Noctisardor Bypass ich muss dir sagen

mahler wanted to tell her not to waste time outside the bypass, to remain here for phaedra. but gratefully, and at long last, the gargoyle first saw that for what it would be: a rejection. he had always known there was love between them, still, still — he was a fool to deny it, despite how wrapped in nettle and bracken it had become.
no —
what he had let it become.
the graf's eyes suddenly grew bright with a lilac mist of tears, the ones he could no longer hold back; he stared hardened and silent, skyward, as the corners of his mouth trembled. she would watch him fight against them until he could not any longer. mahler's face contorted into a sob. he sought to save himself by slicing his eyes down to cut against the earth, to close.
"ich fühle mich wie," he began, stuttering between tongues as was his wont; speaking only when composure found him after that single strangled sound — "you are alvays taking care of me. and i have never taken care of you like that."
body, yes; mahler saw the wasted years of not having nourished her spirit, and hated himself for only seeing it now, selfishly poised at the edge of a void he could not fathom.
"i vant to tell you to take phaedra and leave, now. i know how cruel it sounds, vylla, i truly do. but you understand." he was breaking again, and this time he did not hide himself. "vhy should her memories of me only hold more pain, atop everything else? or yours. you know — you know i must argue," a curt, depthless chuckle, gravel tossed into the bottom of a pit. the ocean sluiced in angered channels along his face.
or a grave.
and then the sundering. he hung his head.
a fitting punishment indeed.