Otatso Wetlands Without the night.

Anselm would have given anything to love as Etienne did. Openly. Vulnerably.

What was so inexorably wrong with him that he couldn't?

He watched as the seaborn moved closer and fought the urge rising within him. The storm raging without was nothing compared to the storm raging within Anselm.

No small surprise to learn Etienne missed the things he loved, but could not bend himself to fit in a mold that went against his very principles. Anselm would have given anything to have such self-assurance too; to know oneself so openly and free of persecution from the self.

He swallowed, voice husky. No. I don't. And suddenly, cruelly to Etienne as he always was, Anselm fell silent.

What good had come of the hollows or the mountains? He'd only known grief. And now his children grew within his black garden, threatened by the bitter fruit looming within. Would they taste it, too?

Maybe he should give his children to Etienne and simply walk off the fucking mountain.