Noctisardor Bypass bedauert

with the help of phaedra, mahler had indeed taken wylla across the territory to the imagined place. clearing as much from the cave as he was able, he helped her to lie back upon soft leaves, and cut his way to and fro between the ferns until they were half-frayed, hanging across its mouth.
when night of the second day fell and he came down from the forested recesses, mahler brought with him a leg of rabbit and more greenery tucked against his gumline. medicine and food.
laurel still addled his mind; her scent hung thickly in the populated places of rivenvood, but here he hoped she would not come.
he had filled his mouth with water and spat it out, searching fervently for any traces of blood. seeing none, mahler had come away, legs wet, and now stood still slightly sodden at the entrance to the healer's den. "@Wylla," mahler said gently, before he entered, searching for her with soft gaze.

The journey from the mountains to the secluded bypass Mahler called Rivenwood took its toll on Wylla. She arrived possibly worse off than she departed. While the wound on her shoulder was caked over with a mixture of berry juice and cobweb and all manner of green things, there must be just as much purulent blood and the flesh was beginning to stink again. The heat returned to it as they crossed the flatlands, making Wylla feverish once again, though she was not lost in it the way she was before.

Phaedra and Mahler kept her lucid with tireless work and company until at last, they arrived. Wylla let herself be led into the territory, trying not to notice the mingled scents of multiple females and the the milkscent of young on the air, the acrid stench of a bitch in heat, trying not to let green-eyed jealousy rear in her and demand to know how many of them belonged to Mahler. How many Nyxes were there here? How many Ciris and Elkes?

He had said none, and Wylla wanted so badly to believe it was true that she swallowed her envy, packed it away in a corner of her mind for later contemplation. When she was free of this place, no doubt she would search the vale for the cubs, and no doubt she would ensure that not a single one shared the violet eyes of their leader or the gunsmoke grey of his pelt.

Wylla rested in a wide, cool cave surrounded by soft things and with the scent of half-shredded foliage thick in the air. She spent a lot of time sleeping with her injured shoulder pressed down upon the cold stone. But by the second day she was already growing restless; lucky for her that Mahler arrived just then, softly uttering her name. She lifted her head to find him in the greenshroud gloom and forced herself to lift the corners of her lift in a small smile, despite the jade serpent coiling in her belly at the offensive smell of Laurel drifting through the open doorway.

Not on him, she reminded himself. Not on him. Just on the breeze, coming from elsewhere. I haven't moved an inch, she promised, wincing as she veritably peeled her scabbing shoulder off the ground.

"i believe you," mahler rejoined smilingly. after a brief inspection of her healing wound, he pushed the rabbit haunch toward her. "there is more," he said softly. often after one had been deprived of food, the natural reaction was to eat then as much as they were able. bur such actions led to the quick souring of the belly.
despite this, and naturally, he would let her have as much as she wished. mahler settled himself nearby in the air of a man who has just opened the newspaper at the breakfast table. 
yet he meant to watch her surreptitiously, lilac gaze flicking sideways as be busied himself with the poultice he had brought. before it had been a mixture of feverberry and feverleaf; now he packed the wound mostly with a treatment of white birch and oak. 
the tannins in the latter would cool the vivid pink of a healing wound. the former was for any liquid that might seep, and provided a basic antiseptic.
mahler waited hopefully for wylla to ask her questions. he wanted to speak now, and swiftly: that the children were not his own, that he had been asked twice — three times if iana was counted, not something to mention even in his mad pursuit of wylla's trust.
he must mention none of them, but answer directly if she did. decided months prior. it was the only way to mend what had been destroyed.

Wylla reached a thin ankle out for the rabbit haunch and pulled it toward herself. She ought to be starving, but found she still didn't have much of an appetite. Laurel's scent wafting into the open cave certainly didn't help matters, causing Wylla's tongue to stick to the roof of her mouth as her stomach curdled with envy.

