Sawtooth Spire But time makes you bolder

he had made it all for himself, now, had he not? and the guilt of it clawed at him, but he did not pull away from takiyok — not yet, for there was a comfort in her embrace that filled some sore part of him, if just for now. "you are too easy on me," mahler blustered, clearing his throat and at last breaking their contact.
but he was suffused with gratitude for her presence, for her knowingness, for whatever remained in her heart of those months in diaspora. stigmata still linked them, mahler felt, though their bond had grown, and then died a splintered death.
yet now there was renewal.
he blinked away the last of the meltwater, turned his ageworn ears silently upon the winterwhite. "have you found your happiness, takiyok?" he wanted it to be true. needed it to be so.