Sawtooth Spire i'm ephemera, see my 'use by' date

morning after this!

"PAPAAAAAA!" phaedra belled for the third or fourth time into the morning air, growing more frustrated as she rousted from treeline, to garden, to furrowed forest paths leading eastward. "papaaaaaa, wanna do play hide n go seek also, but dhis is too hawd!"  she punctuated with a stamp of her foot, fixing her eyes firmly on the verdured treads upon which he often alit when late for post-breakfast playtime. "alle, alle, auch sind fwe!" she called out, then sat on the slope in wait with what she would consider immense patience (see: maybe thirty seconds tops) for the darkling face of her father to present itself.
after some moments, and growing annoyed by the greetings of whistling wheeooos of a gray jay and flutelike phrases of neighboring thrushes, she pivoted on her heel in a sulk and loped to the den which they were all "allegedly" napping in after elevenses (the only time she and thade were allowed to nurse anymore without being snapped at! it was a bunch of garbage, australia still got milk with breakfast and dinner! hot, smelly garbage!).
for some reason (grown ups always forgot to explain their reasons for bossing you around, so you had to remind them to with lots of why?, she learned) she was ordered by mama not to go out alone that morning, but since when did phaedra exist to fossilize in some humid den, bulging at the seams with occupants? since when was she ever a conformist, over and above that? if wylla wanted her daughter to stay inside, she probably needed to forbid being inside, first.
carefully stepping around the boys, phaedra towered over her mother’s unconscious face and stared unblinkingly at her. ”mama you wake?” she ventured in hushed tones, glancing over to the dark duo sleeping close by, making sure her voice hadn't stirred them. ”mama! isid you wake?” she urged with a slightly raised voice—to a clearly not awake mama—still leering creepily at @Wylla from on high in the dimness that swallowed the den.
her head was backlit by the mid-morning sun, probably causing some uncanny resemblance to an ethereal, aurelian-glowing cherub from a mother's perspective.
if that didn’t work she would have no choice but to resort to a hard paw-poke in the eye.

Wylla was, in fact, awake, albeit well-versed at remaining perfectly still with her eyes shut and her breath hardly stirring. How could she not be? Mahler had seen himself out to assist in whelping his contracted bastards, leaving her to tend to two children and an orphan, all of whom were likely to be upset by his conspicuous absence. If she could halt her breath and pretend to be wholly and truly dead, she would've, if only to spare herself the trouble of a tantrum-throwing threesome.
Mama! peeped Phaedra, nearly breaking Wylla's carefully crafted illusion when her eyelids twitched in response. Mama! her daughter insisted, accompanied by the sensation of eyes boring directly into her skull. Knowing that there was no peace to be had now even in pretending, and determined not to let her frustration and anger about the present Sagtannet situation known to her cubs, Wylla slowly cracked one eye open, peered blearily at her talkative child, and muttered, what?

fortunately for both of them, wylla was faking her out and had never been asleep at all. dozing lightly, if that. phaedra carefully withdrew her foot from its suspension above her mutter's face and loomed up to stare intensely into her sleepy-syrupy-lemony eye. "mama, you has beaudifol eyes jusd like da sun, an' da suns says hi an' da'ids dime do play widh phaedwa!" she said in her singsong-whisper, side-eying thade and the brood-parasite and informing herself to mind her inside voice so as not to rouse them from unconsciousness. she wouldn't get any answers amidst all the alarms and excursions their waking would entail. 
she remembered herself then, and her joyfulness waxed counterfeit.
"ehm ... snucked oudside dis mownand ..." she confessed with a sorry sleeking down of ears. "do look fow papa do play wis." phaedra clarified, voice seldom above prim quiet as she picked absently at a pelt underfoot with her claw. "... hasn'd come doh,"
she paused for a moment. mahler's absence the previous night had gone unnoticed by his palest child at least, as wylla had turned them in early with a distraction of some sort until all were asleep. presently she reflected on the night. neither a kiss upon her brow nor some murmured variation of "gute nacht. träum was schönes, mein süßes mädchen" that quantified their usual routine could be summoned to her memory. 
her heart sank when she realized he hadn't been there at all.
it had only been one night, but her routine had already been upset once by the orphan's abrupt presence and now, again, she felt confused and, as children often were, over-reactive. 
"mama, papa fowgod aboud me." all like an icicle it seemed, so tapering and cold. a sudden bursting into tears made excessive demand on her sotto voce, and all bleary-eyed she took a quick worrisome look, but the boys only moved in the dreamy twitches of sleep. she surmised that the sandman had mislabeled his vials and sprinkled them with the sleeping dust meant for elders and new mothers and fathers, instead of the dust for infants and children. she wondered to herself, only briefly, if they were having grown-up dreams because of it. 
her attention turned back to wylla. she siphoned all the snot leaking from her nose and swiped at her tearfulness with her wrist. "is'id ok to cuddles widh you?" she sniffled, desperate for some anodyne for her heartache and a comforting embrace only a mother could provide.
she anchored her gaze to her white toes anyway, as though her request was something she shouldn't have asked; even of her own mother.