Do not, she scolded herself, snipping small bites from the haunch while she watched Mahler watching her. Her time had come and past this season and she had made her decision: children were not important enough to her. Not as important as remaining faithful to her love, even when it crumbled around her. It wasn't, she thought, that she was jealous of other she-wolves bearing pups, but the possibility that they were Mahler's, that he was hiding them from her, that he would lie about it...

How many pups are there here? wondered Wylla. She couldn't help herself, but formed it in that manner rather than outright asking how many were his. He had said none. She owed him some trust in this. If she could choose to avoid all men during her season, why should he be unable to control himself with women? She took another bite in hopes of concealing the way she picked at his expression, unfairly seeking a lie in his face, waiting for the livid closing of his features that always came in these moments.

Self-sabotage; that was all Wylla was good for, wasn't it?

when it came, it was less direct than he had expected. "four," mahler answered gently. "praimfaya had a pair and sequoia had two of her own as vell." the second name would mean nothing to wylla, and the first — perhaps it would only perturb her. but this was her pack now, for as long as she wished it to be, and she would soon know their titles. he hoped. "i sent them to look outside rivenvood for fathers." he wanted to prattle on, but saw the futility of it. 
she was not eating as he had wanted her to do; the woman was maybe determined to sort out the silences between him, the changes that had gone on before she arrived and while she lay healing. laurel's scent was everywhere, inescapable; it clawed at him, evoking a hunger that no spoils of hunting could satisfy.
but he was steadfast — his expression remained open, though it fell now pointedly toward the flesh he had brought. mahler had seen the rawboned arm. she was already a small individual, to the point where any loss of weight was directly observed. eating was necessary for the body to gain its strength, and in time, wylla.
his prognosis was that it would be another week before she was free of the threat of returning fever, and a second before she would be able to walk without pain. he did not tell her this, assuming that the she-wolf was well aware of her dire predicament and did not need his medical lectures.
mahler reclined, folding one broad foreleg under his chest and reaching the other to just brush her own.
"laurel too has been told to search elsevhere." hers was a more dire situation, however; for a moment, he thrummed with hurt for the traumatized woman.

Sequoia, a name quickly picked up and set aside. Not one of Sagtannet's, and no concern of Wylla's, so long as the pups had a father elsewhere who was not Mahler. Praimfaya was more of a surprise, but she remembered how Mahler had spoken of the girl returning, making amends. Time alone would earn Praimfaya the respect of Wylla, who remembered keenly how the self-proclaimed "commander" had stood there and watched while her leader was disrespected at the borders of Sawtooth Spire, and remembered how Praimfaya had defied direct orders from her superiors.

Yes, she would make that one work for it after that. A taste of her own medicine might do that girl some good.

Wylla started gently when Mahler's toes touched hers, breaking her out of her thoughts to glance down at them with a queer flutter in her chest. Laurel must be the woman whose damnable scent was in the air today. So long as she did as she was told and left Mahler alone, Wylla would have no qualms with her. Another unfamiliar name, another wolf she didn't much care about.

How many are left from Sagtannet? she wondered next, biting back the urge to pull her paw away from his. There was no reason to do so; just her usual stupid fear of losing everything, urging her to shut it down before it even had a chance to begin. The rabbit haunch sat forgotten while she swallowed past a sudden lump in her throat that threatened nausea should she take another bite.

"astraeus." mahler did not consider praimfaya for that; she had been ousted as exile before they had come to nova peak. "he has grown into a retiring young man." the gargoyle did not believe that the presence of wylla would inspire astraeus to sudden heights — he did not yet know that the boy had followed and wounded taikon for his insubordination.
noting that she had not drawn away from him, a low exhale through his nostrils. she would find him hopelessy doe-eyed for a moment, feeling suddenly boyish as if he were a young man again, with a new face to adore.
he had been deprived of looking at her — no, he had deprived himself of looking at her, mahler corrected; slowly he righted the slight against her with a shy exploration of her features, before he remembered again. "and the boy born to star, calcifer." but star was not here, not any longer, and he trusted wylla would hear the implication.

