Duskfire Glacier And the walls keep tumbling down

He felt the burn of her gaze upon him, and was reminded of the morning they'd met, when plant life and sorrow had been his second skin. He'd felt out of place before the hardy mother then, whose mere presence had emanated strength and boundless love. Now, he felt the same. They were as foreign to one another as when they'd first met - the time of kindling bonds had been severed when her family had been destroyed, and when Tuwawi had become something of a ghost to the clinging remnants of the Glacier clan.

Within, Malachi feared she would disappear again, and a part of him was unwilling to put hope in her return. But when she reached to him, breathed his name, pressed the cool of her nose against his neck, his heart crumbled and he felt the weight in his stomach lift as he moved to nudge her back. His nose met first with the coolness of the band wound tight around her neck, but he did not jerk away, merely shifted until he could feel the natural warmth of her nape pressing against his snout. "I'm sorry." The words choked from his mouth before he could restrain them, and his ears fell sheepishly to the sides, but he did not seek to take them back.