Redhawk Caldera Brilliance Autumn Fern

While Dwin had shared the joy of her parents and the rest of the pack, when Maia had given birth to three siblings, beyond that she had no interest in them. Of course, she committed her share of helping mom, by bringing her food and watching the fluffy potatoes, while she took the break. But beyond that she simply could not bring herself to either like them or feel any connection at all. By now she had probably learned that kids were not found in parsley beds, but looking at them, she could not help but wonder, what if... these were the wrong batch?

She did not understand, how effortlessly her parents could love these kids, and why she could not feel anything at all towards them. Curiousity - yes. Mild interest - maybe. They were like specimens in a museum. You might like them more than the rest, but you have no inclination to build a relationship with them. Quite frankly? She was a little jealous that now they were at the centre of all the attention and admiration. It is never easy to be a star one day and then wake up as a janitor the next. 

Therefore, when she was not paying her 10% of time babysitting, she made herself busy with everything else. And the thought that maybe Dee and Aiden had been right in finding a greener grass and bluer sky elsewhere kept growing and evolving in her mind. 

Her brother and sister were satisfied by a morning jaunt followed by a hearty lunch and an afternoon siesta in the den. When Frolic proved less peckish and more sprightly, @Eljay volunteered to take her out for another spin, welcoming her to run ahead to get rid of some of that excess energy.

Frolic zoomed. She managed to run several furlongs before her legs inevitably tangled together and she went crashing to the ground, adding yet another scab to the collection on her chin. Frolic immediately sprang up again, gave herself a little shake, then resumed loping at a slightly slower speed, at least until she spotted the figure of a wolf.

Chickadee! the child shrieked, mixing up one elder sister with the other as she darted in Ceridwen’s direction and promptly tripped over herself again.

Dwin heard them before she saw them and for a split of a second she considered bolting from the spot. She was in no mood to meet the kids and only shame kept her, where she was, until Eljay and Frolic came in the view. "Hey, dad!" she called out to him, smiling at him and waving her tail, and feeling glad that he was too far away to see, how her expression became cooler by some degrees, when she fixed her gaze on her younger sibling, who was charging towards her. 

She suppressed a chuckle, when the kid got all tangled up in her legs and fell nearly face down in the ground. "You alright?" she asked, closing the distance between them. 

Frolic sat up with a huff, a sooty paw coming up to rub at her jaw. There was a metallic taste in her mouth: blood. Her approaching sister was given a cursory glance as she stood up and spat out a mouthful of frothy, pinkish saliva. Her tongue knocked against a loose tooth and she couldn’t resist pressing its tip against the canine again and again, wiggling it.

Looking up at Chickadee—no, wait, that was Ceridwen—Frolic exclaimed, Look! I kin move m’toof with m’tongue! and did a demonstration by opening her mouth wide and flicking the tip of her tongue violently against the fang jarred loose by the latest impact.

I am so sorry for the wait! Life's interesting at the moment. :D

Despite her earlier reservations (and let's be honest - leftover butthurt from no longer being the star child in the spotlight) Dwin found that it was very difficult not to like Frolic. Her childish antics and exuberant demenour was contagious and made her older sister remember both that she had been very similar as a kid and how much things had changed over the year. For instance, she was not very inclined to take the world running (literally). 

"Mom told," she began, "that if you plant your tooth in the ground and take care of it well. A tooth tree will grow. So - just in case you lose any teeth in the future, you will have spare." Dwin was opposed to lying, but - here's the twist - children's yarns and especially, if they had been passed on from your older and wiser relatives, did not have to comply with this rule. After all - the secret lied in the belief. If you believed - and Dwin believed this with all her heart - a lot of interesting things could happen. So, why not a tooth tree.

Frolic relentlessly wiggled her tooth until Ceridwen’s tale captured her attention. She stared at the older girl, taking the story at face value. She pictured trees bristling with teeth and laughed because it seemed so absurd. How come she’d never seen one?

