Sawtooth Spire süße augen

optional pup/older kid activity! @Phaedra @Thade @Astraeus @Elfie @Stag <3 everyone else welcome to join too ofc!

"this is a mushroom," mahler intoned somberly, indicating a long patch of white fungus clinging to the underside of a decaying log. "this is also a mushroom," the gargoyle went on, jerking his scarred muzzle at a glistening redcap of a mouthful. "and so is this," he gestured toward a little patch of small button-brown topped things.
"vhich is safe to eat?" but he did not wait for an answer; he sat down and blinked sternly at the young audience. "not vone is safe to eat, and if you do, you vill die."
a good solid german lesson for his kinder.

phaedra watched with rapt interest as her father educated the small troop of children about the myriad fungi growing around them on the ground and crannied full in the moss of logs and amid short ferns skirting the tall trees. everywhere she looked, she spied one of the suckers. 
her fairy circle came to mind when he indicated to the white mushrooms stretching from the moldering log. the ringlet of small, white-capped mushrooms still thrived in her secret garden, and she often slept in the middle of it ... but she'd never felt inclined to eat any of them!
the lamb explored the verdure with lavish curiosity. a skink hiding under a wet stone quickly skittered out and with a mischievous giggle, phaedra gave brief chase before being recalled sternly by her father.
”vhich is safe to eat?”
phaedra balanced on the tips of her toes and yearned to blurt "allv dem!" but before she could, mahler answered the question himself. the girl rocked back onto the pads of her feet with a huff. why ask a question if you already knew the answer to it? she let her eyes roam over the various species of mushrooms and huffed again, loudly. 
”im going do ead id!” she declared, and bent to grab at the smallest bunch near her feet. she hadn’t the faintest idea of what dying entailed, but he had implied these things were forbidden, and she was willing to play eve and taste the forbidden fungi if it meant having free will. 

The lax star-warden kissed the ankles of the overseer;
Ushoom? The gargoyle spoke such forigen toungues and terms, how did he expect them to learn it all? Not vone. Not vone of what? The ushooms? The star lad simply sniffed and wrapped his body 'gainst the gargoyles leg. Phaedra rushed ahead, with no mindfulness as her character clearly exampled. It was'nt fair that she could do ead id but him. ❝ I do ead id? ❞  he whimpered softly, gazing at Phaedra lunge on unknown dangers.

mahler blinked.
his declaration of death was met by phaedra's piping voice — she declared quite the opposite of what he had said, and darted for a patch of fungi. the gargoyle's brow furrowed; in the next moment he had reached out a heavy paw and sought to press her down into the damp with the weight of it.
preferably before she managed to so much as lick the forbidden plants.
"it is very good of phaedra to volunteer, but these should not be eaten. can anyvone tell me vhy?"

"oomf" she huffed out when her father swept her feet from under her with the heavy burden of his paw, splatooning her to the moss and preventing her from partaking of the devil's fungus. 
noveau eve, consider yourself thusly unfelled.
still tempted, tho. 
"these should not be eaten. can anyvone tell me vhy?" 
annoyed to be asked another question he'd answered himself, phaedra squirmed under his paw (to no avail, really). "yOu vIlL dIe!" she parroted his earlier answer with sarcasm that was sourishly ripe for her age, but that's what happened when you had wylla for a mother. "wa'dis die mean? wasd only gonna do id for a minud ..." 

It was about time the fluff of mischief got death handed to her — disguised in a silken cloth; unwrapped by the bony fingers of Death himself.
Unfortunately, her father was all the wiser and saved Phaedra form taking a treat from the eerie stranger. At the time, Astraeus didn't know death or perish, but he did know hunger. It's fingers promenaded leisurely across his body then . . . 

His head snapped back to intention as the dippy imp impersonated her father. Ha! As if it was any easier to tell them apart, he knew now one clearly had a brain. Hardly akin, he had to conclude. Sniffing with vitriol lining, Astraeus nosed Phaedra to the side with a huff. The greedy lass cleraly did not come from good stock, it made him wonder if Mahler was Phaedra's kinsman. 'Ought to leave her to what she did best, guzzling dirt and fungi while the starish-eyed son blatantly groveeld at the gargoyle's foot. 

