Northstar Vale i miss you in the dawn & most of all, your fingerprints, everywhere (mtr.)

somehow still he did not hate her. the red wreathed out into the pond, dissipating. the children of diaspora, all but praimfaya, carried the same within their veins, coursing with small heartbeats. one day they would not remember stigmata, he feared, save for his own efforts in the matter.
but for now he could think only of dragomir, of the foolish woman with her words that managed to be at once both heartfelt and empty, saccharine. she knew she was not fit, and yet she remained unrepentant. a child, her child, had been scored in both body and spirit by wolves. had she searched for who had hurt the boy? had her wretched verx?
a sweep of his charcoal ears toward the sylph now. why sully stigmata's name by uttering it in her presence? a trilling insect broke the quiet, and mahler lifted his chin somewhat. now, another time; aurëwen would know what had happened to his general eventually.
"if i vas dragomir's father," he responded in a brackish tone not befitting the heat shimmering upon the surface of the waters, "such vickedness vould not have come to him." mahler was confident in this, determined to maintain his focus upon the dove's transgressions. let him keep to his breast the memory of his kill-brother; aurëwen did not deserve to know what had happened in her destructive wake.
waves encircled the gargoyle as he finally turned toward her, delivering to her melancholy sprawl the full force of his coldly attentive presence.