[She's there, and her breathing is soft, a little shaky, but steady. She feels small and heartbroken. Her father used to tell her stories too, before the fire, although never such neat ones; her three-year-old self was too prone to the narrative insertion of magic frogs and pink woodpeckers and the voices of passing clouds. She misses it so much, and Erik isn't as good at it, his voice doesn't hit quite the same rumbling register, his cadences choppy with awkwardness, no silly accents for the different characters. But he's doing it anyway, just the same, and part of her adores him for it. The story itself hurts, personal and clean and incisively sharp, like a knife, like a greenstick fracture, an unloved child who was right, who could be okay. It feels like a gulp of freezing mountain air in the winter, overwhelming but somehow good, fresh. Her father's growling castigation trails away, and she doesn't know if it's because she wants to hear him now, in a useless and terrible way, or if concentrating on Erik's story and the contrast and the reality of him was enough to dislodge the apparition.]

No, that was. That was good, thank you.