“I mourn him still,” Lorenz said quietly. “My sire is dead and has been for longer than my king. I mourn him still. My children will know of both of them and they will speak of them to their children. This is not insignificant.”

“But there will come a generation when those names aren’t spoken.”

“This is true, but they will be of their ancestors. They will be of those who came before them. Even if the names are forgotten, the legacy of each being on this planet never disappears. It is simply the way. There is no escaping it.”

Tedrey looked to Lorenz’s feet, muttering, “Maybe it is only me who is insignificant.”

After saying that, he watched Lorenz’s sandals turn and he lifted his eyes and kept watching as the big man walked out of the room.

And that signaled to Tedrey that he was correct.

He was no king.

He would be no father.

He was part of a great collaboration that was to change the rule of all Triton, he left it and they did not care he was gone. They moved forward in their plans, which were thwarted, and it mattered not. He had brothers, ones he belonged to, and a lover, one he thought had great feeling for him. It had been weeks since he had “disappeared,” and his brothers, his lover, did not care enough to search for him.

Life went on.

He started when Lorenz returned, a purpose to his gate, a leather-bound book in one hand, his fist closed over something else in his other, but there was a silver pen poking between his fingers.

“I bought these for you some days past, but my wife did not wish me to give them to you,” Lorenz declared, stopping close to Tedrey in his seat. “You do not talk to her. Not of anything of import. You are gentle with her and seem to enjoy her attention, presence and prattling, but you give her nothing in return. Until now, you have not talked to me. I felt you should talk to someone, even if that someone was the pages of a book. She did not wish for you to have the opportunity to put your thoughts in a book, for it might mean you would not share with her and therefore she could not take what you give her and help you bear its burden.”

He held out the book as well as his other hand, which he opened to reveal a pot of ink with that pen, which, being nearer to it, Tedrey could see was elegantly engraved all over with swirls and loops.

The book, its binding, the stamped leather, was expensive.

But that pen had to cost…

“And now I give these to you,” Lorenz interrupted his thoughts and shook his hands. “Take them. Put your thoughts in these pages. Let this book bear your burdens. Then give the rest of you to your family.”