Only two. Wylla already knew that Takiyok and Taikon were sent from the pack following her departure with Stag, but she assumed the others would still be here. There had been a newcomer, she recalled, and Star and Marble. Loyalists, she once thought, but only to Mahler. Never to her.

Now there was Phaedra, Mahler, Calcifer, and Astraeus. She grimaced. Star...? The woman was not young, and half a year or more had passed since last Wylla saw her. Star's death seemed the likeliest thing. Thade? she wondered next, unable to keep a slight waver from her tone.

Their boy had always been unsettled, ever since being taken; a wanderer who never quite fit in. It made her heart hurt to think he might still be wandering.

Mahler, she said, using her free leg to push the remains of the haunch forward. You take this. I'm not very hungry. She hoped her appetite would return soon, but until then, the thought of food made her queasy. So, too, did the unsaid apologies and wishes whirling around in her head.

What were you doing in the mountains? How did you find me?

a small paw, pushing the offering toward him.
his mouth was suddenly dry.
"star vas vith us vhen ve left the mountain and settled in the taiga for a time. she did not stay."
their son.
"thade has never settled. he comes and he goes. but he is alvays himself. i saw him some months ago, and he must find his own peace." for he certainly had not provided it, dragging their children from sawtooth to nova to the brackenwoods, and then finally here. he had given no semblance of the stability to the boy who had undergone silent and unsaid things during his young time away from them.
"i thought it good if phaedra and i vent on a sort of vacation before rivenvood's children arrived." shying from that mention, but he had enjoyed every moment of it; had it not culminated with wylla alongside him?
"i said ve might visit sagtannet, vhere it first stood." a smile drifting to solemnity upon his mouth. "and then i said, i vill show you vhat came before sawtooth, and there you were."
his eyes welling now; mahler turned his head away at once, asking that they depart at once. he hated to be so overcome and yet could not help himself. presently the moment forgot itself, and he swallowed and offered her a wry, self-deprecating look.

Wylla listened silently until the moment that the soft verdant light caught a glisten in Mahler's eyes. Then it was her turn to feel her breath squeezed in her lungs while her tongue turned to sandpaper. The gentle throb of her shoulder slowed and shuddered with her heart beat, which seemed to suspend itself a moment there, a beat missed in shock.

She didn't wonder about Star's fate or even the stories their wayward son might speak when he returned; those concerns were diminished entirely next to this. She had seen many emotions buried beneath the weight of Mahler's stoic pride. Every open door slammed shut and latched with iron, every time. This was new.

What, she mumbled, drawing her paw back now as though afraid she had done this—or that he was reliving some regret of his for having found her, or that he was about to tell her he had found another love in her absence and that it was not the same anymore, these paranoias rising unbidden and immediate. It was all she could do not to jump to becoming defensive and assuming the worst.

No. That had not served her in the past, and Wylla knew she couldn't take another rejection or another turned back, not now, not when she had nothing left to lose. She had to use her words for once: What's wrong?

nothing, he wanted to say. nothing at all. some saccharine pronouncement that he would not mean and wylla would not believe. but there was no reason for that now. even in these moments they had traveled a good deal along a path that had formerly been beset by thorns.
the absence of them now frightened mahler, more than he would admit to himself.
and so he took a breath and did not immediately answer.
he remembered too fierce-red the way that the smears of red had lain circular and horrendous upon the ground, how the blood had tasted of salt and of some iron metal deep inside himself; how it had clung short and bitter. but it had not come back! it was not with him now;
she was;
"because i did not think i vould see you again. and then, vhen i did, i thought it vas to say goodbye." and mahler could not look at her, did dare not look at her, lest the memory of it crush him again in her presence.
he could not pass before wylla this cup, not now; still more to be done.
for it was gone from him now, that moment, and now this one was theirs to share.

