It had been a while since I had spent considerable time with my children. Age was fast trying to catch up with me and when I sat back and realized that all of my children were five years old, well, it certainly made ME feel like an old man. Thus far I had no grandchildren and I was content with that. I flirted with the idea of having another litter with my mate, remembering my old grumbling fondly of how the den had been stretched tight with my family pressed to the seams. Not to mention that I had put on a bit of weight in my complacency, my adventuring days having been put to the side for more domestic disputes.

A lazy ear flicks at the call and yet I sense.. that I need to go. It is the same odd feeling that had come over me for the last while, waking me in the dead of night, a fear gripping me. I had no clue what it was and had been muttering to Astrid about how I was going to go soon and check in on my son and daughter, both no longer in Taviora. It worried me, their welfare, but I always pushed it back. After all, I had disappeared for a time and come back stronger and more bold. I remember my own father scolding me when I had returned but even now my siblings had, one by one, disappeared into the fringes of the world.

So I press up with a deep groan and begin a steady trip towards this interloper. She smells of mountains and I eye her quizzically as I near, my yellow eyes seemingly both working despite how blind my left was. I had grown used to hiding it's weakness that even in these times of peace (well, not really so peaceful), it came second nature.

Tears begin to well in her eyes and her voice starts with one word that zings up my back. Immediately my fur rises and I glare at her, hard, angry, a clawing sort of fear scratching from within. "She is what?" The words come out in a hiss, hateful, and it is unlike me. Yet I can't... I can't temper this emotion because my heart beats so erratically. My precious daughter with eyes like the darkest part of the ocean when light hits it. Both my daughters held such a sweetness in them that it was no wonder that I reacted in such a way now, instinct dictating I protect.

But... I sense I was too late. "No!" The words are snapped out suddenly as I crowd Sila, tail high and nose pointed down at her, seeking to force her into the ground so that she will just STOP. That she won't say the words I know are trembling on her tongue. Because it can't be true. I can't have failed. She can't be gone.