Great Bear Wilderness your eyes so big

atausiq waits for the fall of the anvil ...but it never comes. he does not expect his father's whispered words, not anymore than he expects the rush forward, the grasp of him into a bear hug. he expects there to be rage. rage to match his guilt ...but if it is there, it has yet to make itself known. i've been here ...and there. nondescript ...and aware of their present company. over his father's shoulder he spots hua who watches them awkwardly. i... — it hardly seems like the time to confess everything atausiq has been keeping bottled up, too afraid to say — especially not in front of company whom he barely knows — but steels his shoulders anyway.

i did not mean to worry you, he begins, as if with the beginning he might soften the blow of the words he knows he must say. i just ...didn't agree with how things were being done in easthollow. lain simply upon the table he doesn't feel the lessen of the burden as he thought he might. if anything, atausiq only feels like he's been wound tighter ...a spring trembling with the tension it is coiled with.