Firefly Glen [PHE] kru

perhaps she had believed that by setting herself afire in truth, there would be some absolution to come from the blistering pain. but that play of emotion across john's face assured her in assumption of his judgement, even as he held her close and asked after the young she had borne beyond wedlock in his absence.
"ezra and gideon," skaigona whispered, her voice breaking on their names. "you might say it was by god's grace that gideon found his way back to anselm, their father. i'm told they're here," she went on, shifting into a taut uprightness that gently removed her in any contact from john, as if forcing herself to sit unsupported in bitter emblem of how she must now be alone.
"when ezra and i find him," skaigona stalled, adding words to a sentence she did not want to say, "i'll be sending our son with his father. whether or not he wants to go," she added, and more tears fell to the corners of a mouth that barely remembered smiling. "he has a chance to be a family with anselm and gideon. i want him to have it, john," and then she truly was silent, unable to say more as gaze stared sightlessly ahead.
"do not blame yourself for anything," skaigona said after a long quiet had passed. "you went to find my sons; you have been so devoted. no one could ask for more," golden eyes at last turning upon his good, kind face. "but i do have one more thing to ask of you," and here she put both her paws upon his own, cupping the travelworn curve in her palms. "i want you to relinquish whatever service you think you might owe this family. i want you — to live." to marry. to have children. 
it was a tribulation to find the next words; skaigona found herself blurting them; "i am dying, john." her thin shoulders shrugged in some parody of comedic relief. "i found judah in the mountains. i know dinah and ava are alive. and my sons will be with their father. whatever plan god has for me, it ends here, i think."