tukaboca
"My brother," he said, and the name did not choke him this time, it simply emerged, raw but clear. "He was... a good mend. For me. When I was... tangled." He looked down at his own hands, resting on the edge of the hollow he'd worn. "Now there is a tear. A big one."
She finished the section she was on and set the net down beside her. She looked at him, not with pity, but with the same focused attention she'd given the damaged fibre.
"I do not know how to mend that," she said, the truth plain and unvarnished. "But I know how to hold the net steady, while the mending is done."