Noctisardor Bypass sonnenschein
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#1
Private 
whenever <3

nights did not bring sleep to mahler now.
he faced toward the sea, where she had gone.
mahler sat in silencepine. the earth here was rich. he listened to the water, thinking of the names of his beloved, and bringing to mind's eye the face of @Ciri.
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Loner
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#2
Ciri preferred the nighttime. She enjoyed the stillness of it, the quiet, the soft sounds of hooting owls and scurrying mice. A raven ear swivelled toward the trickling of a nearby stream and from it she drew calmness, a comfort, for since her arrival had Rivenwood come to feel more like a home to her.

She had not expected to find her father out so late, though the surprise was not unpleasant. With a softly swaying tail, the swallow padded his way and emitted an affectionate croon to announce her approach.

Against the gargoyle's side did she settle, the weight of her petite frame pressed firmly to the warmth of his flank. She did not seek his gaze with her own and she breathed no words to him, for all she really wanted was a peaceful moment alongside him as she stared out into the darkness ahead.

"And then the world started to exist again,
but it existed very differently."
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ciri soon arrived. mahler was happy to allow the silence to stretch. he had become more accustomed to it now. these months in rivenwood had felt somehow healing in a way, and he no longer felt the harshness of that old need: to fill a space with words.
these days often he thought of the sea, and of grimnismal — and of nyx, caught in the flux of his own muted and noncommittal ways.
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Ciri, too, found herself thinking of Nyx. She missed her mother fiercely and still felt the ache of her absence, for she believed the lioness' death to have been her fault. It did her no good to dwell on what had become of Nyx and of Elke, but she felt it appropriate to allow her thoughts to turn to them from time to time.

Fond memories of simpler times.

The gargoyle accepted the closeness of her, and Ciri was content to press her cheek to the side of his strong neck and tuck her muzzle snug to the hollow of his throat. She closed her eyes and gave herself permission to relax, forget - just long enough to enjoy the connection she shared with her father.

"And then the world started to exist again,
but it existed very differently."
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#5
ciri settled into him, and he was brought to recollections of she and elke, frisking about the mountain. their long explorations, the time he had spent in sagtannet with them alone. 
roaming between two dens that year, and cherishing each moment of exhaustion. 
he regretted that they had not grown up together, and did not call one another sibling.
mahler lay his head gently atop her own, cuddling ciri closer as the summer-night and its sounds filled the waking minutes.
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Loner
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#6
The silence continued, and he embraced her. Ciri crooned an affectionate note into the tousled charcoal furs of Mahler's throat as she buried her snout among them. To her, he smelled of comfort and of home - the dearest things in the world to her.

She let the quiet linger for a short time longer before her raven muzzle withdrew from the hollow of her father's throat, and she poked her nose gingerly to the velvet of his cheek. It was there that the swallow stole a kiss, fleeting and delicate.

"Are you lonely, Papa?" Ciri asked him softly, tone hushed for fear of disturbing the calm, and entirely unaware how he'd once asked her mother that very same question.

"And then the world started to exist again,
but it existed very differently."
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ciri's question took the wind from him a moment. he leant back and considered for a long while. "not so much, now that i have you, and a home vhere i mean to stay." he did not mention wylla and phaedra for the same reason that he did not speak of ciri to them: the unspoken boundary-line where he had once wanted sisterhood for his girls.
"vhat about you?" mahler asked, dreading the question, but relieved that his daughter asked at all, that they had come to this place together.
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Loner
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#8
Ciri wasn't so sure that her father's response was genuine, though she made no effort to challenge it. She remained pressed to the gargoyle's flank, her head tucked to the side of his neck not only because she yearned for the closeness, but so she could listen closely for any suggestion that his rattling cough still plagued him.

"Sometimes," the swallow answered, "but not right now."

Her mother and sister were gone and Ciri was yet to find peace with that - she refused to let the heartache consume her. She'd lost so much in her short life, but fate had spared her long enough to reunite her with the one wolf in the world she had left.

"And then the world started to exist again,
but it existed very differently."
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he wanted to tell her —!
it was not pride that held mahler back, only desperation to preserve these sweet moments he had lost with her, he had lost and not thought he would see again.
ciri, folded thoughtfully against him as she had been always in infancy and childhood.
the cough rose; he turned his face aside, and sighed when it had passed. "i am such an old vind bag," he joked, lilac eyes seeking her own.
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Loner
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#10
Ciri felt her father stir, and when he turned his face away she lifted her head. With concerned eyes she blinked up at him and raven ears splayed backward, she hat and watched helplessly until his coughing ceased.

When at last he looked her way again, Mahler would find his daughter's worry. "Does it..." the swallow hesitated, not sure if he would be honest with her and not sure if she was really prepared for the truth anyway, "does it hurt?"

"And then the world started to exist again,
but it existed very differently."
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she was worried.
mahler wanted to lie.
in the end, however, he did not. the musiker nodded. "in my chest and throat." 
he did not want to speak of the blood. "vould you believe that honey soothes the cough? i did not think of taking it from the bees for this purpose."
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She did not have words when the gargoyle confirmed how he ached. Ciri simply regarded him with sympathy, a whine straining in her throat.

"Shall I find some for you?" Ciri was already on her feet, ready to serve.

"And then the world started to exist again,
but it existed very differently."
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mahler wanted to shake his head, but saw how quickly she had moved.
"yes," and he smiled.
the gargoyle would recline and wait for her to return, looking out across rivenwood in the interim.
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