Herbalists' Cache I guess I want you more than I thought I did
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Ooc — Chelsie
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Look, said Wylla, slowing her pace over the needles to draw @Phaedra's attention to the largest fungus Wylla had ever laid eyes on.

It was actually a colossal cluster of caps enveloping the side of a moldy log. Wylla had never seen anything so beautiful and enticing in her life. For the first time since the start of their trip, she put negative thoughts entirely behind her rather than simply veiling them from her daughter and stepped jubilantly toward the mushrooms.

Wylla had no interest in eating them — never really had. However, the earthy smell of them was like catnip to her. With a roguish grin to her pale daugher, who veritably glowed in the low light of that suffocating forest, Wylla turned her head and shoulder to the side and rubbed them roughly against the mushrooms, breaking several in the process.

Not much better than a good mushroom, she sighed, likely to her daughter's mortification, because this was not a normal fixation.
ᴀ ᴠᴀʟʟᴜᴍ ᴏғ ғᴀɪʀʏ ᴛᴀʟᴇs
sᴍᴀsʜᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ
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Ooc — phia
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#2
her mother's reverential breath of 'look' drew phaedra's ears, but her eyes were momentarily occupied by the treetop. is this where you've gone, friend? a quiet, long-suffered yearning for caintigern threaded her through, but she set it free with a sigh. 

the girl turned her eyes belatedly, then, to whatever she was supposed to be looking at, and rolled them once she realized the foofaraw. 

mushrooms. of course mushrooms; and not just some cutesy cottagecore toadstool, but in fact an entire civilization of fungi. this was probably some fair folk freehold, and her mother was about to frigging conquer it. seemed like a bad idea.

"mmm, you bet," she responded, seating herself as wylla went to town (quite literally, in her opinion) on the mushrooms. she glanced around, seeking distraction, for the truffle mania gene had not been bequeathed to her as surely as wylla's smart mouth, and she wanted no part. 

far be it from she to make soot of her dear mother's fun, though -- particularly when she had so little of it of late. 

or even worse: insult the woman by blaspheming against the singular thing she had apropos of communion. 

after her gaze had traveled the farthest it could and with nothing of interest to engage it, she turned her head forward to find the entire fay civilization pompeii'd by none other than dame cyclops. phaedra smiled a strained smile, teeth tamped. 

this will make a good tale for skaigona, she thought. with some whimsical embellishments, of course.

"probably even better if they actually made it into your mouth, though," the girl quipped, casting her a bewildered look. wasn't eating them the point?
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Ooc — Chelsie
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She chose to disregard the obvious sarcasm in Phaedra's voice. Wylla's daughter, indeed. A more gentle and tolerant soul than her mother had ever been, but that's what happened when some crazy seawitch had a mold-stained finger in your primordial amniotic soup before you were even born, she supposed. At times, Wylla might as well have been raised by Caiaphas with how poorly she turned out.

Ew, she exclaimed when Phaedra suggested eating the mushrooms instead. She stood up from the wreckage and shook, sending chunks of cap and gills flying. She liked the smell and humorous shape of them, nothing more. They taste like ass, why would anyone eat ass?

There were a few wolves she'd love to force to eat ass, but that was another story. She fixed radiant Phaedra in her cyclopic sights and mustered a warm smile, a private one reserved for her children. What would you like to do?
ᴀ ᴠᴀʟʟᴜᴍ ᴏғ ғᴀɪʀʏ ᴛᴀʟᴇs
sᴍᴀsʜᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ
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Ooc — phia
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#4
phaedra reflected on her own private mushroom search. the recent memory of their taste revisiteed her tongue like a cacodemon and pushed a shudder through her bones. bitterwort and fusty hatefulness, that’s what that the flavor was.  

or ass, as wylla coarsely put it.

phaedra snorted a laugh. "you tell me." 
she was, after all, the one comparing them.

whilst cringing from the rain of fungi, the girl returned her ma's cedarwarm smile and said: "up to you," brushing the flyspecks from her fur. 

the journey to the sunspire had sated phaeedra's traveling appetite for now. she had come for wylla's happiness and the privilege of her company, content to pretend the gyves of fear were unbounded from her wrists. for as seductive as it was to worry for her father -- 
it's nothing! the voice in her head reviled -- she wanted to be present for her.

the girl placed it thus from her mind and side-stepped the fungicide crime scene, breathing deeply of the late summerly wind. 

“how will we know once we've reached the sea?” she had never set eyes upon it, after all.
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Ooc — Chelsie
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Wylla poked out her tongue. Of course Phaedra knew what ass tasted like. Didn't they all lick their own assholes now and again to clean them? Or did her daughter go around with a mess there? She digressed.

It was true that it was Wylla who needed Phaedra this time, and not the other way around. Or maybe it had always been that way. Phaedra was everything Wylla wished Tiercel could be, but she had failed her eldest and raised her with the same sour temperament and pessimistic outlook as her. She wished she didn't have to lean on her younger daughter the way she did, but she was only one wolf with a lifetime of disappointments riding on her shoulders, and Phaedra had always been much better than her.

The air will start to smell salty, like a thousand tears, she shared, and then it will start to taste like tears, too. That's when you know you're real close. It's always moving, smashing against the shore, sending spray into the wind. There's nothing else like it. It lacked the beauty of a crystal blue lake in a mountain valley or the serenity of an aspen forest in autumn, but it had its own rugged charm.

Wanna race?
ᴀ ᴠᴀʟʟᴜᴍ ᴏғ ғᴀɪʀʏ ᴛᴀʟᴇs
sᴍᴀsʜᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ
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Ooc — phia
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#6
a thousand tears. 

did the sea weep ever so? 

a phantom brackish taste came to phaedra's tongue. she knew what it was like to sorrow like that. 

the way her mother described it, snarling and impetuous, the sea was a woman obliged her rage as much as hera ever was. it sent a thrill through the girl. 

a challenge, before she could think of anything to say save for an awed wow. kinetic energy rallied in her legs. 
i am the sea and the sea is me.

phaedra shot her mother a gamesome look before concern recalled her back to reality and instilled her with a familiar hesitancy. her ears splayed back. "no, mama!" phaedra admonished, "your shoulder. papa would have me on cache duty for the rest of my life." 

it would doubtless go over like a lead balloon if the pair returned to rivenwood and mahler discovered his beloved set back by his harebrained daughter's remiss. the excuse of girlhood was not a luxury that could be afforded to her any longer. it was not enough to be clever. she had to be smart.
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Ooc — Chelsie
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Pah! Your father wouldn't dare! said Wylla with a wrinkle of her brow and nose alike. Phaedra was right. She shouldn't exacerbate the pain in her shoulder by running about like she was still a spry yearling. It was permanent, she had come to realize, and that made her less inclined to heed the limitation. How dare her body hold her back from doing anything she wished!

She blew out a soft sigh. Fine. I Spy, then. She cast about the surrounding woods for a moment before her eye landed on something other than barks and leaves. Curling her lips into a clever grin, Wylla said, I spy with my little eye something that is grey and fuzzy!