Ocean's Breath Plateau have some love

nearer, until he felt the hummingbird heartbeat of her pain stirring in the air around him.
it whispered and thrummed and lived in the tears that traced her face;
chakliux did not think. he only spoke.
"i loved her too," he heard himself say in a voice half living. "she never knew it. i did not want her to know."
but those songs had etched part of chakliux away, as did these now for ariadne. unfair. unfair. and he, selfish in the middle of it.