Arrow Lake verdunkeln

"that is easier said than done, takiyok," mahler murmured, feeling that this admission was somehow more intimate than his previous one in regards to fear. it was not only creeping beasts in the night that threatened the winterwhite; it was the very existence of the children within her, how their strong little bodies could crack her bones in childbirth, wring too much blood from her loins. these were not things he would voice, for he did not want her to go into her natal chamber with terrors; mahler would carry the horrifying possibility of her death in silence.
"have you considered names?" he asked instead, turning their discourse to lighter subjects. he himself could not remember the process by which his own three children had come by their titles, only that he cherished each one.