"Can't not eat becaw not meat!" he yips, his arse facing Phaedra as it should be. It'll be only prt of him she'll see for a while.

mahler's charcoal ears cupped forward as astraeus asserted himself. a furrow plagued his brow, for he saw no affable nature to it. phaedra flogged at him with her mockery. the eisen lowered the heavy cypress-tree of his crown and separated them with a sharp impinge of his scarred lip against astraeus.
children resided outside the natural order of their fellows, but only for a time. by winter, both the younger boy and his older counterparts would be expected to comport themselves properly, and mahler sought a lesson here to be shown them all.
"now," he went on, straightening. "you are correct. it is not edible. not for volves. deer and others may eat it. ve may not. do you see how they grow in the vet places?" he intoned, indicating their locale.

phaedra left the plaguy nature of the boy and his caboose out of account. once she noticed, if she had noticed (she was far more interested in just about anything else) she would have simply goosed him with her cold nose. she didn’t need to play teacher’s pet—she already had her papa wrapped around her finger. 
to that end, she felt free to ignore the curriculum and exploit this opportunity to play in the forest, a rare treat due to the very things mahler addressed. presently, the pale prinzessin rolled away from under his paw once he lowered his genteel head to separate the pair, for reasons she was not aware of as her attention had a tendency to hyper-fixate on one thing and that One Thing happened to be the delightful concept of death at the moment of the boy's churlishness.
his wiseacre remark had made her nose crinkle dubiously—there were plenty of things to eat besides meat; in fact, she’d stuffed her tummy full of many delicious fox-plums one afternoon. there had been peals of laughter to see mama’s appalled expression when she showed up with a bright red snout and unfurled a bright red tongue. the recalling of it made her giggle aloud to herself, though the context of this outburst was withheld to her memory. 
after her father admonished the flotsam-pup for spoiling for a fight, with an arch grin she twinkled on her toes and scrambled onto a rotting log, crossing her gaze blandly over astraeus to mouth wordless awe as she cast about the virescent scenery that wove an unbelievably complex fabric of life around and amidst them. ”now,”
—”buh, papa—” she interrupted, but was too quiet (or rude) to be addressed. she strung her toes out with an eager grunt in her throat. his voice was droning on, but she waited for him for finish. in the meantime, the girl began looking around, up, down, delivering sly i'm gonna getcha looks to the toadstools—and then had an epiphany that these particular shrooms were different from the parasols in her garden, despite their similar white tophats. these were larger, and smelled sickly honey-sweet, while hers had a pleasant nutty scent. she would have to show papa later to confirm, and impress upon him that she had learned something despite her arbitrary and limited bandwidth of attentiveness. 
”do you see how they grow in the vet places?” he finished with a question that she fully expected him to answer anyway, as she had learned from the last several quizzes. phaedra brooded over it in the solitude of her mind anyway, noting how everything did indeed feel wet all the way through. even her own fur had dampened from being pinned down in the moss, she noticed while licking down the soft white floss of her chest. 
a silk-covered ball of spider eggs hidden in a cranny of the log were brought into her focus, but she looked back towards mahler when his silence lingered and an opportunity presented itself. 
”vadi,” she tried again, firmly this time and in the language that came easier to her tongue as she straddled the log with her stomach. ”was bedeuded 'die'?” she had to know, if something was verboten for such a reason. she had to measure the consequence against the worth of youthful revolt.
”is’id like wen i frew up cause i ade a lods? war das die?”

yeah they really said 'i cannot hear' to mahler's lessons, lmao

Astraeus merely grunted as consequence bit him in the face. His breadbasket feeling heavy with self-centered guilt, he brooded silently and his nicked a minuscule insect on his toe idly. The aggressive cowbird sniffed in indignation, yet Astraeus was his own tell-tale. Suiting. Let the Eisen administer the mini-gargoyle with his sawtooth-spiked fist. As if the gargoyle was indebted to Phaedra, the pre-mature duckling privileged to his ardor and kisses, unlike the boy. He would arch his chin and puff at the adjective, he was priceless to this world. The star-imp no longer had interest in Phaedra's ploys to somehow decipher death nor adhere to Mahler's tutorial.

The boy could be read like a scripture by a passionate follower, following every bit with religious zeal — jealously plagued his mindset of the children not only having one, but two parents! While Astraeus had hardly managed to know one, lest his genitor knew of his existence yet forgot like the flotsam, the unworthy son that he is perceived to be? The sighing rays of the sun peering from the leaves could not illuminate his thoughts, even in the most dreadful of nightmarish hours! Astraeus was indebted to nothing, so he preformed so himself with nothing but razor teeth and less than cordial nature.

Though, he was not wading in a depressive manner in this thought, rather where he could find foodstuffs to fill him. There was nothing quite like the peaceful times when he could eat with greed, quiet and no one to challenge his self bestowed authority. Bite your thumb, or he'd nick your nail. Suckling his tooth with his tongue under clasped dry lips, Astraeus no longer felt dutiable to staying with Mahler and distracted himself with the log Phaedra had already. But papa — whatever they were yapping about was pointless. There was much more interesting dwellings in this log than whatever the now moss ridden imp had to say, surely.

