Blackbeak Bluff wind chaser

'Cause then I'll only have myself to deal with, she says, as if stating the obvious.

I can't take care of others. I tried and I— she pauses, overcome by an unbidden emotion, her lips pressed together and brows furrowed tight. —It's too hard.

She was aware of her vulnerability, her shortcomings. Her personal failures dripped from her mouth and pooled beneath her like antifreeze from a car.