If it was a year ago and it was Tiercel waking her up just to say her eyes were beautiful, Wylla would've opened up a can of whoop ass just to hide how much the compliment tickled her. However, Phaedra was not Tiercel. She often had to remind herself of the fact, but the pale girl was both kinder and potentially more frail than her spunky older sister, and not as likely to respond well to Wylla's crude humour. She allowed a rare warm smile to unfurl, here where only her daughter could see it, and murmured, thank you, baby.

It absolutely wasn't play time, but how could she let Phaedra down after a greeting like that? Astraeus and Thade were both fast asleep and unlikely to wake, so Wylla began the arduous process of extracting herself from them while Phaedra shared her news. She froze in place when Mahler came up—she'd known it was inevitable and she could never be prepared for the questions that would follow, but she hoped for a little more time before the kids noticed. She could veritably smell the shift in Phaedra's mood as it went from sunny to dour, and her heart sank when the cherub loosed a sob.

With a few more deft movements, she separated herself from Thade and Astraeus and swept Phaedra into something resembling an embrace, but with the purpose of shepherding her away from the sleeping boys. Of course we can cuddle, she soothed, hoping to lead Phaedra out into the morning sun so they could do so out of earshot. Phaedra was perceptive and had noticed Mahler's absence, after all. She only hoped she could keep the girl's voice from alerting Thade and Astraeus, as well.

Papa didn't forget you, she said in a hushed voice, settling herself in the grass and splaying her forelegs to make room for Phaedra, if she still wanted it. Papa made a really bad mistake and now he's in big trouble and has to take care of it for a bit. He could never forget you. Sometimes daddies make really stupid choices and they can't always be here, but he'll be back. I promise.

the most pestilent resurgence of them all—hiccups. her body jerked with each hic that came from suppressing her sob until it stuck in her throat and felt like a frog trying to leap out from her mouth. maybe that’s what hiccups were? a frog demanding ‘let me out! i demand you let me out right this instant!’ over and over until they just fell asleep. phaedra cropped at her belly with irritation, as if to say ‘you stop that, you frog!’, thinking again of the possibility of harboring one in her throat, when wylla swept her into a warm embrace and muffled the hiccups with her arm. a hidden, heartened smile pinched her cheeks. 
mama ushered them both out of the den and into the spring-warmed air. again, phaedra stole a glance over her mother’s shoulder towards that virid flight of steps, hoping beyond hope papa would emerge and explain how he’d just been held up on account of collecting the most perfect bouquet of flowers for mama. that would be a good excuse. an excusable excuse. 
alas, it was a hope that thawed and melted behind her eyes. ”papa didn't forget you,” her mother went on to explain, relaxing in the bentgrass and opening her arms to make good on the promise to cuddle. phaedra slunk into the slot reserved for her and pressed her face into her mama’s chest and crammed as close as bodily possible to the woman’s make-do bassinet. the lamb nuzzled her face into her thick ruff, silent tears sluicing down her face and nose, dripping onto wylla’s forelegs. if papa hadn't forgotten about her, then why wasn't he here? why wasn't he where he was supposed to be? 
the longer exposition only served to confuse her more and amaranthine questions left her mind spinning in howling dervishes. taking an unsteady breath, the first of many buoyed to phaedra’s lips. ”papas can—hic—be bad do? wad misdake did he made? disid bad, so papas in di—hic—me oudt? dat why he didn come p—hic—lay?“ she asked, rubbing her runny nose. 