I wanna see! Kin we see you’s? Or mama’s? Or papa’s? Or literally anyone else’s, Frolic wasn’t fussy (about this, anyway). Kin we, Frolic continued without taking a breath, eyes widening a bit now, plant m’toof if it falls out?

Perhaps an ordinary child might’ve shied away from the thought of losing a tooth. Surely it would hurt! And wouldn’t it be missed? But according to Ceridwen, Frolic could plant it and grow many spares. So, naturally…

How’d I get it out? she chirruped, her words blurring together as she simultaneously tongued her tooth and brought up a socked paw to tug at it.

No worries.

"Oh, there is no mine to see - I swallowed all of my teeth. And those, who I did not... Jay stole them for some experiments," Dwin explained with a straight face. This also was not technically a lie. A half-truth. After all there had had to be an explanation of, why some of her milk teeth had disappeared. Jay was just a good non-paying tooth fairy as any of her other siblings. Or adults. Who knew really...

"Mom was not born here - her birth home is far far far away," she said. "And you have to ask dad, what he did with his teeth. In fact - you may ask him now as well. When you become old, you begin losing teeth again," she said with a humorous glint in her eyes. Dad usually was not a good target for "gentle ol' ribbing", but he would understand a joke, when he would hear one. 

"Well, you can tell it scary stories," Dwin suggested helpfully. "Fear - me thinks - works equally well both on people and teeth."

Frolic paid approximately 34% of her attention to her older sister, with the rest going to prying her loose tooth free. She couldn’t get a grip on it even with her tiny toes. When she made a fist and jabbed at it with a single digit, it rocked back and forth but remained rooted in her gums.

Then Ceridwen advised her to tell it a scary story. Frolic went still, her entire body slouching in momentary defeat. She didn’t know any scary stories. But she perked up seconds later, recalling that Ceridwen was quite a storyteller. Failing that, she could ask their mother, who was also good at spinning a good yarn.

You tell one! she urged impatiently, jutting out her lower jaw so that her tooth would have maximum exposure to the yearling’s frightening tale.

"Does not work like that, kiddo," Dwin shook her head, because in reality she was not so much a good stroy-teller than simply a wild yarn-spinner. There were ideas that she let out in the world, dressed in, whatever she had had at hand. She did not possess the skill to develop an idea into a good tile with a proper plot, conflict and resolution. 

"Let's go another way round - what you think, might scare a tooth?" she asked, because - first - she also had no idea, what scary story to tell and - second - how else would Frolic learn to train that "story-teller muscle", if she did not start early?

Frolic could only blink at Ceridwen’s refusal. Why wouldn’t it work? No explanation came, though her older sister asked her what sort of thing might frighten a tooth. The pup stared as if she didn’t comprehend what was being asked, though secretly the cogs of her mind were spinning a million miles per hour.

MOIDER! she yelled. I’ll kill you! she added, speaking now to the loose tooth. I’ll whack—!

Without thinking it through, Frolic did just that: she punched herself right in the face. She managed to stun herself for a moment, though when she glanced down and saw the broken fang on the ground at her feet, she knew that it had worked.

Never mind the ache in her jaw, she clapped a sooty foot over her prize and grinned up at Ceridwen, now with a noticeable, bloodied gap.

"Way to go, girl! WOO!" Dwin cheered Frolic, trying to mask the fit of laughter she had from scene of the kid bashing her own face. She could still list at least 20 things she did not like about kids, but you could not deny - they could be hilarious and in Frolic's case, they also had style. 

"Let's go plant that tooth of yours?" she asked, tilting her head to the side. "Because you can also strike some deal with the Tooth troll and I have heard that Big Lake Kelpies are keen collectors of baby-teeth," she suggested. 

Apparently there were other options aside from growing her very own tooth tree, though Frolic wasn’t interested. She shook her head so rapidly, her ears flapped audibly against her cheekbones. It also made her entire face throb.

I’ma grow a toof tree! she hollered, snatching up the tooth with her paw before realizing she couldn’t very well hold onto it and walk (or, rather, run) anywhere with it.

