Sunset Valley seltsam

the last time mahler had seen ketzia, they had come together in some dance-step of mutual desperation, winding flesh with pain until they passed beyond the edges of one another. and as she rested so close in an intimate lightness, the gargoyle was reminded of that time again.
she, bound to her love for stigmata, driven out of the mountains that had only ever brought her pain;
he, bound to his ambition and resolve to continue the name of the ironwolf ever fast and ever forward.
something prickling beneath the spread of his hackles;
he grasped the end of what she was saying; her children, building their own empire, perhaps filled with the same powerful pride that had marked their father. and she, come to wander alone while they birthed their own populace. life moving on. inexorable as he was bound to the roots of his own inability to evolve.
"is there still sadness in your heart?" he clarified, knowing there would be but meaning to hope that ketzia was now unbowed beneath the weight of her former sorrows.