Sawtooth Spire a single spark that claims the whole forest
ᴀ ᴠᴀʟʟᴜᴍ ᴏғ ғᴀɪʀʏ ᴛᴀʟᴇs
sᴍᴀsʜᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ
248 Posts
Ooc — phia
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#1
All Welcome 
@Stag if u want it <3 but anyone who would be allowed in the rendezvous site are welcome otherwise

days and nights ran together. one moment intersected on the next.
it had been six ... seven? moonturns since her brother had disappeared into the wilderness.
phaedra was still too young. too present in her world to process her family's loss in full, but she experienced ephemeral and intense reactions to the grief surrounding her. confusion coalesced strongly into her awareness while anger and fear soon got the mastery of her.
phaedra modeled her emotions after wylla and mahler; their panic and worry and sadness the catalyst to fits of crying and tantrums (something to which she was not prone). her lack of control over herself, over the maelstrom of distress in her parents, put phaedra in an overwrought state that she was not emotionally sufficed for.  
most noticably, she had regressed in the midsts of it all, often setting upon wylla to try and suckle from teats that had long ceased lactation. it was a futile yearning for self-soothing, and she was mired by nature itself. it didn't stop her from trying, for her desperation for comfort eclipsed the very will of nature itself.  

the greatest lot of bereavement took wing to her unconscious state. wetting herself during sleep and night terrors were frequent episodes that stirred her awake, screaming.

presently, she slept curled into the parentheses of wylla's stomach, held in tightly and protectively by her mother's legs. she was sweating and shaking in her sleep, a whimpering threnody in her throat as saltglimmed tears welled through clenched lids and streamed dark streaks down her cheeks. 
an agitated, mumbled burble; her brother's name distressing her lips, and then a warm wetness pooled under her.
she awoke with a gasp sourced from prior horror behind her eyes, chest heaving, and then looked to her stomach and saw where the dampness darkened her fur. her lips pressed in a tremble. "i'ms all wedt," she said muzzily, prising each leg from its tucked position to find urine had soaked her through to the bone. again.
it quickly chilled on her skin, causing her to shiver. as her gaze explored the darkness for her brother, wildered of thought, mind casting a shadow over preceding days, she called out, "thade? you wake?" into the cicada-choired twilight.
i'm defeated and i gladly wear the crown
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#2
Stag's heart had been burdened as of late, heavy with the grief that he knew Phaedra would soon have to bear around her neck like a yoke.

Once, he had lost his father, and it seemed the world was closing in on itself.

Then, his brother. 

Gone, without a trace.

And then.. he had lost his sister; one by one his family fractured off and splintered, until at last his mother too had gone, and Stag was all that remained.

That grief he knew all too well, and he remembered how he too had regressed: how he had chewed his nails down to their quicks and had isolated himself for weeks on end; how he had lost the capability to talk and to sleep, and how he had wandered like an itinerant zombie without purpose until at last, Mahler breathed fire back into him.

So, he slept outside Wylla's den -- wary of her teeth, but knowing soon he would see signs of himself in Phaedra. That soon he would hear her voice cry out thinly into the cold night, as his had done;

That soon he might hear her soft sobs beneath the susurration of cicadas and batwings, and know at last sorrow's arrow had heavily hit its mark.

He woke suddenly, the night sounds and air rushing to his senses. Somewhere nearby he heard rustling and calling for Thade -- Phaedra, calling into the chorus of droning cicadas. "Phaedra," Stag hissed, catching the scent of urine and fear. "It's me Stag, I'm outside." He did not know what state the girl would greet him, but he hung outside the den all the same with his breath held in nervousness.
and it brings me to you, but i won't just past through
i'm not asking for a storm.  
ᴀ ᴠᴀʟʟᴜᴍ ᴏғ ғᴀɪʀʏ ᴛᴀʟᴇs
sᴍᴀsʜᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ
248 Posts
Ooc — phia
Away
#3
over the crepescular songsters and songstresses, and in her doziness, she hadn't heard her name being sissed into the darkness, only a vague voice answering her call. from under the cool aegis of their shelter, she appeared under the moonlight in a clammy, "fragrant" state of anergia. "thade? you poddyin'? i smell id ..." she mumbled, lids stickily blinking one after the next. 
she turned, and stag's white face was there. phaedra didn't startle or gasp or do anything she'd normally have done, instead, she offered him a jejune smile. "hi sdag." she looked down at her legs, and then at her abdomen and the rest. "i think thade peed on me." phaedra said, looking back up to her friend with a bewildered grimace.
i'm defeated and i gladly wear the crown
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#4
Nevermind Stag was able to draw his own conclusions about the true origin of Phaedra’s newest cologne; he was simply relieved she was seemingly alright, Eau Deu "Thade" aside. He smiled in the summery darkness, his eyes glinting in the half light as he played along -- despite the tenuous presence of her brother, he would not rake Phaedra over the coals for her fib.

