Sleepy Fox Hollow when you wake, you're bargaining

"laurel begged me to be the father of those children. i do not regret saying no. but i raised them as if they vere. like the others." he sat down in the purling drifts and allowed himself at last the respite of her voice, without the constraints of another time.
they no longer existed.
snapping ropes and settling sand; he swallowed. "i certainly loved them like they vere. i think — perhaps that is part of vhy she expected me to move to conflict. and druid and vitch —" well, he'd left them all, had he not?
"i have not vanted to lead for a very long time. i kept going because i vas the only vone who could do so, i felt. and now we have come here."
logs snapping, plunging down a mountainside. "i vas never able to choose. i am alvays so full of indecision, vylla, until i could not be. i had to choose. i vill not justify it. but neither do i regret it. i am tired of living vith so many."