Nova Peak schädigen

mahler, having not known the true nature of wylla's previous relationship with nyx, seized upon it with a fierce surge of annoyance. while he believed that the little wolfess had been threatened by his previous agreement, was it not she who had become eisen with he and wintersbane? what did nyx have? nothing, nothing beyond the spare reach of his affection and the daughters he had sired.
in mahler's mind, wylla had never intended to forgive the golden woman, inasmuch as she would forever hold his mistakes above his world-weary head. that enough rankled him, but moreover, it was her belief that exclusion was not harmful. inward furnace swelling, lips thinning further as wylla flung her words toward him.
snippets of ice, of her own barely veiled anguish, and the overwhelming sense of fury that clung limpet-like to every castigation. she was ruler here and nyx was gone, returned with elke and ciri to a true experience of familial love he had never been able to deliver to her heart even despite all his wishes.
"you do not think their leader refusing to recognize their existence was a burden, in some vay? you do not think that they vere old enough to know how much you vent beyond yourself to ignore them, vylla? that they knew so clearly their place here, and that it vas low?" eyes narrowing. "your contention vith nyx in the past does not matter here. this is vhy i did not vant to hear your endless grievances! they never stop. they never cease." 
for that, after all of it — this was the sum of mahler: dust. 
when she had finished, and he heard the breath come again, sweeping into her throat, the gargyole found he had nothing to say.
"i asked you to be my vife, vylla. and you said no," he discovered all the same, a thrumming pinprick of memory cutting from behind his ear. "i offered you the legitimacy i offered no vone else, and you turned it aside." he turned now his lilac stare to the cold climbing forests of the peak. "it seems, vylla, that you vill not believe a vord i say unless i discard everyvone else for you."
the twist of her blade, that he should stay in moonspear. "she does not vant me either," came the respondent edge of chillweather warning. "believe me or do not, but it is the truth. there is not some ... grand conspiracy against you. only a woman who feared you in every way and my own failings, for vich i have paid dearly. i am happy to pay for my sins, desperate to atone however i might, but i have never lied to you, vylla. not vonce. you knew vhat it vas from the beginning, and yet you still chose me."
his gaze turned back to her own by now. "sagtannet is vhere phaedra and thade were born, and it is vhere i vant to be! not there." mahler no more desired to be one of hydra's subjects than he wished to be here upon this cold ground clashing with his co-leader once more. his arrangement with nyx had been before before before; before she had ever come back, and for the first time he felt regret rise to choke him.
"you insult me at every turn, vylla; as a father. as a man." a swallow, a light, wormwood chuckle, a blink that angrily sought to burn away the gathering saltwater in his eyesight.
"the irony is that you are right to do so. i deserve this. all of your slights, and your anger. they are mine to carry." accent thickening as if that were somehow possible beyond the already muddled baritone. "and i admit this, freely. alvays, vylla. and to her, as vell. both failed by my selfishness, and our children most of all." a breath. "but they are all mein kinder. i love them more than i love you."
"so vhen i make my decisions, they are vith them in mind. not you. not nyx. them. my decision is to stay in sagtannet because i believe it is best for our children, and my decision is to remain as much in the lives of elke and ciri as i am able." a steadying inhale of cold air. "but i do not ... i do not need to stay here as your fellow leader." 
a twitch of his lips; he pulled his gaze from her own to earth. "it is clear ... it is clear you have no respect for me because i have given you no reason to respect me. you think i am an idiot, at least." searching down, drowning in the hardbit canary depths of her single beautiful eye; oh, she was so deeply, hatefully, bitterly beautiful to mahler, always, a star burning superior in the cold expanse of the darkened skies beyond where he was able to reach. too good. too —
"and it seems ..." had he ever struggled so before, blindsided by his own grasping for composure. "that ve, you and i, have the ability to create vonderful children, but nothing else." not a home. not a partnership. something like love too bordered by thornways, something that attempted so feverishly to be what it could not.