She felt much like he did, in a secret part of herself. Wylla knew this could only be temporary; while she had a new lease on life and was more willing to bury the hatchet, there was still a lot between them that was not resolved, and possibly never would be. She was still not fully open to him, and he was still beset by the bitter things she had engendered in him.

This moment, likely not built to last, but Wylla handled it gingerly. She didn't want to shatter the peace, however temporary it was. A taste of a life she could have, if she wasn't so selfish and hellbent on pointing fingers at everyone but herself. She wanted it for as long as she could have it.

Just some stupid bear, she muttered, downplaying the severity. Like I'd let some stupid bear do me in. They both knew Wylla would have died without his interference. It was uncharitable of her to downplay it at all. It implied, in a way, that his efforts and Phaedra's efforts were unnecessary. Wylla knew this, said it anyway, then sucked her tongue back into her throat with regret, because she was beginning to do what she always did.

Thorns creeping up from the ditch.

Walk it back, she berated herself moments before she added, I'm glad you were there.

her admission quirked his mouth, despite the rotten nature of all the thins he had ever perpetuated onto wylla. "so vas i," mahler said quietly. there was not room for more words now. he only allowed himself the bitedark image of what he might have found in the fox-hollow had he and phaedra had arrived a day later. or if they had never gone at all, keeping themselves to sagtannet until the end of their foray.
a stupid bear.
mahler was amused more than anything. wylla knew its severity; she knew pain and fever and the promise of death. yet she changed her path for nothing, striding stubborn and headlong into a storm. he knew he had introduced a good deal of pain to her life, and yet the core of wylla, it felt, would withstand even him.
in many ways, she did not need him.
mahler cleared his throat, indicated the meat that now neither of them had touched. "shall i bring something fresher?" the shadowpriest inquired, uncomfortable not with her, but with the conception that at any moment, he could step down too hard and fracture their moment into spiderwebbing. "it vould be against my prognosis to allow you not to eat, vylla," mahler added, mock severity wishing to lift their collective humour.

Wylla's mind turned inexplicably to Stag, then. The boy had always been so mild-mannered around those he trusted, and she regretted that being around her had turned him so volatile toward Mahler. She was a poisoned well, and he the poor fool sipping from it, and now he was who-knew-where, alone. It turned her stomach to think of Stag out there with no support, after he had given up everything to follow her into the wilderness.

Just another notch on the branch that marked all of Wylla's failures over the years. She resolved to find him when she was well again. Whether he made up with Mahler or not, she could not let him wander out there believing he had been abandoned again. She would want to know, if she was him.

Wylla thought to ask Mahler to keep an eye out for the Sandraudiga, but then kept it to herself. She was certain the Graf would do it. She knew Mahler, the truth of him, enough to know that no matter what, he still loved his brother's son. But she didn't want to put him in a position where Stag might lunge for him again or blame him for what transpired. No. This was her doing, and she would be the one to undo it. Taking responsibility, for once.

Her eyes dropped to the rabbit haunch when Mahler spoke again, and she shook her head, trying to ignore the sour way saliva pooled in the corners of her mouth. No, she said. There's nothing wrong with it. It just makes me feel kinda sick to think about eating. He was right, though, so she added, I'll try again later. Promise.

Then, in the silence that was bound to yawn between them now, something in Wylla cracked all of a sudden. Mahler, I've been... She paused, furrowed her brow and worked her jaws, like the words were physically painful to say. In a sense, they were. It meant admitting that the chasm between them was largely her own doing, despite all the pain his actions had caused her. For every time she claimed Mahler did not truly love her because he was willing to lie with others and split his time and clutch to a piece of dirt rather than building a life with her, she had flung daggers at him and thrashed against his beliefs. What kind of love was that, then? As much as she blamed him for all of it, Wylla was at least equally to blame.

