The moment that he sees Aylin--before she calls out for him--he releases his magic hold on his son. Milo stumbles forward, greeting his mother in silence, and the cold dark shadow of Knox watches in silence. Slowly he sends forth his magic to find her in the tangled wood, even as she emerges and appears before him. The silver smoke is seeking, searching. When it finds Aylin's eyes, it will fix her. Perhaps they will never look the same as they once did, perhaps Milo's eyes will not mirror hers as they were born to, but they will see again.

And this is all he can do, because when Aylin calls his bonded's old name, his heart breaks.

He falls to the earth again and the heavy body begins a slow descent towards the earth as it slips from off his shoulders. It leaves a trail of thick drying blood, and a pattern of it upon his back from where her body rested. By the time she falls to the earth, a thin cloud of dust rising around her, Knox is weeping.

"Aylin..." he breathes her name, his sides shuddering and muddling the sounds of it. "Ay... ayli-i-in...". He says her name through sorrow, reaching for its tender love. How kind she has been to him, how much she has adored him and forgiven his transgressions. What a sinner he is, what a martyr she has been. She has given up so much for him, he cannot even begin to think of all that she has. All he knows is that he has failed her, as he failed Manhattan. He remembers what she wanted, for him to love his family as he loved this broken body of a dog, and he knows it is his only chance to redeem himself.

For a long time, Knox wondered what love is. Only upon losing it did he know that he had always had it. Only without it does he realize how much of it he has turned away. He looks up, searching for the eyes of the mother and son that he needs now so dearly. He needs them to love, he needs them to understand. And he is sorry, for one of the first times in his life, that he has failed them. He is sorry that Aylin wanders lost in the woods, that Milo stands crooked to avoid the pain the plagues his every turn and bend. He knows these things are his fault. But when he tries to speak, tries to tell them, nothing comes out. As his son has forgone speech for life, Knox has forgotten it for a time. He tries to speak, but only a painful cry--a scream-like contorsion that rings through the falls and matches the haunted call Roanne once used to gather his herd in the Mystic Woods--emerges from between his lips.

Nothing has ever hurt so much as this.

""