[Gossamer]

He caught her hands in his, and even as she said listen.... listen to her... he drew her down and into his lap. She wouldn't remember... he doubted she would at least, but even as children she'd taken shelter with him thusly. Valanthia was always a sensitive child. Her entire family was filled with just enough mystic line to make her ultra sensitive to peoples emotions. He wondered if the truth remained the same even in her future, and it caused him bitter anger for a moment. Did they even train their mystics? Armbands, though he could feel them, meant nothing to him. They were a thing of the future he didn't know about... a detail not passed back to those that remained behind.

If she fought, he'd gently hold her there, letting her talk... hearing her. But he knew there was only one way he could answer her. Crystal... gods he loved the stuff and couldn't imagine how the future had gone so far from what they so needed currently. But Val always was resourceful. Black built things... made things stronger, reinforced by a Will, it could even become someone indestructable. White.... white revealed the Will. It gave insight into the heart and mind as only an adavanced mystic could. A mage knew how to use them... especially a healer like him. Bards were good at the vibrations the structures could produce, and made exceptional tuners... but any mage... even a simple healer like himself could use white.

"I hear you Val. And I'm honored beyond belief that you've taken my name... bought it as you've said... I've told you my feelings, and if you would access the collective, you'd know them to be true. But there's another way..." And he had the knife out of her sheath before she could protest. Her first thought might have been blood... he was going to draw blood. But he didn't. He simply grasp the white crystal dagger and with the hand that already had hers, placed hers on it as well. The crystal sang out, linking the two of them for a moment, and Umbrosus' love all but consumed her. He wasn't in love with an idea, a lost past, a dream... no... it was simply her. With all her passions and uncertainties... he was in love with her being, her soul, and they'd walked countless lifetimes together. Even now, he walked with her bound in fur. But he didn't hold her hand on it for very long... no... just long enough for her to feel the difference... the overwhelmingly intense emotion that the crystal channeled from one being to the other... he couldn't.

Because it channeled all her uncertainty, her sense of abandonment, her loss, even her feelings of shame.... .... and her overwhelming loneliness right back to him. The potency of her despair would have drove him to his knees had he not already been resting. "There's no need to find your father...." He whispered, lips against her forehead, his arms around her as she sat cradled in his lap. "You have me, and trust me.... he loves you very much... more than I can every convey in words..." He didn't stop there though. No, his hands were on her and he held her close to him, and dipped his head to kiss her again, this time unrestrained. He kissed her deeply, thoroughly, taking and giving as he demanded her attention, her reacknowledgments that she had heard him.... love. He kissed her with overwhelming love.

Truth be known, he wouldn't have stopped there. He simply didn't have it in him with her suffering so, and the only way he could think of to help her was to show her. But both of them could already feel the pull.... the sensation of being yanked back to where they belong. It wasn't taking them immediately, but it'd take them faster than they had truly time for what he had in mind.

He growled a very Umbrosus like growl of frustration, broke offf his kiss, and looked at her. He looked angry, though not at her... and frustrated, though again not at her... at their situation, and at himself for loosing his hard-won self control. Then he said the one thing that came to his mind to lighten his anger.... for he found it very hard to maintain anger....

"I like white hair on you... we make quite the pair, you know..." He said, linking his brown fingers in with her own slightly gray ones. Then he laughed with his eyes, laughed because he'd gotten to hold her one more time... far sooner than he'd expected, and it was such simple joys that kept the people who anchored the past from falling too far off the edge of it all.