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

"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.