her father's pride of place had become less with his firstborns and very recently compassed the extracurricular tryst he'd made with the other woman whose name wylla had not disclosed.
to say phaedra was "over it" when it came to the matters of the heart and sudden privation of papa's time would be lying like a gas meter, but she'd learned (permitting no choice) to compartmentalize her heartsoreness and contempt for the sons and daughters usurping her relevance to her father.
she turned her tears into some indifferent cant of tolerance whenever he came round to sow the affections of his eldests by neither rejecting him nor embracing his presence; every interaction was rime-edged with hidden looks of despair and an overall sense of dysphoria.
their bond, so precious and best-loved by her, was something now ruptured and depleted and calls for him belled from her throat less and less often these days. mother, inversely, was a mostly sempiternal presence in her children's lives. phaedra understood she had to leave to hunt, to bring them meals, and she would return no later than sunset.
papa's presence was scattershot and unpredictable, and it pained her to feel dread for his visitations in great spite of her love for him. the girl could not recall the last time she and her father had a day of one-on-one time together, but a refusal to ponder on such things kept her from coming undone.
we don't need him all the time, was the mantra she repeated in her head when her heart yearned so much it hurt.
she was by no means a saturnine child. phaedra had instituted a republic of
perfect contentment in things further on than her family. being away was easier.
each and every morning, she fell on her breakfast and disappeared into the forest wynds.
the artery of streams on their mountain were always a difficulty for her. visits to windholme had been copacetic because she had her parents to keep her safe. even with these positive exposures, she still endured the staring spells.
presently, like a bolt from the blue the sight of moving water made the unwanted frontispiece of her trauma etch on her eyelids, and after a few moments of vacant gazing at the guppies flitting upstream she shook her head like an etch-a-sketch until her brainpan rattled and she was dizzy, but pulled from the vignette of memory.
as though nothing had even happened, the minikin jogtrotted alongside the burbly stream until she found a log that bridged it, allowing her dry passage to the other side.
~
she came upon a small glade made golden and idyllic by streams of sunlight in which whirls of pollen fluoresced and twinkled. young hares played gayly; racing, leaping and rebounding off one another with such exuberance, phaedra was fain to join them.
the little wolf did her own imitation of their high twisting acrobatics (an attempt that, at best, resembled an oafish paroxysm). after recovering from her awkward summons back to earth, she pranced towards them with laughter, but the leverets stopped their play and stiffened their ears, staring, frozen, the moment they sensed this "beast of prey".
"oh! mother! wolf! wolf! mother, help!" they pealed in alarm before flitting into the shadows.
phaedra stopped short, a giggle dying on her tongue. her tail sagged glumly. she didn't understand. like the dandelions, these potential friends were quick to bluster away. "wha i do ... ?" she shouted into the lullabied glade, but no voice answered. with a huff, she flung herself to the ground, lazily watching a spider weave her rosette web on the shoots of grass. "jus' wan'ed d'play." she muttered and sighed, beginning to feel rather mesmerized by the redundancy of the spider's embroidery. at her comment she could swear she heard a laughing scoff from the busy arachnid, but the sun beating down on her was all the more so soporific.
one moment her lashes were listing over her gaze sleepily, and before she knew it, she was napping until mother's howl summoning her back for curfew jerked her awake.
the sun was lower in the sky now, and she left the lonely glade for home.
to say phaedra was "over it" when it came to the matters of the heart and sudden privation of papa's time would be lying like a gas meter, but she'd learned (permitting no choice) to compartmentalize her heartsoreness and contempt for the sons and daughters usurping her relevance to her father.
she turned her tears into some indifferent cant of tolerance whenever he came round to sow the affections of his eldests by neither rejecting him nor embracing his presence; every interaction was rime-edged with hidden looks of despair and an overall sense of dysphoria.
their bond, so precious and best-loved by her, was something now ruptured and depleted and calls for him belled from her throat less and less often these days. mother, inversely, was a mostly sempiternal presence in her children's lives. phaedra understood she had to leave to hunt, to bring them meals, and she would return no later than sunset.
papa's presence was scattershot and unpredictable, and it pained her to feel dread for his visitations in great spite of her love for him. the girl could not recall the last time she and her father had a day of one-on-one time together, but a refusal to ponder on such things kept her from coming undone.
we don't need him all the time, was the mantra she repeated in her head when her heart yearned so much it hurt.
she was by no means a saturnine child. phaedra had instituted a republic of
perfect contentment in things further on than her family. being away was easier.
each and every morning, she fell on her breakfast and disappeared into the forest wynds.
the artery of streams on their mountain were always a difficulty for her. visits to windholme had been copacetic because she had her parents to keep her safe. even with these positive exposures, she still endured the staring spells.
presently, like a bolt from the blue the sight of moving water made the unwanted frontispiece of her trauma etch on her eyelids, and after a few moments of vacant gazing at the guppies flitting upstream she shook her head like an etch-a-sketch until her brainpan rattled and she was dizzy, but pulled from the vignette of memory.
as though nothing had even happened, the minikin jogtrotted alongside the burbly stream until she found a log that bridged it, allowing her dry passage to the other side.
~
she came upon a small glade made golden and idyllic by streams of sunlight in which whirls of pollen fluoresced and twinkled. young hares played gayly; racing, leaping and rebounding off one another with such exuberance, phaedra was fain to join them.
the little wolf did her own imitation of their high twisting acrobatics (an attempt that, at best, resembled an oafish paroxysm). after recovering from her awkward summons back to earth, she pranced towards them with laughter, but the leverets stopped their play and stiffened their ears, staring, frozen, the moment they sensed this "beast of prey".
"oh! mother! wolf! wolf! mother, help!" they pealed in alarm before flitting into the shadows.
phaedra stopped short, a giggle dying on her tongue. her tail sagged glumly. she didn't understand. like the dandelions, these potential friends were quick to bluster away. "wha i do ... ?" she shouted into the lullabied glade, but no voice answered. with a huff, she flung herself to the ground, lazily watching a spider weave her rosette web on the shoots of grass. "jus' wan'ed d'play." she muttered and sighed, beginning to feel rather mesmerized by the redundancy of the spider's embroidery. at her comment she could swear she heard a laughing scoff from the busy arachnid, but the sun beating down on her was all the more so soporific.
one moment her lashes were listing over her gaze sleepily, and before she knew it, she was napping until mother's howl summoning her back for curfew jerked her awake.
the sun was lower in the sky now, and she left the lonely glade for home.
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