I'm sorry.

mahler expected little and wanted nothing, truly, but the weight of her apology tore at him. as if she should have been the one to speak first! in his heart, he had been the one to transgress many times. she had only become reactive to him, to the way his action and his word did not align on the same plane.
but to hear it reminded him of the deep and abiding love that had dragged him stranglehold since he had left her with stag in the midst of her season. and the insult he had given her even then! to suggest that she would couple with the boy, as if her need for children and a legacy outweighed all his own selfishness toward that end.
but ahler did not think it would be appropriate to deny wylla the chance toward a step forward. he only set his ears back, pressed his scarred muzzle forward to brush her cheek, lingering openly and with a new sort of overwhelming hope.
"as am i." for all of it, for everything he knew he had done, and all the things he had not meant to do, but had been done anyway. a swallow threatening his throat, and behind it, the ghost of a cough that pulled mahler back from wylla to a polite head-turn.
when it was finished, he returned his attention to her, apologetic, but with the newness of their words lightening his stoneflower eyes.

They both had done wrong. Wylla knew that, still feared that they would tread the same path over and over again because neither could understand the other's heart. Hers, devoted to blood; his, devoted to pack. They had not ever appreciated that about one another. There might again come a time when they stood at opposing ends and shouted at each other about how the other did not care in the proper way.

But not today. Not today.

Wylla didn't notice the cough, maybe because it would never occur to her that a medic should fall ill. She took it for him clearing his throat. She knew in her heart she had no right to this, but nevertheless Wylla rose in a crouch, pulled herself forward, and pressed her head to his neck. In the next moment she slipped it under his chin, melding herself to Mahler like she had once on Nova Peak, before everything fell apart.

She would not forget about all that. The pain she felt was still there, but subdued. Somehow, it didn't seem important anymore. She could have died! But she was alive, given a second chance to put things right by the man who should have wished her dead after all the fighting and the hate, and what was the point of holding onto such things if only misery came of it? There was time to make it right; time would tell all. Someday maybe she would regret this, someday maybe Rivenwood's wolves would look with disdain upon Wylla like Sagtannet had, and maybe he would stand aside and let her be dismantled again.

But until then... I forgive you. She owed him that much, in exchange for her life, didn't she?

wylla was a bouquet that crept closer; mahler felt all the press of her n the familiar ways, of how she fit her body to his own, of how greystone and silver melded until they almost blended to one another. he held her there, the forgiveness she gave him feathering and fluting in him until his throat tightened and the tears threatened the once-gated gaze.
how tormentous it had been to be so closed to wylla! how in just the maintenance of his own heart's fenceline, mahler had exhausted himself. he had forgotten the goodness in the warmth of her body, the way that their limbs tangled; he had forgotten what it was to no longer sense the ends of himself where wylla began, starved for their intimacy in these long splitting years.
her face, her forehead, the proud little chin, the curve of her ear; all kissed in the furor of dawn she had given him; mahler forgave her all the events she believed she had ever precipitated, and had not realized till this moment that he had surrendered all hope of hearing her voice soft upon his ears again.
"ich vergebe dir."

Once, in a fit of desperation, Wylla attempted to use Mahler's language. It came after several embarrassing attempts in the presence of her daughter to make the guttural sounds fit her mouth so she might connect with him in some fashion, yet all that practice amounted to nothing. When she actually said the words — unknowing of her impish daughter's practical joke in teaching them — she sobbed them out, wishful for reciprocation that, at the time, did not come.

Now, she forgot the words, and there was something a little inappropriate in the laugh that bubbled suddenly in her throat when he spoke more of them. She had no right to this. She knew she had no right to this. But she savoured it anyway, took what she could get, until the day came that it was ripped away again. The day would come. Wylla couldn't make herself believe that it would not. It always came.

I still don't know what any of that shit means, she shared.

