No, it was not too late. Not yet. She had simply let Souma's voice carry her like the warm waves of the Caribbean sea she had known once, a couple years ago. Galina had snuck from the old plantation house where she stayed, into the thick, green-scented night to the beach, all alone but for the full moon above. She let the waves lift her up that night while she watched the stars whirl overhead, and imagined this might be what it was like, to rest in a mother's arms.

And now, with Souma's words trickling and pooling into her thoughts, sea water into a tidal pool, Galina would never look to a mirror now, without a thought for the mother she had never known. This was a lovely gift he had given her - if, of course, she lived out the hour.

But this seemed unlikely at the moment, for either she or Souma. Several times during his tale, she had struggled to open her eyes, half-lidded and so unspeakably heavy as they were. Though he bound the deep cuts from her blade with the cloth of his [i]obi,[/i] even to her fading sight he had grown far too pale, the timbre of his voice receding like the ebb tide. Her throat closed up, choked with a pain that had nothing to do with the rising bruises from Souma's fingers. She had not meant this for him. She had not meant [i]any[/i] of this, for any of them.

Galina did not fancy herself the gentle heroine of Souma's tale. She was neither patient nor good, and she knew this very well. There would be no reward for her defiance of her father, or the subtle betrayals of faith and home and heart she had made for the sake of this one man. She had never looked for one, nor even imagined one could exist, and so she was not disappointed.

But now that Souma's story was ended, the cold came rushing back to her limbs like the howling winter wind. Galina was chilled. She shivered in the Spring sunshine, and wished more than anything in this world that she could see her Papa one more time. She had not been a good daughter. She had not even been a [i]dutiful[/i] daughter, but there was nothing she would not give to wrap her arms around his broad shoulders again, to kiss his bearded cheek and hear his deep, booming laughter, the kind that resonated all the way to her toes when he hugged his little Night Wolf so very tightly, easily lifting her up off her feet and swinging her around 'til she was dizzy, as if she weighed no more than an autumn leaf.

A faint flicker of a smile gently upturned the corner of her lips. "Thank you... Souma... " she whispered, that matchless voice now only the wispy, ephemeral ghost of itself, that may not have made it further than the blades of grass before her lips. The fingers wrapped about the hilt of the kindjal she still clutched to her chest, tightened just a little more. A gift from her Papa who, somewhere in this world she knew, must love her still.

"Beautiful... " Her outstretched hand unfurled, fingertips reaching for Souma as she fought to open her eyes one more time. "Won't... Hurt you... "

Galina did not have the breath to return Souma's gift in full, but she could give what measure was still left to her. "Let me... Put pressure... Pressure... Your arm... While I still... Can... "