Ordinarily, Wylla would've pushed away anyone who dared invade her private space, but the vulnerable places of her heart were thorny only to those who didn't share her blood. For Phaedra and Thade, even Tiercel whom she'd mistreated in her youth (though, given the frequency of their passionate fights, she would never admit it out loud), there was always room at her bosom for a hug and a cuddle. She could feel the plip-plop of Phaedra's tears on her legs, which she cinched tightly around her daughter's hindquarters, slinging her muzzle comfortingly over her head.

A bolt of resentment cut through her heart. She'd warned him of this, long before any of his children were conceived. Mahler believed he could be a suitable father to all his cubs, but Mahler was a mortal man. It was impossible. Just as Phaedra now wept for the absence of her father, to which she was wholly unaccustomed, one day his new daughters would pine for him, as well. Without meshing their families together as one, there was no reasonable way for him to fulfill his obligations to both without depriving the children on both sides of his undivided attention, she believed.

And Wylla would sooner throw herself onto the sharp foothills below than allow it, for the weight of his thinly stretched responsibility was not her burden to bear.

Yes, papas can be very bad, Wylla affirmed, and make very silly, stupid choices. Your papa loves you with all his heart. How to put it delicately, without lying about the truth of it? Mahler would try to smooth his childrens' opinions, no doubt; he would tell them how he did what he needed to do for the pack and now he was doing what was right, but Sagtannet could've boasted many children, and he the father of only one litter, and prospered just as well. But your papa made a bad choice and now he has other little girls and boys to take care of, too. That means he can't be here all the time.

Damn Mahler, she seethed, for forcing her to be the bearer of his bad news while he slunk about in another woman's den, welcoming another woman's babes into the world, while his sweet daughter cried. She should've added something else, told Phaedra that he wished he could be here with her, that he regretted his decision, but Wylla herself wasn't even sure of that. Phaedra was only a little girl, but Wylla couldn't bring herself to lie even to a pup.

But, she whispered, we don't need him all the time, right? Anytime you're feeling sad or lonely, all you need to do is come to mama for a big cuddle. She gave her arms a squeeze, puffed up her cheeks and aimed a loud raspberry for the side of Phaedra's pudgy cheek, hoping to cheer the girl up a little without completely letting her father off the hook for not being here.

 