"vell, then i vill teach you," mahler determined, gathering her closer and watching down upon her beatific face. "ve vill begin vith ich möchte, dass du bleibst." a tiny span of time before he translated, "'i vant you to stay.'"
something red-gold and sweet in the speaking of it; he was reminded how he had begged her to be his wife during the most tumultuous time of her year. but then it had always been chaos with them, had it not? even the dome of honeyed looks that kept them interred together now was not bound to be existent tomorrow.
mahler would make a mistake, as always.
he put the dark goblet of that thought away from him, falling silent as he felt desire sweep through him, a long-denied flame that rebirthed itself in his stare until he was compelled to look away, for fear he might be greatly tempted to delay the healing of a woman just returned from the depths of fever!
how like a man, she might say and know and think, but presently all he could consider was her.

Oh, how she hated the sound of his tongue.

How once the way he had said her name grated at her nerves! At some point, Wylla stopped correcting him and found a fondness in it, but that still didn't extend to the harsh grit of his language, even in his softest tones. She didn't like to hear it in her daughter's voice, either; something about that language simply did not appeal to Wylla, but that didn't mean there wasn't some beauty in it.

Time stood still for her for an instant when he translated it, then fell silent, eyes expectant upon her. Her heart beat hard in her chest. For Phaedra, she could have said, and meant it entirely. But that was not what Mahler wanted to hear, and might only undo what they were beginning to rebuild. It was Wylla's way to kick the foundation stones and watch everything crumble and then wonder who was to blame, but she didn't want that for this. The spark in his eye, noticed in the fraction of a second before he looked away.

She could not deny that she would have taken him that day she found him and begged him to come with her, but that would not have been for a good reason. Manipulation, then, and Wylla was many things, but she was above that now. She remembered, too, the raw strength in him dropping Stag to the ground and how, at the time, she had felt the clench of desire in her belly at the sight of it, but she was out of her mind then, and too angry, besides. And now, she was unwell, but she sensed it in him all the same and was surprised that she felt it, too, rather than the indignant disbelief that now, of all times, he would look at her that way. They could not, not now.

What if, she said, licking her lips nervously, for all her wants aside, despite wanting to fall into him and forget all the past happened, she still had her toes poised against that stone, what if it happens again? She trusted he would know to what she referred, though did herself no favours with being vague. No sense making any sort of promise if she would again be treated poorly by packmates, and again forsaken by him.

so. she thought of it too. mahler paused in the beginning of his german lesson to look solemnly at her with a knowing sheen to his lilac stare. "then ve apologize again." he was quite set upon continuing no more sins between them. only the omittance of the dark stains burnt into the hallway of his bleaker memory.
the dry summer air would thaw the lingering cough. it was only just the start of the season, mahler told himself. the feral air of sagtannet had done him well, and so would the humidity found near the eastern ponds, along the far border. there were many things to attempt, and so he saw no reason to reveal his malady, for he meant to put an end swiftly to it.
"i vill be very honest vith you going forvard, vylla," he said softly, searching the perfection of her hesitant features. "any actions i take outside of the vones between us are for rivenvood. but i am not alone in leadership, therefore i am not more beholden — not as behold as i vonce vas. as i vonce made myself be."
the echo of time in the harbinging baritone of his earnest voice.

What Wylla wanted was a promise that he would not allow it to happen again, but Mahler offered a more mature view. It was impossible that neither of them would ever misstep again. It was impossible for her to expect him to promise as much.

So they would apologize. Wylla would make due with that.

What came next had her shuttering the windows to her heart, for she misheard his intentions. How fitting that he would hold fast so long as she was gone, then return to his ways now that she was here! She remembered a similar reason for his past actions, and something in her gaze began to chill upon that assumption. How foolish of her. She never stopped to think he might mean in other ways; it had been for Diaspora, before, so it must be the same now, she thought.

Even the bit about being beholden as leader, which should have clued her in that he meant something else, served to reinforce a sudden surge of worry.

