Where is the line

After everything was said and done, Ulric had curled around Aranea and fallen right to sleep. Aranea's presence was like the final piece he needed to relax. Even if it was a temporary solution and even if the decision had been made in a fit of passion, he would still take full advantage of it to get a decent night's sleep for the first time since the move to the castle. It was all incredibly short sighted, but with where he was mentally that was just about as far as he could possibly look into the future. The sunlight that slowly began to fill the room as morning took hold of the world outside started to gently pull him awake. It took a moment as he blinked his eyes open to piece together where he was and when he glanced toward Aranea the memories from the night before slowly came back. There was still that little bit of conflicting emotions that tugged at him, but he couldn't help but smile gently as he looked at her tucked into his side.

The scramble of claws against stone right outside the door made him jump slightly and his head turned quickly to look at the gap in the door that he was sure was larger than where he had left it the night before. Dread pulled at his gut as he carefully untangled himself from Aranea and padded over to the door in question, pushing it open further to look for who it might have been. There was no one there, but his son's scent was unmistakable. That dread and guilt hit him like a pile of bricks and his head drooped under the weight as he backed away from the door. Of all the wolves that could have caught him here... Hell, even if it had to be one of his children, why did it have to be the one child that he struggled with the most?

He grit his teeth, mostly just from anger and disappointment in himself. It was hard to untangle his emotions because he couldn't even find a reason to regret what they had done... he mostly just regretted his son finding out this way. He sighed and turned back toward Aranea, his ears flicking back. "It was Ezra... I... I've got to go. I'm sorry." He hurried out of the room, loping with long strides out of the castle as he tried to follow the path Ezra had taken to find his son and see if there was any hope of mending the damage he had done.

Walk | "Talk" | think