Sleepy Fox Hollow Gain the weight of you, then lose it

now she truly did anger him, and this showed in the brief tightening of his jaw. mahler glanced over her small and weakened figure, how her wound still seemed to curdle with heat, her chapped mouth and the very prone nature of her! how could she think!
how could she believe
that he would ever so much as entertain the thought of leaving her here?
"now you listen," the shadowpriest began, looming closely over her and speaking softly, lest phaedra hear. however, little pitchers had big ears; he suspected if their yearling girl was awake, she would catch the roll of his baritone.
listen, wylla, as if she had not already heard him so many times, and he her.
mahler was not angered, now, it had ebbed into something frustrated and open, the quintessential stone wall that had always been his unable to be tugged down, refusing to descend. not when she still walked the sliver of land between this existent world and her own demise.
"i vill not be leaving you. i vill be taking you to rivenvood, vhere," he hastened sharply, lest wylla began her protestations early, "vhere i intend to do this until you are better. yes, i am deciding this for you, now, before you have a moment to say no, or that you vill not go. i am not taking you there to deprive you of any freedom or obligate you to me, i am doing this because it is the correct reflection of my love for you, and also phaedra's love for you."
"you do not need to stay there, vonce you are better. no vone vill forbid you from that, or from even leaving before you are truly vell." his stoneflower eyes explored the one remaining to her, a pleading that had no edge of ice now, no rock, no barrier. only the deeply felt truth of what he was speaking, lashed to the backbone of his firm bedside manner.
he did not add that this was the role of a doktor; he would not give wylla another opportunity to assume the worst of him, again, as she had just done. he meant to nurse her as much from his deeply held adoration as his skill.
an exhale; he veiled the gaze, just for a moment, reopening it to set it toward her cheekbone again. "if i leave you here, you vill be dead in less than a day. you are already dehydrated. you cannot valk. dying alone in this place is your choice, but it is not mine, and not vone i vill let you make. not if i am able to save you. i vill not leave."