Whitewater Gorge i wish i could rub the grief from you as if it were a smudge on the cheek

it was not known to mahler how long it had been since he had cradled another so tenderly, one not a suckling child. there arose in his breast a tightening sensation, one uncomfortable, for marigold had only skirted around the edges of his mind these past several years.
as aurëwen curled against him — so light the touch of her tortured frame! — mahler began to glean the portrait of the terrified child still crouching within the motherdove, too frightened to grow, too horrified at the idea of failure. 
even as aurëwen revealed this pieces of herself to his listening ear, mahler let another part of his mind encircle what he remembered of his wife.
he kept himself ever present, however, and when she began to stir and question herself in the tired breathy monotone of the very exhausted, mahler was silent a moment.
”you are his mother, a healer. i am sure you left him vith such. you have therefore done vhat you can, aurëven.” he drew back now to look into her features, seek the woman’s eyes with his own.
”ve cannot blame ourselves for things beyond control. vhen he recovers, perhaps he vill be changed. vhat matters is that you remain a constant in dragomir’s life, something to vich he might cling.”
he cleared his throat, touched her gently with the descent of his broad muzzle, and said no more. a tormented soul, even unto the last days; plagued, pursued, injured, and now robbed of her child’s light. and yet such strength she had to go forward, to draw more breath, as he almost had refused to do when marigold departed this world.