"You will not be asked to face your foes alone, Dasha," he told her insistently, his voice low and solemn. "I assure you, whatever may happen with that situation, I am firmly in your alliance."
He shook his head, then tightened his arms over his chest. "I fear for her sometimes. There is so much melancholy inside of her that bursts from the seams, and..." He trailed off, thinking of his beloved Ratka, his own childlike maker who had purposely sat in the sun until she'd died. Ratka who could not face the idea of an eternity without her loved ones once they'd been slain.