Sleepy Fox Hollow And to know me as hardly golden is to know me all wrong

takiyok did not answer. mahler was unsure if he had expected her to acknowledge him. but the crush of her pointed skpping-over caused his heart to ache. and yet, he did not deserve to feel such pain. only she had been hurt in this. only she had ever suffered. he had extracted a great deal from her to build this empire upon the toothed mountain, and once more, once more, takiyok was left bereft.
"i have loved stag as if he vere my own since he vas born," mahler countered, unable to keep the defensiveness from lacing his tones. he had whelped the boy after all, had he not? for a naked moment, he stared toward the burning orange of the winterwhite's stare, answering the anguish in her voice with a bidding that she remember how intimate they had once been.
"you vill alvays be velcome here." what sort of monster had he twisted himself into within the woman's eyes? mahler swallowed back the ego, turned the hardbit amethyst of his stare away, away, away.
he said no more, for there remained nothing between them to speak. not now.