Emhyr was unused to feeling unsure about anything. He'd always prided himself on being decisive, confident, concise. But since mother's return, he had found himself faced with this strange emotion for the first time. The lost queen of the bay had come home at last, and father seemed elated. But Emhyr could not set aside his own apprehensions so easily - she'd left so abruptly and it had been so long. At first he'd felt her absence as keenly as the cut of a bear's claw, sharp and stinging and impossible to ignore. But as with all wounds time scarred him over until all he felt was a dull ache.

Now she was back, though, and he felt that scar stretching at the edges, threatening to tear itself asunder.

The worst part of it all? It was as if nothing had ever happened. Like her and father had picked up where they'd left off, falling into one another's orbit with such ease that it nearly made Emhyr's blood boil with rage. How could they act as if she hadn't abandoned them so callously? Like she hadn't left at a time when their family was most vulnerable, untethering herself from them as easily as a rotten leaf from a tree.

She hadn't even said goodbye.

Yet for all of his anger, he felt equally guilty. When word got out what his father had done to that Salem mare and their child, when the islands had learned what he was capable of... how could he blame his mother for wanting to escape? For needing distance between herself and the man who had shown himself to be a beast? It was a stellar example of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Wanting to be angry, but knowing he had no right to be.

It was thoughts of this bitter nature that left Emhyr sufficiently distracted enough to not notice the soft whuffing of a bear nearby as it nosed through the autumn-dried underbrush. It was not until he caught a glance of it through the trees, its ragged chocolate fur hanging loosely from its bones, that he finally came to a halt. All thought fled from his mind as he watched the bear shuffle through the forest, his heart hammering wildly against the cage of his ribs and his ears pinned tight against the inky curve of his neck.

It was then that another flash of movement beyond the bear snagged Emhyr's attention. An unfamiliar figure, pale as a ghost, peered back at him through the trees. Or rather, peered at the bear, pale eyes transfixed to its slow-moving figure. Emhyr waited until he had caught the stranger's gaze before he mouthed three words, silent as snowfall: "Don't. Fucking. Move."