Whitefish River We are receiving numerous reports that books have stopped working

There was something particularly withdrawn in the way Aurëwen regarded all that had only just occurred — her son’s arcing convulsions, her daughter’s heavy-browed vigilance, and even Speedy’s empathy in the form of tears. It was by no means a numbness, she mulls, but even as the salt pricks at her half-sight, even as the hot inhale gusts and shivers through her pink nose ... she cannot truly cry.

It was only that she’d been through this before; desensitization, in its most melancholy form. And yet, the silver wasn’t sure when, if ever, she would retell the reasons for why it might seem she remained so removed. But she would be there for her children; drowse away with them, in a thicket once more. 

The herbalist has come to learn that each reassurance that issues from between her scarred lips are long-winded, winding; that they have come to bring the opposite of her well-meaning wish. All she can think to tell Speedy  (in that tongue of practicality, which she’s forever struggled to master)  is a low, hummed,  “We can give him ze time he needs, that he must take. All ze time that he deserves. It is all we can do. ...Thank you, Speedy.” 

As Aurëwen steps delicately over her dragon and her jewel, she wishes she could cry, too; show her anguish as readily as her maudlin heart shows her soul.
But she could only preside, all at once attentive and adrift.

last(ish?) post from me unless needed!