[mature] blossoming alone over you

[litotes]

litotes

It is not fear that presses hesitation hot and hard down his throat.

Or, perhaps, it is. The ringing in his ears and pounding in his chest would tell one otherwise, though for now there is no one around to listen.

The silence is absolutely, unequivocally, heart wrenchingly deafening.

This is not the Hyaline Litotes remembers, or rather - it is just as quiet but the smell is different, the emotion sickening. Bile is bitter and angry as it rises up his throat. Vomiting would be an appropriate response to such a harrowing image: there, just ahead, a clearing burned like the scar of a brand into his brain. Their home, or what remains of it - perhaps Kensa no longer rests here, perhaps she dragged Brunhilde from the clutches of his scent and his memory.

Perhaps she has moved on. Hildy has whispered about the child she bore.

The thought of his too powerful yearling daughter brings a smile to his face - she possesses a hardness he is proud to have fathered while simultaneously feeling ashamed that she needs it. He twists his head around, wondering if she lingers here, her familiar scent a bit strong on the wind. He hopes that is just a hint at where his firstborn stalks; the idea of her witnessing what may transpire between her parents forces a sorrowful lump in his throat.

With a loud cough - plague symptoms that still linger in his blood - he turns from what he believes to be an empty and broken home. The only comfort he has rests in knowing Loess offers open arms and zero bad blood. He must not linger there, though - must not allow time to whirl by while wounds fester in the poison of lack of closure. Lie clears his throat and lifts his head to the wind, attempting to draw something other than the unfamiliar scent of Amet out of its whistle.

i don't want your pity, i just want somebody near me
guess i'm a coward, i just want to feel all right

@[Kensa]