Eventually, it occurred to her that she could just jam it back in her mouth temporarily. Frolic did just that, the sharp little fang clicking against the rest of her teeth and rolling over her tongue as she walked closer to Ceridwin with an expectant expression.

"Don't swallow it," Dwin warned Frolic, but was half-expecting that this would happen before they even managed to get anywhere. "Now you have find a suitable place for your tooth," she explained, ready to lead the way, but then paused. "Perhaps, it's better we find that place beforehand and in the meanwhile you let that tooth of yours with dad," she suggested. "It will be easier that way and he will definitely take a good care of it," she said. "Plus, you have to come up with a proper chant for the planting procedure. No good tooth tree can grow, if it is not planted in the ground with a proper song to aid it."

I won’, Frolic assured, her words garbled as she spoke around the tooth, very nearly swallowing it.

She bumped into Ceridwen’s heel when she stopped, nearly swallowing it again. Frolic coughed it forward so forcefully it came flying out of her mouth complete with a string of saliva. All of it plopped unceremoniously on top of her right forepaw.

Her older, wiser sister said something about giving the tooth to Eljay while they went and sought the perfect place to plant it. Frolic squinted and turned her head, looking for their father. He was off in the distance, watching. He waved. Frolic waved back.

‘Kay, she said simply before stuffing the fang back into her mouth and galloping toward Eljay to keep it safe.

But, of course, she tripped on the way there. Frolic face-planted and the tooth shot out of her mouth a second time. Sighing through her nose, the pup hoisted herself back onto all fours, brushed herself off, fetched it again and made it over to her papa without further incident.

Guard this with you’s life, she told him, smacking the little tooth into his open paw.

Spinning, she galloped back toward Ceridwen. Miraculously, she made it over to her sister without falling on her face yet again.

Dwin observed that Frolic ate up all kinds of nonesense she had spouted in the last few exchanges as if that was truth. Made her wonder, whether she had been the same way, because the older she got the more it felt as if she had been "old" and wise forever.

"We'll be back in no time," she told Eljay and then let Frolic lead the way, keeping an eye on the kid and calling her, when she had got too far away. "So - what do you think - what would be a good place for a tooth to grow? What does your tooth sense tell you?"

Ceridwen indicated that Frolic should take point. Momentarily forgetting they were on a quest, she burst into a gallop that carried her about a hundred yards ahead of her sister. Then Frolic remembered herself, dug her little black heels into the ground and swiveled. She grinned and scampered back toward the older she-wolf.

Oh! I know! she gasped the instant Ceridwen prompted her about where she’d like to plant her tooth.

She ran ahead again, though Frolic tempered her speed slightly as she led Ceridwen toward one of the caldera’s sloping interior walls. There was a large, airy burrow there. Some called it the Hobbit Hole. There was a very pretty tree growing over top of it, right at the crest of a small hillock.

Whatabouthere? she asked, the words rushing out of her in a breathless stream as she stood beneath the existing tree, albeit slightly to one side.

Truth to be told, Dwin would have agreed to any place Frolic would have suggested to plant her tooth in. Spending time with her younger, overenergetic sister was a constant battle for balance, where on one side was "she is not too bad" and on the other - "she's too much!". In the middle was a compromise that, even if she herself did not find much joy with this activity, she was at least giving some respite to her elderly father. 

But, where was the fun of just getting it right on the first go? Dwin decided to mess with Frolic a bit. She leaned down and pressed her ear to the ground, appeared to listen very carefully, then got back up again and seemed thoughtful. "Hmmm... I don't think that this particular spot wants the tooth," she told. "Listen yourself, ask the question and hear the answer," she suggested and sat down. 

Frolic didn’t question her sister's suggestion before taking it. She eagerly hunched close to the ground, pressing her ear to it. Truth be told, she didn’t hear anything. She huffed and sat up again.

You right, she said simply, stumped for a moment and looking around as if waiting for a solution to present itself.

It must have, because she bounced onto all fours and scampered downhill again. She ran right past Eljay with a little yell, heading toward the territory’s namesake landmark: the caldera.