So, she said slowly, forcing words where cool winds wished to blow in the face of misunderstanding, You have contracts to keep, then? It wasn't like she could give him children this year, so it made perfect sense he might seize the opportunity.

Shuddering gates yearning to close on what openness she had offered, held only by rusted hope that that was not what he meant.

mahler panicked; gaze fell open to dismay, a sensation he quickly reined. "never again," the man said fervently, though there was a long weariness that had not been there before. "it is not a vay for anyvone to live." not a woman, not himself, and certainly not the children that came from such a pairing.
he thought of what laurel had begged; he thought of how he had lost elke and ciri after letting them depart nova, even taking them as far as moonspear. what had nyx thought of him? whatever it had been, she had taken her pain and her love to an unknown grave.
mahler's gaze, shorn with guilt.
"i told you."
he had not deviated from the statements made before; there was no one else whom he wanted, and leadership had paled to nothing in his very eyes.
"duskfire glacier is our closest ally, led by vintersbane. it has occurred to me that vith pups in both our packs, ve might share hunters between us, rather than struggle alone. i may be gone for some of this time," he told her softly; nothing so dire as a contract, but nothing innocuous as a lovestruck boy.
he was silent, watchful.

He had told her, and Wylla fretted anyway. It wasn't like whatever lay between them promised to be fulfilling in any way. They had clashed before and it seemed certain they must clash again, to cynical Wylla, whose life led her to believe only that every good thing must be followed by sorrow. Burgeoning hope could do little yet to quell that in her. A lifetime of being proven wrong would likely not be enough, and they did not have a lifetime.

What life might they have lived if Wylla did not clash with Raptor, if she had instead remained by the ocean with a younger Mahler, chosen him instead? What life might they have had if they had sent Caiaphas from Grimnismal, and not the other way around?

She wanted to protest the sincerity in his eyes and voice, because surely there was some deserving girl out there and he was only doing them a kindness, of course, but Wylla knew he was telling the truth. She owed him trust in this. She did, whatever her fears said.

Wintersbane. Her opinion of that man was diminished some these days, but once she had respected him. Once she had viewed him as an equal. Not exactly a friend. Wylla lacked those. So he had a pack of his own now, and naturally had sought alliance with his brother of Sagtannet. Sagtannet was for you and Wintersbane, she had once said, and it was true, proven in their continued bond.

Wylla chewed on the inside of her cheek a moment, torn between the ever-present need for validation in the form of accusations and this new feeling of forgiveness she longed to embrace. Some wolves were well beyond her ability to forgive, but if she could forgive Mahler, if she could begin to trust him at his word... Surely, she could forgive Wintersbane.

I can help, she said, meek against her accusation from before. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, paranoid girl. When, y'know, and she shrugged her injured shoulder with a wince.

a quick flick of his lips. "i know that you vill." she had always been capable despite any horrid offering their existence might grant. with one eye and a wound that would surely scar, wylla was still far more competent than mahler often felt or had been.
maybe —
he wet his lips but did not ask it. it was not the time to ask things of wylla. she needed only rest and his care. "speedy is another medic here. her daughter malila is also training. they vere from kaistleoki, but it has disbanded now." the details of things, perhaps things she did not care to know or was ready to know.
but mahler felt that she was. if she wished to be here, he sought an easier footing for her: to return to the faces that had seen his disgrace of her would be untenable. "calcifer has gone off into the vorld to explore it. ephemeris is vone of our newest, a pleasant young man. and argent has come to stay. stigmata's son."
he did not know why he rambled so. perhaps it was only to fill the space with something she might appreciate: information. wylla would make her own assessment of each individual, but to know names was something akin to a higher power.
he did not introduce the children. they had not yet come to an age where they were free to roam far from their dens, and speaking of any infants at this time might shutter the golden eye to him once more.
mahler wished to make not a single contentious step.