Perpep and Resprite would raise Strudl, their descendant, because she is unlike any other troll aside from Splorg. She's a spriteling, depending on how you calculate it, hes a total mess genetically. The parentage is communal like with all trolls, but with Strudl its clear who nearly if not all of the gentics come from, Perpep, once-sprite half pteropod half troll, and Resprite, current sprite, half troll, half sheep. What the hell does this make Strudl? I don't fucking know, and a lusus wouldn't either. For the spriteling's safety, theyre raised by the gods and sprites who sired them, more or less.
This is why Perpep is placed in the position of a lusus, a culler, a parent. She has those instincts from her half, but Cinimon, now Cimmon, was not truly ever a lusus to a grub, she was the child of Perpep's original lusus, they were more sisters than parent and child. Neither of them are experienced in this...
Perpep was raised to be an exotic pet, a wife, and a zoo specimen. The Eve to Detheo's Adam. The Eve to Detheo's God. The Eve to Detheo's Snake. Detheo raised her with disregard as to standards not out of critical thought of what is best for a child, but out of his escapist fantasies of a paradise where he is not a speaking thing shackled by the complexities, standards, morals, and requirements of a government forming social species, but all of the benefits of one.
He wanted the benefits of his physiological needs filled without the work of a negotiated and communicated relationship. So he raised his daughter how he wanted her. As a 'perfect noble savage' ... and as his wife.
Dethy recognizes the seed of this in himself. He spent his life on Alternia divorced from the standard requirements of his society, instead roaming, noncommunicative and alingual in a manner he styled off a feral cat. He chose simplicity over the complicated.
Perpep recognizes the tendrils of this within herself. She prefers to reject complexity and intricacies of social politics, not avoiding them, but demanding simple answers when details overwhelm her. She was raised to be Detheo's conception of what a person 'unburdened' by a society would be, she was not raised to be prepared for the details of interpersonal politics. She prefers the simple. Direct control, reduction in words, she, in her times of stress, needs simple and concrete concepts, ones without language. Communication is hard for her, just like it was for her father. She responds much more easily to her instincts than she does the verbose. It avoids the mental strain of deciphering systems of language. And her instincts say a grub is a good thing, a thing to hold to your chest and nurture, her instincts say this touch is good, and she recognises within herself that she would enjoy it greatly if this grub never stopped needing her like this. And that train of thought, it sounds a lot like her father. You could only achieve such a goal through the means he used on her.
This is why she snaps back. Where she was taking the majority of the responsibility of the grub, she rescinds it, she lets Resprite take control. Unlike Perpep, Resprite's components were both parent in a way, and ones not burdened by the mold which Ordeor placed around his infant daughter. He knows the situation, and she's been a parent and a guide in both of his lives. Perpep is inexperienced... She only has her experiences in the garden to go off of... Perpep flees the situation to seek the only other person she knows would understand.
She seeks counsel with Dethy. She's not sure if shes running for comfort from the last vestige of the familiarity of her father, yearning for a dynamic from before the world became so complicated and scary, or running to a kindred spirit who might be able to help her figure this out— help her navigate the sea in this sudden unseen storm, help her draw a line between her father and herself, like he did before.
