[se] pull me deep beneath your waves

Noah

Don't the best of them bleed it out?
While the rest of them peter out

There was no malice, no hatred, no vitriol in her words. Only wisdom, pain, understanding. Noah wanted to nod, to agree, but he wasn;t sure he could. ...I truly believe you can love someone entirely, lose them, and still love again. Was a wonderful sentiment that, while Hotaru might be living it, Noah wasn't sure he could. He wasn't sure he could give of himself so wholly to someone else if he were to ever lose Cordelia. He had pieces of him that were fractured before -- love torn away from him, spit back in his face, replaced, forgotten -- but those loves were nothing compared even to one moment with the wife he held so dear.

"I believe Vi would remind me of my calling." Noah said, without much conviction or emotion. Truth be told, he didn't know the deity deeply enough to answer either way. While Vi was full of compassion and love as the god of life, Noah also knew him to be a stronghold to his word and a champion to the world at large. For Vi, Cordelia was not the the end for Noah. He knew that much, at least, in the very depth of himself. While the deity had told him to be a good husband and a good father, he had also called him to more. He had called him to Caido. Also -- if anyone knew about suffering in the wake of a love unable to be touched at its fullest, felt in its completeness, it was Vi.

Noah scrubbed at the headstone until it was clean again. Time, weather, and the moss had been unforgiving and relentless. The name was no longer clear, the dates worn away at the edges, but there was still one word that was remarkably readable among the rest of the blurred stone: husband.

Truth or consequence, say it aloud
Use that evidence, race it around