence, she would have resented it.

and though it was not quite the same, the girl was not sure, then, if guiding some strangeling child to more complicated concepts with which she was unfamiliar — such as her reflection — would enrich her mind with confidence, or shade it in frustration for phaedra's inevitably gauche explanation. 

nonetheless, as expected, the häschen was successfully baited into phaedra's springe! gathered now into a conclave, a furtive gesture given to come-hither, the girl mulled over what her secret for skaigona might be. 

with a casual ply across the water, the feathery touch of her paw rippled the clear surface, attracting wavelets to the child's guileless face. the girl quenched a smile, mildly amused by skaigona’s little pinwheel tail. "hmm..." the skeptic's hymn. "on second thought. i just don't know..." she considered her charge; rhythmic tap-tap-tapping of nails against wood-brim. 

"you'll run and tell everyone! and they'll all want it for themselves," said phaedra, a look askance as she adopted an air of sudden guardedness as regards her mystical well. 

skaigona experienced a moment that would not be remembered. it did not have the ability to be repossessed at another time — this suspension was solely the first of its kind: a vision of self-awareness that slowly glimmered to life above the small primal brain. 
raised by practical individuals who saw no reason to perpetuate lies for children in the pursuit of fantasy, skaigona was not aware of forces beyond her own figure. she existed by the whim of her own nature, and had come about by the whim of her mother's nature. 
but in the look of the other wolf, how she promised the holding of a secret that could not even be shared! in the enchanted way that her eyes appeared sometime to be sunlight and others, reminded skaigona of the dark man who had been there since her birth;
perhaps now came the first tendril of real, visceral reverence, awe that felt more spiritual than anything.
"nottell," came finally the pleading whimper; she paused to rear up again, watching as the pale paw, much larger than her own, clicked tell-tale and tantalizing as the wizard looked toward the pool.
"nottell eepa," she promised, feeling rather conflicted between her promise and her adoration for her brother.

im so sorry kdsak we can finish this up in a few replies & have a fresh one soon?!

“especially you mustn't tell eepa,” she told the bairn presently fixed with an austere look. who the hell even was eepa.

her tail waved good-naturedly, face softening into something more placating in manner -- that it might soothe the child that she was not truly unsafe.  

“all right. c’mere, and listen close,” phaedra slung a leg over skaigona, intending to scoot her nearer, persuading the girl’s attention to the stump-water by making ripples unfurl 'neath the pat of her paw.

“this is a wishing well,” she whispered, withdrawing her paw to perch it on the stump brim. “spirits live in the water. they created it. and such spirits particularly like to intervene in the lives of any creature — even you and i! — living near them. sending floods that drown, draughts that parch. y'know, stuff like that.

it’s said that if you drop a valuable token in the wishing well, one like this, it appeases the spirits and puts you in their good graces for a time. sparing you the flood and the draught and the loss.

and, between you and me ...  sometimes, if they are feeling especially kind, and the token is especially valuable … they will even grant you a wish.” 

phaedra’s voice ebbed into reverential silence. what would the little hare think of her extempore fairytale? the elder girl gave her but moments to process it, when, as if suddenly remembering something of import, phaedra started glanced here and there, casual like -- turned hastily into alarmed searching. 

“my token! it’s gone!” she lamented, agasp. 

sniffing the air overhead the small girl, the vierte slowly trailed down until her nostrils flared and blew and sought to ticklishly snuffle the tender rolls of skaigona’s neck. “was it you, little magician? hmm? did you steal my token!?”

yes ofc! <333

the girl spoke about many things. skaigona listened with a wide-eyed and growing sense of awe that only deepened with each word. and there were a lot of them. first, witching wells, which sounded horrific on its face. a witching well was where water spirits lived. she did not know what draught or parch meant, but skaigona received very clearly the message of the power given to this subsurfaced individuals.
if you gave them a token, they would spare you. and perhaps they would grant a wish. the girl's instinct told her the first would be more valuable, but the second seized her with near riotous excitement.
a wish! a wish! 
the warm arm of the murmuring girl swayed skaigona into the near-worshipfulness that the very young have for the adolescent. she hung upon every word —
and then!
a startled giggle danced from the child. "noooo!" she crooned and laughed, trying to evade her counterpart's warm breath. "i not take it!"
would she be believed? she raised a paw to bat at the other. "maybe dey takm it?" she babbled, gesturing toward the water.

phaedra messed the baby hairs upon skaigona's crown, seeking the ticklish places behind her ears with unsuppressed laughter especially as the child dodged her rains of vivacity. 

