Nova Peak gründung

She held her breath, cradled carefully in her lungs while she awaited Mahler’s response. Wylla didn’t know why doubt continued to gnaw cankers into her hopes; no matter how many times Mahler had claimed to love her and no one else, she’d always doubted it. She couldn’t conceive of it. How could anyone say that and mean it when she tended to be such an insufferable hag? There’d been enough bad in her life to make her believe it was all due to her, and not chance.

But he said it again, and this time, Wylla didn’t doubt him. Her heart thudded against its bonds, punching her nerves, and her breath leaked slowly between her teeth, a silent sigh of relief. Her shoulders fell, devoid of tension. She felt a little like she was suffocating and her stomach wriggled like she'd swallowed a dozen snakes. Her greatest impulse was to find a distraction in the pale flowers or the stormy sky or the sage green of the mountain forest, but the time for distractions was over. Wylla had to confront this now, or not at all.

Even the way he mispronounced her name, once such a source of ire, had become endearing some time ago. She winced still, sometimes, but in jest these days. That should’ve been a sign to her. She’d been wilfully blind to it before, wrapped up in finding reasons to blame him and push him away, but she embraced it now, turning in his arms so she could press her muzzle beneath his and mutter, I love you, too, Mahler.