phaedra, though unaware of her mother’s own emotional mortar with regards to the father of her children, felt her little heart start to flutter invidiously, a feeling like babyfine lashes brushing against her breast. just as the moth uses the moon to orientate, she used her papabär, and now it was her heart bumping against an ultraviolet porchlight, confused yet persistent in search of its moonlight. "being ma—hic—ke silly choices? bad like—hic—ow?" she hicked.
green and qualmish, once she heard what her mother had to say. ivy crawled into her ears, around her ribcage. every word became scrambled. "now he has o҉t҉h҉e҉r҉ ҉l҉i҉t҉t҉l҉e҉ ҉g҉i҉r҉l҉s҉ and boys to t҉o҉ ҉t҉a҉k҉e҉ ҉c҉a҉r҉e҉ ҉o҉f҉, too. th҉a҉t҉ ҉m҉ean҉s҉ ҉h҉e ҉c҉a҉n'҉t҉ ҉b҉e ҉h҉er҉e҉ ҉all ҉t҉h҉e҉ ҉t҉i҉m҉e҉." static was roaring in her ears by the end of her explanation.
the child drew away from her mother, still upborne by bodily affection, but pushed against her chest, sitting end on to better look at her mama's aestival gaze. the tears her daughter shed had made her eyes glassy and lucid, still misted over with faint newborn blue, but newly appearing like morning twilight in a crystalline pond; reflecting an amethyst, day-two bruised sky on an aureate horizon that crowned a dawning sun. its clouds promised rain, driving rain, as phaedra again considered the why of her father casting his firstborns aside in favor of a consanguineal establishment.
she didn’t understand. couldn't. with new children, would the bloom of papa's love become perennial, or remain how painfully annual it felt to her presently? the opened flower of herself dropped a petal with the renewed sensation of neglect. first, astraeus. and now … 
… replacements. she didn't know the word, but felt it resonate natheless. mother had referred to more daughters. more sons. was she not enough? what of thade? had she been so bad, so slipshod a daughter and heir apparent that he sought to endure for collateral descendants? 
wylla, tasked with the unfair and heavy millstone of explaining to a man’s daughter his own chain of reasoning for his dereliction of fatherly duty, gently soothed her as best she could. her child's father; votarist to a woman that was not she. duty could truly be the death of love, if it was anything like what phaedra felt just hearing these words.
her expression was a maze that turned quickly onto paths of frustration, then sadness, only to be obstructed by a hedgewall of confusion that she couldn’t find the route out of. so she didn’t speak, or ask anymore questions—simply gagged on halfhearted words that withered in her throat and perished in a heavy, resigned exhale. 
feeling listless— tristful— the pearl nuzzled cheek against muzzle, mouthing her mama’s whiskery chin with reciprocal endearment. she then curled herself back into wylla’s chest, unmindfully plucking out the hair of her own pale forelegs. the initial prickle, a brief feeling of scratching an itch, was an almost pleasurable sensation. it distracted her from the bellyache in her heart. she didn’t look up as she spoke her mind sotto voce. ”id… feel insides me,” she breathed, nosing her chest, ”my stummy hurd ride here.” she crammed as close as she could against her mother for comfort, but no matter how close she wedged herself, the comfort felt like diaphanous chiffon against her grief. barely perceptible. a light caress.
as wylla swept a leg over her hindquarters and pulled her in tighter, she allowed herself the small indulgence of solace in knowing she had the abracadabra to limitless cuddles from her mother, someone who prized her personal space with much ferocity. no, we don’t need him all the time, she surmised thoughtfully, picking at the hairs on her legs again. 
”mama?” she fluted after a few moments of silent cuddling, wriggling so she was less gathered in the parentheses of motherly embrace. ”wadt isd vife mean? papa dol’ me strwong man hads many vifes.” she twisted her lips, thinking that she was misremembering the exact phrasing, but woefully lacking the adult capacity to append something useful in these instances called “context” to most of her sentences. phaedra’s pale ears pricked up. ”id ids very impodend do be stong, like siegew will when he’d all horny and as big as da tdwees.” she carried on, innocently.

Watching Phaedra's expression churn through various emotions, none of them positive, fastened a thorny anchor to Wylla's slow-beating heart. She'd known this would happen. She'd known long before the season turned her brain to mush and drove her into Mahler's arms against her better judgment. She'd known the second he said he intended to father multiple litters in the name of duty that he would wind up being unable to split his time correctly. She'd told him, more or less, that he would be a lacklustre father to them all, and they would be the ones to suffer for it. He hadn't listened.

Now his young daughter, who adored him and held him in higher regard than even the stars overhead, knew heartbreak for the first time.

Wylla had no words to say. Phaedra's pain was echoed within the chambers of her own heart. She'd told Mahler she would not make excuses for his behaviour and she intended to stick by that. There was no excuse that would take Phaedra's hurt away. She'd asked the man how he intended to make things right and he had no satisfactory answer. Wylla would not supply it for him. All she could do was hold her daughter tight, fighting back tears herself at the spear he'd wedged so firmly into the hearts of his so-called loves, and commiserate.

I know, baby, she breathed over the creamy top of her daughter's heart. Mama's hurts, too. That should've been the end of it, really. There was nothing else to say, and she wanted to invite Phaedra to a game, but instead, her daughter began a stream of consciousness that turned Wylla's blood to ice and her bones to steel. He said what?

Wife is what a woman is to a man when they're mates, Wylla said, barely containing the rage that trembled behind her tone. And a smart man only has one wife. Being mates is a sacred thing between wolves who love each other. It should never involve many wives or husbands. Ever. She realized her tone was growing harsher than she meant, and sought to soften it. Her anger didn't need to involve Phaedra. But this explained a lot.

A contract, huh? A marriage contract, it seemed.

What is Siegew? she had to ask, pursing her lips, desperate for any distraction from the chilling knowledge that Mahler told his own daughter that having a harem would make him strong. At least, without context, that's how it sounded to Wylla.