"okay. i trust you," at last she conceded, retiring from her foray and sitting to catch her breath. she followed heda's gesture and considered her premise with a thoughtful noise.

"y'think so?" were spirits such petty thieves?

the girl hiked her leg over the brim of the well, elbow resting against it as she gazed intently into the now-still waters -- as if she were undine herself in silent communion with the wassergeist of told. 

bright-violet attention settled back on the little hare. "they deny it! i think they are only being greedy," she tsked, shoving herself away from the tree with an annoyed air. 

there was no real tension, only the summery gleaming of imagination and play.

"if only there was someone who could help me find another, but who ...?" phaedra looked this way and that in contemplation, gaze purposefully passing over skaigona's sweet face.

"me!" skaigona fair shook with the excitement of a potential choice, stressing herself over not being chosen though she was the only participant! "i hep you!"
the child stalked closer to the water, feeling quite brave with her gem-eyed companion here. "hey!" the girl shouted into the gleaming recesses of the fairy-choked pool. "gib it back! the tokin!" she glanced back at phaedra for approval, small tail swishing at her pudgy hips. "do dey say anymting?"
after all, the older girl was the expert here. skaigona was a willing minion, a grunt. "where we look now?" she asked, unable to keep the delight from her small voice.
far be it for the girl to ever ask for clarity of any kind! she was as enraptured by phaedra as she had been in that first moment.

dont mind me getting carried away~  pls she's so cute i can't decide on a good place to end. take whatever liberties u need to w/ phaedra if ur ready to archive!

her gaze danced languorously for a moment longer — allowing, of course, time for the delight of skaigona’s frantic volunteering — before landing on the child's face. phaedra's own expression was epiphany-warm and mischief-creased. 

“i can’t very well leave you behind now, can i?” she said, scooting along the well as skaigona marched up to give the spirits what for -- no doubt packaged in the fearsome wrappers of toddlerdom.

she could feel the smaller girl's energy extend to her in yearning for approval and phaedra gave it to her thus, shouting at the water: "you heard her!" and then, "spit it out, ya no-good-thievin'-wassergeists!"

after no short bout of productive hostile scowling at their mirror images, the vierte rocked back on her haunches and gently encouraged her ward away from the water's lip with a paw-pat on the ground. "well, they speak burble, but i can translate i think. ah-ha-hem," she closed her eyes, plucking at her woefully goosefleshed imagination for inspiration. 

"'stop shouting! we are trying to sleep and do not have your blasted token! should you wake us again, not even the shiniest, richest, best of things will grant your wish! ever!'" phaedra yammered in a deep voice, for she could only conjure male voices for those with proclamations so grumpy and severe.

her eyes opened and widened at skaigona as if to say, yeesh, talk about rude, amirite?

"perhaps we let them sleep," she conceded with a whisper, for she would hate ever so much for a girl as young as her charge to be cheated out of a lifetime of wishes only on account of some otherworldly beings' grievance nursed by herself.

casting a look around, she let skaigona's question lapse without answer briefly. for heaven's sake, where was this kid's mother? her custodian, at least? phaedra was shocked she was not yet reduced to being a unicellular organism after a few heartbeats, let alone minutes alone with the babe.

she supposed papa stood vigil somewhere in the lengthening shadows, father to all he was. 

clearing her throat, she returned her attention downward and said, “where indeed...” having decided they would only compass the little streamcut glade so as to keep the peace with whoever’s sprog this was. 

her white toes pointed in the direction of the stream burbling a few yards away, eyes otherwise searching.

“what if we find them a smooth, pretty rock? where would we find one of those?"

phaedra's voice was a piper carrying skaigona away. she followed where the tall flaxen girl led. the winds and smells around her shifted, but they did not go so far that the girl was not afraid of returning.
her mind now, expanded under the magickal tutelage of the willowwhisp yearling;
skaigona peered past the ankle of her maestro with a simpering hmmm and a protracted huffing of several emotions at once.
"a wock."
a smooth, pretty rock. skaigona's eyes narrowed with determination and her tail stuck up wiry and bottlebrush. the girl stalked forward, looking around for things that might match this criteria.
we do not have your blasted token
"can't find a blasted WOCK!" she exclaimed, with loud theatrics.
ears thrust forward; she watched phaedra for a response.
by and by she came to the stream, and trundled into it. what luck it was to find herself tripping over one of the honorary offerings themselves!
soaked, she held it up to phaedra with a laugh.