Wheeling Gull Isle krampusnacht

Why are you sad? Asks a child's voice, and he pauses.

He does not look to where the voice has come from. Emotion springs to life upon his face, cleaved from his aching heart so that he may choke on it; he cannot look because he might just lose the last bit of control that he's got, so he stares at the dirt for a little bit too long, that pressure holding him down. Finally, swallowing a few times and hoping that a deep breath will help, he opens his mouth — turns his ruined face towards the voice's origin with certainty that he can handle an answer, but — he sees the boy and loses his nerve.

Even if Titmouse had wanted to explain the details of his awful little life, all that he'd lost, the people who were no longer a part of it, the family he no longer had, his voice would never allow it. So he gathered what composure he could and somehow drawled, Loss-a fren. Maegi was so much more than that; but she had left him, and in time he'd have to figure out what that meant.