Braking to a halt there, she looked around to make sure Ceridwen had followed before eagerly pointing one sooty toe toward the island in the middle of the water.

There! There! Frolic exclaimed, bouncing on her heels. How we get there, Chick—I mean, Ceridwen?

Dwin realized soon enough that she should have stuck with Frolic's first suggestion. Because the second - quite frankly - was even less inspiring. She liked to swim, but this also meant that it would take ages to dry and quite often lead to inflamed and itchy spots across her belly and armpits appearing. Therefore to deal with this she had limited her water time as much as possible. 

"Well - you swim. But this is no good island for a tooth to be in," she went on. If she had twisted the truth once, what difference would it make, if she did it another time. "The thing is... that over there is a place, where tooth stealing ghouls live. Leave one of your teeth there and have no doubts, they will come after every single one afterwards. Imagine waking up and having no tooth in your mouth?" she said.

“Well, you swim,” Ceridwen said. One of Frolic’s little black feet was already in the water before she realized her older sister was still talking. Her head cocked as she listened, though her eyes remained riveted on the little islet.

I wanna see the goos! They can have my teefers, I don’ care! she declared before launching into the shallows.

Many of the adults in her life had already taught Frolic about swimming and water safety. She thought of Aunt Teya and channeled her inner fishy, doggy paddling with all her might toward her destination.

Dwin watched Frolic paddle away with all her might and remembered a conversation she had had with Teya about water safety and children. Learning to swim was essential, of course, but was it always a good thing? It is the same as teaching a dog to open doors - it is fun as long as it does not become an inconvenience to the owner. If you teach a scatter-brain a skill that they will use for the purpose of getting in more danger, was it really worth it?

"Ghouls sleep during the day, Frolic!" Dwin called after letting her sister fight the water long enough to consider her somewhat tired. "You won't see any. With a naked eye that is. For that you need... ice-glass," this was not the most creative thing she had come up with, but it would have to do. She also noted, how easy it was to continue to lie after that first, seemingly harmless innocent step that you made in desperation. 

"And ice-glass can only be found in winter," she added. By then - hopefully - the kids would be big and adult enough for her to be long gone from here. If Frolic would still not have lost her interest in ghouls, then let her discover the depth of her older sister's deception without her presence. 

Frolic could hear Ceridwen shouting, though no particular words made it to her ears over the sound of her own ragged breathing and the occasional splash as she arced through the water. She imagined her sister was calling out more warnings about how the island wasn’t a suitable place to plant a tooth tree. But the closer Frolic came to it, the more determined she felt.

Her black toes touched the slimy lake bottom as she reached the shallows, then pulled herself onto the shore. Frolic sagged for a moment, water cascading from her pelt as she took a moment to catch her breath. Soon, she had the energy to stand up straight and give herself a mighty shake, sending water spraying every which way.

She spun on a dark heel and grinned at her elder across the water. Frolic raised one black forepaw in a wave. She didn’t say anything, just swiveled again and looked keenly forward, eager to explore the small skerry and hopefully find some ghouls. She didn’t know what they looked like, though the puppy was confident she would know one when she saw one.

Dwin was not a motherly figure, though at her young age you could not expect much of her either. She had still some growing up and maturing to do. But watching, how Frolic just kept on swimming further and further away, paying no mind to, what she was saying, it occurred to her for the first time that she did not particularly like kids. And over the coming weeks and months her reckless little sister would cement that belief and effectively cure her older sibling of ever wanting to become a mother. 

For a moment there she wondered, should she go after, but she was not keen on swimming or getting wet. No sibling was worth the itchy, inflamed skin she would get, should she decide to step in water. "Eff you," she murmured to herself, as she went to find Eljay, told him, where Frolic was, and then went off to find someone else more willing to bring the kid back to this shore. The other thing she did was to pick that tooth of Frolic's that her dad had momentarily forgotten about and hide it well. 

Dwin was done playing. 

Last one from Dwin. Thanks!