Wheeling Gull Isle treibloka

<3

Is he? Beneath the fur his face was aflame, but still it lit up with an incandescent smile of relief. To have sung in the old ecclesiastical language unearthed memories of his desolate childhood but he did not look back on them with unhappiness, not now. Those bleak days felt far removed from him. In this moment he was Theseus's ship, restored.

I am glad. Do not cry, snegurochka. If she let him he would swipe the tears off of her cheeks with gentle swipes of his wrist.

This girl who was so much wiser than him, yet still so young, scarcely old enough to have dispersed from family. She had mentioned that everyone had left her until she had found Bartholomew. And god, of course. His heart twinged at the thought. He wondered, was it better to be born with nothing at all, or to be born with something and then have that taken away from you?

A pointless question. Silently he berated himself for it.

He buried his face in his hands and closed his eyes as tightly as he could, his neck, shoulders, and arms all knotted with emotion, an intense puckering before a release.