Dawnlark Plains isbjørn

"He is, but I'm not," said Grayday with a sigh, not really expecting Aditya to understand what had been weighing on his heart. Thus, he did not seek to explain it. He was not really sure that he could. Thus, he gladly latched on to the next point that Aditya brought up - he had thought hard and often about his children's various woes, and had much to say on the topic of his daughter's heart. But not all of it needed to be said to Aditya.

"When a parent abandons one so young, it always leaves a hole," said Grayday, blind eye resting solemnly on Aditya's vague form. "Perhaps you have had time to figure out how to work around it, but I'm sure you remember the heartache of youth. Both of my eldest brood are yet young, Aditya. Perhaps, as she ages, she will figure out how best to be loyal to herself. For now, I think you can expect a bit of uncertainty to that end."

Addie... do you think of me as an uncle?

He turned his face toward the ground, not sure what his expression was doing in that moment. He didn't often think about Adeline, but when he did, it was always with such pain and clarity. All his mistakes seems so obvious in hindsight, and he worried that his own children would suffer from his bad examples, or from wolves like Aditya, who were still learning the same lessons that had been so painful for Grayday himself.

"When you love a younger woman, it isn't your job to hold on," he said after a long pause, still swimming in thoughts of Adeline. "When you hold on, you become a large rock in the roots of a young elm - the tree may grow, but it will grow warped and fragile around the rock. Not tall and strong and well-rooted in the way that trees are meant to grow." His love had changed Adeline into someone he didn't recognize. She'd been younger than Dawn, and he knew that his daughter's relationship would never look like his and Addie's, but he still worried for them. For his little girl. For his friend. "Love is not meant to be a chain that holds you," he said gently, knowing that this could be a very hard truth to hear. "It's the key that frees you from life's worst foes: Fear. Hate. Loneliness. In love, you cannot be the chain or the rock. Be like water - moveable and changeable. Be the stream that feeds the roots, the flow that breaks the dams. And if you ever find yourself trying to stop her from doing something, stop and ask yourself - Am I doing this because I love her, or because I love the life I have?"