Sleepy Fox Hollow Gain the weight of you, then lose it

a sharp inhale from his own muzzle buried in her fur; he pulled back to look down at her, resolution flickering to life, the sharp determined edges of the captain he had once been. and it grew, as it had always been so; it had not left him in these years. "you vill not die."
it left his sense of logic tattered, such a hubristic statement uttered aloud; it flew in the face of all the doktor had ever practiced inside and out of medicine. to know the sum of a diagnosis and to say it with no hesitation. but to hope? he had been given no reason to think such things, not until wylla became his patient and he saw, finally, curled in this moment, that he could apply no harsh rigidity to it now.
not them.
"every hour that you are alive you leave death behind. but you need vater, more than i can bring here." mahler's ears flicked back in apology. "you must stand now, mausebär." he could not fight this battle for her, but mahler meant to be her vanguard.
"fifteen minutes, that vay. a stream. you remember." quick flick of his lips as he tensed, ready to straighten and stand them both.
not yet; he waited for her to be prepared, taking the following second to press lips to her forehead.