[His fingers tangle deep in her hair, brushing now against the curve of her skull, no longer a mere shadow of his affection, for entwined with her hesitation grows his desperation to keep her in his grasp. They are once more dancing by the flickering light of a dozen bonfires upon the shores of Nalawi, and once more entangled in one another's embrace atop his cloak where it unfurls over the grass. Thank the gods for your stubbornness, she had said, and he answered, Are you now glad that you gave into the desires of your heart? They are once more curled together in the cramped tent which housed them all across Zeta-12; and in his grand bed in Oska, surrounded by the trinkets with which she had given the space the feeling of home; and in the bed they had left for the last time this morning, in which they usually lingered well after the sun has risen. She is dancing, and he alone is her enchanted audience; she is weaving flowers through his hair and laughing for the absurdity of such a thing; she is clinging to him fiercely and crying not because he had been lost but because he is alive, and her tears streak through the dust which the collapsed cavern did pour upon him, so like a cleansing rain they are.

And through all of this, she is radiant. Through all of this, she is his.

All these moments he feels slip through his fingers like the silky strands of her hair. In the pit of his stomach grows apprehension for her words which are as embers dulling upon the hearth, and at once he wonders if when she turns to go he will be able to draw her back this time.]

I know not how I can live any other way. I can leave off loving you no more than I can leave off loving him - what doctor has yet invented the tool precise enough that I might choose which pieces of my heart to excise and which to keep?

[Such is his selfishness, which long has shadowed his every step. This too he cannot let go of.]