It is a shock to my system to see him there. While I had never been incredibly close to my grandfather, he was the last of my family. Lazarus had spent more time with him than I, I think, because Praetor had spent more time with Lazarus. My mission from a very early age was to train. To grow to become the protector of the moors, like my mother, and yet here I am the Empress of the Plains. A vastly different place. A vastly different time. I was without the backing that I had once envisioned. My people here were loyal to me and Halcyon, I hoped, but it was difficult to find time to bond with them all while simultaneously remaining as a ruler and guarding my lands. I would not allow another to set paw in Asteraia without approval. I would not allow any evil to creep into my lands and lay waste to the empire me and my mate would begin to build.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world!

I would tread my borders until my paws cracked, until the last of my blood was spilled in defense, and only then would I fall back. Because I had once been a coward, cowed by the loss and the overwhelming fear of the unknown. I had let my friends do all the work, a burden, and after my meeting with Eden I realized it. What I was and what I wasn't and what I would need to become to complete my tasks on this earthly plane. It had finally all begun to make sense why Aithne was the way she was.

Still, I feel myself breaking and splintering as I fall into him, as I let some inkling of hope resurface and then it is washed away by guilt and re-purposed sorrow. I think he knows. I think he knows that these tears are not just joy but also admission to what was gone. The things I kept were no longer my burden to bear. He embraces me too but there is a distance there that is reminiscent of my mother, in a way, due to his withholding, but I can feel his mind working.

I don't move but I still beneath his words, his fur tickling my nose and his scent... it isn't comforting. It isn't as I had hoped it would be. I wasn't a pup anymore, I was a Queen, and after a few beats of silence I let out a wavering sigh into his shoulder. "No." The word is whispered for him to hear, my sadness deep in that single syllable, but I don't move. I won't abandon him just as my friends never abandoned me. I never thanked them but I think.. I think if you love someone, your love was their thanks.