Otatso Wetlands Break free and leave us in ruins

had she not heard him? had she not seen his words as the outpouring of love he had meant them to be? come back at any cost, only come back. mahler was releasing the boy even as wylla crowded close, her single sunflower eye 
stag had only gasped once, given nothing else —
burning into his own with desperation —
mahler stared at her. "i vould never vant you to come back in that vay," shock coldwater running through his arteries and muscles until he realized what he had done, what he had become so very swiftly in her eyes. how could she know that he would not kill stag?
a snort of his breath as he eyed the boy. but pride remained; he would not be the one to leave their presence.
"go," the gargoyle seethed; a foolish child, consumed by wylla's scent. aside from his love for the son of his kill-brother, it would have been too easy to kill the boy, not an even match, and in this there was shame too.
no warmth left to the doktor as he raised his head to stare at the both of them, the inside of his starlight heart dissolving into ash, but stoneflower gaze a hardened spread of gemstone. 
want her he did, yet wylla truly believed he would take her hostage, and this he meant to dispel with a weighted step backward, inviting no more conflict unless it came from the snowlimbed boy.