Help me out before I drown
Save me now before I give up
She moves as if to comfort him and that gesture alone brings a fresh wave of guilt to crash inside him that only lingers as she speaks and tries to absolve him of any wrongdoing. He instantly regrets asking about Cress as the question that hangs in the air seems to land on her like a physical blow. She begins to tremble and he (being no stranger to trauma) goes to place his muzzle on her shoulder to steady her. Pain reflects in the dark eye as she speaks of Cress’s death and of Tephra. His shoulders sag as he adds a new burden to them. If he had stayed in Tephra, would it have changed anything? Would he have gotten to know his daughter, would he have been there to visit her at Cress’s side? Could the bear have saved her?
He knows this feeling too well, this suffocating guilt that she feels, and when he describes the brutality in which she had discovered her own mother it eerily reminds him of the carnage that had befallen his own when he had been mere hours old. This is his worst fear. He had never wanted his children to befall the same fate as he and yet here was one standing before him telling a tale that somewhat matched his own. Dawn begins to falter in her words and he soothingly pushes the stray strands of her forelock back from her forehead, distress in his gaze. “It’s not your fault Dawn.” Giving her the words that he had always longed for as a child when Raaquel had been murdered before his eyes. “Your mother was one of the bravest mares I’ve ever known. If her death was quick then take solace in that and that alone. She deserved better and I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help her or you.”
There is a flicker of the bear in his remaining eye as fury at the injustice of the world mixes with his grief and regret. He pulls his muzzle back to look at her and its a sad smile that finds his lips as he says softly, “Gods you look so much like her.” And she does, more than she realizes. She continues in her story and he listens to her but as she says “I am all ice” he suddenly freezes and a dread rises up through him. His first greatest fear was his children to follow in his footsteps, not just in trauma but in what he had become beneath the Mountain. He hadn’t seen it in the twins when they had been born but had his daughter innocently inherited his burden to bear? He swallows heavily but pushes that question, for the moment, to the side. “It seems to me that you carry her strength as much as you carry her looks.” He finally responds quietly. He lets the silence stretch for a moment as they both think of the fiery mare they had lost but finally he breaks it as he tentatively finds his voice to give her an offer. “I’m a poor replacement for your mother but you aren’t alone. I’m here now, if you’ll have me.”
And then another pause, a visible hesitation as he raises his gold flecked eye to meet her own staring back at him.
“Dawn… Are you a shifter?”
Ledger
@Dawn