Noctisardor Bypass ich muss dir sagen

"i am," he tried to insist, but his voice broke in the middle because he was not yet ready to weep. "i am," mahler said more firmly, drawing a breath that threatened to stir the crumbling tomb-dust taste of the cough from his chest, and along with it the creeping terror that had silently begun to take hold of him.
"no, vylla!" his accent, thickening inexorably as he looked sharply at her face. he did not expect her to exult him to more. mahler did not live in the tempting martyrdom of thinking she would rejoice at such news. she was too kind beneath the layers of basalt, too good, more alive than he, to take pleasure in the suffering of even someone who had cost her so much.
this was his truth, whatever else the actual one might be.
"i am not ... ready to simply give up. but i have been treated by three healers, not including myself. i mean only — verdammt! —" coursing under his breath; echoing wylla.
"i vant only to be realistic."
mahler thought starkly now that he should not have said anything, that he only should have gone off to die. but the unfairness of that not only to her but to phaedra and the little ones and those he loved in rivenwood: they who had suffered enough loss should suddenly be without again. he had little doubt that the bypass would rally, and do what was necessary for the good of their children, all of them. but it was too cruel a picture to paint at the end of his life, and would have been another selfishness.
"i vill ... seek a thousand medicines if it matters," mahler breathed, a quick, harsh, humourless smile tearing at his mouth. "but i do not think it can be cured. the symptoms can only be held at bay for a time. vhat do i know, however? i am only a midvife."
he meant it as some sort of crass, misplaced joke; it emerged bitter, the taste of early currants, and his gaze cut sharply toward anything but the accusation of her stare.