Let's get you cleaned up then, Stag offered gently, wondering where they could go to brush off all hints of Phaedra's revisiting terrors. There's a stream we could go to, or... we could find a puddle.. Stag recalled dimly a puddle might be the better option -- he did not know much of Phaedra's near demise, but he knew shallow water was almost always a safer bet. He didn't want to whisk Phaedra away in the middle of the night without Wylla knowing -- but he also wanted to spare Phaedra any further embarrassment if it could be helped.
and it brings me to you, but i won't just past through
i'm not asking for a storm.  
ᴀ ᴠᴀʟʟᴜᴍ ᴏғ ғᴀɪʀʏ ᴛᴀʟᴇs
sᴍᴀsʜᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ
248 Posts
Ooc — phia
Away
#5
his suggestions went through one ear and out the other. phaedra sat on her bottom and blearily cast her gaze round the darksome glade. as midsummer gathered way, crickets and cicadas and the occasional bullfrog found their voices at this hour, but she was rarely awake to hear their harmonizing. her ears, bright as the moon itself, fidgetted about.
brow tying itself in into a palomar knot, she looked him up and down. "ids moon out. i heard thade call fow me. whys you here? thade?" she whisper-shouted into the darkness.
i'm defeated and i gladly wear the crown
266 Posts
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#6
Sleep's soft touch still lingered across Phaedra's worried brow. She brushed aside his concern and subsequent suggestion, casting a sorrowful whisper for her brother into the thrumming night.

Stag had no words to adequately sum up the heartpiercer that was witnessing such a futile gesture. His jaws slackened and then closed, as if he were to say something and thought better of it. At the bottom of his gut and heart, a darkness pooled: he knew what was in store.

"I sleep outside here now." Stag opted for transparency, reaching to give the girl a soft brush of his muzzle. "You should go back to sleep. I will look for Thade." Even though he knew the dreadful truth: Thade was gone, and if Wylla could not find him, Stag had no chance.
and it brings me to you, but i won't just past through
i'm not asking for a storm.  
ᴀ ᴠᴀʟʟᴜᴍ ᴏғ ғᴀɪʀʏ ᴛᴀʟᴇs
sᴍᴀsʜᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ
248 Posts
Ooc — phia
Away
#7
since old, archive with one more from you? <3

phaedra leaned sleepily into his soft caress and yawned, "no ids ok, i'm nod dired." lids half-staff as she uttered the complete lie of it. she balanced unsteadily on her feet, then she propped her eyes open with a start and gently tumbled into stag's legs. "thade jus bein silly. pees on me an'den hides." she drowsed with a giggle.
her lashes fluttered again into that threshold of sleep. "i-" yawn. "i gids him back when the sun say hellooo phaedraaa" she conspired murmuringly, curling herself around stag's leg and nuzzling his wrist like a child snuggles her teddy-bear. "i'm ouside now, gonna gid 'em," was the last thing she mumbled before sleep stole her completely away.
i'm defeated and i gladly wear the crown
266 Posts
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#8
Not tired, Phaedra insisted. Stag smiled to himself as he watched sleep overcome her; first she blamed Thade for the wettening along her thighs, then she curled up in a little ball of silvery fluff around one of his narrow legs (cute, but gross).

Stag knew the laws of this land -- once a puppy fell asleep on your arm, you were not to move. "G'night, Phaedra." The yearling mumbled, carefully resting his head down besides her and eventually, drifting off to sleep himself.
and it brings me to you, but i won't just past through
i'm not asking for a storm.