Had he caught her mooning over spider eggs a a lick ago? Ah ha! Maybe today he would test Phaedra's theory of filling on non-meat produce. Poking them with his frigid nostrils, he loomed over the unborn silken weavers, not aware of their mother guarding the silk sack. He squawks (like the cowbird he is) as eight orbs switched to him, the legged weaver woman too close for comfort. "DAGH!" he warbled and tripped over himself backing out, chest grasping for air. 

Tail between his legs, he waddled back to Mahler as Phaedra asked her inquiry. 

mahler lied on his resume about his teaching experience D:

astraeus was growing into a very proud child indeed. mahler somehow did not mind, for he saw the realm of children as below him, but he did not care for the boy's treatment of phaedra. call it tradition or patriarchy, he could not stifle the rankling irritation that washed over him. and then a different sort at his daughter's beginning lift to mutiny.
it passed; he chided himself, and blinked at the pair. astraeus had completely forgone the missive, and he flicked his eyes to phaedra. warmed anew by her lilting command of the language they already shared, mahler shook his head. "that is sick. you vere very sick. but "die" is quiet. stillness. like if you vent to sleep and did not avaken."
during the telling of this, astraeus gave a a sheepish return, and mahler gave him a fond look. he could not yet tell what the boy made of the substitute father that was the charcoal-grey eisen of sagtannet, but strove to always favor the child in the same way as his wild pair.
a true loomcraft of appropriate tales for little ears. but that was the way, was it not? tell a small one directly the worst thing that might arise of their poor choice. no demurring the severity.
thus unblunted, mahler grunted and gathered himself to a larger height. "vould you like to visit vindholme now, both of you?" he offered, a river-trip to make things somewhat more exciting. poor phaedra. the gargoyle expected she might be rather through with this lesson's locale, as he had become, but expected more questions upon their earlier subject, and tilted a battleworn ear to listen.

he explained the nature of death to her, and she was perplexed as to why he thought it might befit a means of deterrence from her investigatory mouth. she liked the quiet—it was antonymous to everything that vexed her. quiet was soft, stillness was no brothers like thade jumping on her head or stepping on tails. to sleep forever, bodied forth only in dreams (he had never mentioned a dreamless sleep); it almost made her want to experience it more. in no suicidal capacity, mind, but there was a sense of purpose within her that compassed the world around her, and he had simply put a new port of call on her internal push-pin adventure map. ”ich möchte dord hin.” she said.
satisfied with his answer for the time being, she vaulted from the log and blundered across the moss, folding like origami on herself as she made impact. 
her agility and elegance needed some work, but her attitude was up to scratch at least. phaedra rolled to her back, now between mahler’s forelegs, and thumped her tail against the ground, paws nestled against her breast. "cool dwick, huh? i godt dad and mmmorehnngg—” she grunted, hefting herself off the ground as he did as well, moss and wet leaves barnacled to her backside. 
as fun as getting drowned by the boy while mahler’s back was turned sounded, phaedra offered a lukewarm shrug in answer to his inquiry. 
it was astraeus’ edict, then, if he wanted to river-stomp. although mother had already taken her there, the boy had not yet been, and phaedra was not as mean-spirited as him to deny such an expedition.

The meek imp didn't care where he went, as long as he was miles away from the creature that plauged the rotting log. Shrugging into agreement, Astraeus looped between Mahler's legs again for safer cover. There are some things that can destroy him, and it's insects. As far as he was concerned, whoever decided to let them in had quite the nerve to upset his pride. Astraeus didn't believe the spider guerillas RSVP'd either. What ever happened to courtesy above all?

He still wanted to inquiry relentlessly about Windholme, but it didn't feel like the hour. Now that you had seen one montser, you had seen them all. As if Phaedra and her brother weren't enough to worry about. It was these. The soonder they left the better. 

last from me <3

the child answered in his words; mahler paused to favor her with a warm smile of encouragement. she had drawn it into herself, or perhaps she had been born with such. either way, he found a deep contentment in it.
gathering the children roundabout him, mahler set off for the great river of sagtannet. in many ways, it belonged to the yearling boy stigmata had left behind; for all that the gargoyle loved his children, for all that a landmark could be the property of no wolf, mahler considered @Stag to be the rightful heir to the powerful currents.

going to archive since it's very outdated and tying up loose ends in my threadlog <3

his warm smile was returned with a beam of sunshine from phaedra's pale face, tail poised like a banner through the air. she bumped against his leg and rubbed her crown affectionately against his grizzled fur. 
the three made a successful sojourn to windholme, where mahler taught them more lessons of the aquatic quality. phaedra hung back slightly, preferring to splash in the shallows where the fries of guppies evaded her growing paws and snapping baby teeth. 
the sun was descending after only a short while, so they soon retired back to the path from which they came until the familiar site of home welcomed them.