Emberwood Walking and the sky keeps falling down

When Taki stopped, he paused, looking down, but smiling thin and calm. She apologized, and he shook his head. It wasn't like it was her fault, or really anyone's fault, that Aphrodite had died. It was the nature of things. For a long time Taikon had wanted to blame the Saints for her death, convinced that they must have had something to do with it. However, when he could find no evidence of the sort, he stopped hunting for it. It had simply been a terrible draw of the cards. Nothing more.
He hated that it was nothing more.
He nodded to her second apology. It's okay. This is just the way things are. Things don't last. He said it very calmly, but not distanced. Something about her affection had brought out this feature in him. Perhaps it was the way he had spoken of children before.
She was a good person. It wasn't even anyone's fault that she died. She just...did. Taikon said. Strangely, he felt almost positive. He was thinking more about what Aphrodite had actually brought to his life than the fact that she wasn't here anymore. You'd probably have gotten along with her. You know, if things had been different, he suggested, rather uselessly. He didn't even know if it was true. He really had never seen Aphrodite interact with women, but he liked the idea of them all randomly hanging out together just because.