"mama's hurts, too."


phaedra nuzzled deeper into her fur, lobe searching until she could hear the iterant tattoo of her mother's heart against her ribs. it was a familiar comfort, ever since she was a pygmean babe at wylla's breast. she was too overwhelmed to press for further details in the matter of mahler's departure from doting father to his firstblood, to a new hearthside with a new family. 
now, falling deep into each other's souls with this shared heartsickness, there was nothing between them to hide. bundled in her mother's arms again, phaedra abruptly began to enumerate all her adoration for her mother. "love you cos yow eyes mind me of da sunsflowders, an yow still the pwettest flowder i ever seen. yow cuddles is warmest dan any other mama der is," she nestled deeper into the pram of wylla's arms ... if only it were possible! closing her eyes, she smiled thoughtfully to herself, "an love you fow giving me my papa even doh papa do bad fings. so much othder things i cand esplain how much i love you. i chosed you do be my mama fow all dos readsons."


yes, that should have been the feel-good end of it.


however ill-timed, prolonged silence only stirred her mind into a feeding frenzy of thoughts and questions.


it had occured to her—the subject matter of these vifes—for a reason no other than the remembrance of her discussion with papa having been captured like a satellite in her mind's orbit; and such as jupiter, it got caught in the gravity of her thoughts and hurled like an asteroid from her tongue.
this time, it just happened to collide with the wrong planet.
the answer she recieved to her (to be fair, very loaded) questions was much more complex than she had anticipated. as perceptive as she was, phaedra failed to comprehend the concepts. she was still too young yet to hold the key to the door that opened to her interior world of experiences of passion, of mates, and the aphrodisia that it all entailed.
so while wylla tried her best to explain, the dazed confusion in her daughter's face was burnt in effigy. she would come to understand later, but presently, she had a muzzy twist in her brow.
 

even with all her mother's restraint, phaedra could sense the crossness that enwound her tongue; she could even detect a slight fragrant metallic scent on her, like wrath distilled into a decanter of perfume. 
then, she said husbands and oversized lilywhite ears perked to the fore. she had heard that word too, but could not reprise its context. so much had gone on that afternoon in the woods, she was incapable of reproducing a whole postmortem report of all that she'd learned from her lessons that day. 

more rapidly now fretting at the hairs on her forelegs, she'd worked a small bald spot from all the tweezing.


"oh, siegew ids'a deer me an papa seen in da fowest. papa said uuumm ..." she couldn't remember the word antlers in either language, and knit her brows with frustration before continuing. "he said afdew andthills come oudda dey heads dey all fide, and dey fide for der v-wifes? 

da deer me an papa saw i godta name. hid names siegew ... so he wins manys wifes." she scuffed her paw in the dirt, looking up through her lashes in a timorous manner to gauge her mother's gaze.

Something ugly and heated wormed its way through Wylla's heart; thankfully, she had Phaedra to distract her momentarily with a flood of kind words. What had she ever done in her life to deserve such a cherub for a daughter? Sure, it was a little creepy that Phaedra claimed to have chosen her as her mother—what kind of voodoo nonsense was that?—but the creep factor was diminished by how much it warmed Wylla's heart that someone valued her, even if it was her daughter, who kind of had to.

Mention of Mahler speared her heart, but she swallowed that down. Well, she murmured, I love you because your nose is the cutest nose I've ever seen, and your eyes are the most beautiful eyes in all the world, and your fur is super-duper soft. She wasn't very good at this, but she tried. To punctuate that last point, she bent her neck to nose fervently along Phaedra's ruff, snorting exaggeratedly as she did so. And you smell like blossoms and you bring your mama so much joy.

Until all the regression stuff that made Wylla want to throw herself into raging rapids and be washed away, of course.

It soothed her little when Phaedra explained that Siegew was a deer. Wylla was about as well-versed in deer as she was in getting along with others, which was to say she had minimal knowledge. Deer ate grass and tasted good. That was the gist of it. That male deer rutted in the winter was known to her, but not for the purpose of wives, and so she would go on believing that Mahler simply thought he could have as many wives as he wanted and had told his daughter the same thing about Siegew the deer because... well, that was simply his belief. The ugly, heated thing slithering in her heart bucked, causing her face to contort with pain, but she smoothed her expression out by focusing on what her daughter had to say and asking, What does his name mean?

Only then did she realize Phaedra was nibbling on her leg, and lifted a paw to gently bat her muzzle away with a murmured, stoppit, you're hurting your fur.