You wonder if you'll ever say it.

You don't know the words you might use. They all meld together in your mind, and the harder you try to focus on pulling them apart, the more tightly they cling together. What would you even attempt to say? Can you define yourself? Are there words that exist what could explain what you are? Who you are? How you are?

Are there words in any of the languages that describe what he is to you? He whispers in Thalassian, and you wonder if the ancestors might give you some words of your own in a tongue he doesn't speak that might work the same way. Words that might convey how much he is. How bright a beacon, and how like the sun.

You want him to keep you. You want him to mark you as his, and only his, for all of time. Oh, you want—

Daimd.

He finds himself wondering after the origins of his name. Not quickly—no, it took... hours, to return from the faceless place he'd been, despite his blood beating red hot at Daliquinn's first touch. He could have cried, when the elf took him back. He might have, if it had been a moment later. He did not know, and accepted that he would probably never know, what he had done, but... he gave thanks to the ancestors for their mercy on him. He knew they were not responsible, but he knew no one else to give his relief to. Quinn wouldn't understand.

He would walk in the elf's shadow until his feet crumbled to dust. He had never known such hurt—but he had also never known such fear.

He wondered why they named him Daimd. He wondered what they'd hoped for their offspring. Somehow, he knew it wasn't the reality he was living. He hoped they might forgive him.