Lion Head Mesa ductile

her words so gentle, her large self so comforting besides him. but oh!

"but ah cannot!" he released his face, cheeks tear-streaked despite all efforts.

"they was.. they was maggie's more th'n mine, n ah ne'er heard 'er wishes regardin' 'em." his lipline trembled and he tried to blink away the waterworks.

"ah c'nnot b' father t' pups o' late mother t'might've been offended by mah raisin' 'em!" he put a paw to his creased forehead, bit his lip. desperate for the depths of his conundrum to be understood.

and maegi... quiet, poised maegi, she was a woman of the world! of history and family and loss and faith and so, so much more than could fit in his own five years of unobstructed comfort. 

five years in which not once did he feel grief as sharply as he did now, robbed - for the first time! - of something he so deeply desired, and worked himself - for the first time! - to see be made into reality.

and now the man, feeling as boyish as he was sized, did not know how to honour those gone. those he no longer could be with even in fantasies - else he'd go mad.