Sunbeam Lair ❝elyë lantanë melmessë sonen,❞

mahler listened, and felt the sting of pure malicious selfishness in the face of andraste's soft utterances. it was as he had experienced with takiyok: why could he not be allowed to make his own way without the cloying of another? but he chastised himself immediately for so wicked a thought. look how very much she had sacrified, had suffered, had achieved. her adoration for him so transparent, her loving energies a thrumming encirclement of warmth and safe passage.
her eyes gone soft with velveteen haze — how beautiful she was. their children —
now the thought provoked hesitation, and it was for her first two that his mind leapt now. the boy and the girl, moonlight and darkness, who would be without a maternal pillar even as andraste quickened with the cubs seeded by mahler. could he do such a thing to them?
that was the reasoning he had given himself for gathering such a brood to diaspora after the fact.
unfair unfair, unfair to them both, now that they were out from the satin tendrils spun in moonspear and within the mortla realm and all its realities, all its demands.
"i know this is not easy for you," mahler intoned, expression grave as he looked down upon her. "and i admire your grace. but aureven, if you cannot, i vould never blame you."
i will do as he did, but i will complete it in a better way.
silent, humming, cleaving unto her, full of wanting but seeking control all the same.