Moonsong Glacier And we won't let it in

Dutch had grown numb to the ache of it. Loneliness had been his way of life too long for him to recognize the pangs for what they were. He knew that he wanted, but wants were such fickle things, were they not? He had to keep his eyes ahead; this foresight a hard-learned lesson taught by its equally painful cousin: hindsight.

The want that had most endured over the years was the want to go back, to act differently when Auk stood before him, proud and fiery but, ultimately, indifferent to his presence. He wanted this, but he could not wish it without also wishing his sons and daughters out of existence. He wished he could've had them with someone else instead; someone who would not have raised them to be just as indifferent to him.

For all that he loved to psychoanalyze those around him, Dutch was woefully unprepared to diagnose his own neuroses. He only knew that he could not have the things he wanted, but that Simbelmyne could and should. What kind of world did they live in if a woman like her was still unattached despite wanting so ardently to be courted? It wrong, and Dutch wanted to right it the say way he ended stories with happily ever after.

"Dream well," he replied, eminently pleased purely because she seemed pleased. But the ultimate pleasure, he told himself, would be seeing her happy, wed, and surrounded by her adoring children.

(Very carefully, he did not look at the face of that imaginary husband.)