Shifting perspectives

Unlike his daughter, Ulric had always been someone that thrived on physical affection. He liked to embrace and give affection. It's how he could be sure that those he cared for knew how dear they were to him. Learning that Lilith didn't like that kind of affection had been an adjustment for him, but he would do anything to keep her happy. However, just this once, just in this moment of heartbreak and loss, he needed to feel her there with him and know that she was okay. It was like just seeing her there or just hearing her voice wasn't enough. There had been a very real period of time where he thought that he might lose his little girl and seeing those pups that had died despite his very best efforts to prevent their deaths had reminded him of that. It brought back that fear he had felt sitting at her bedside, hoping that she got better and watching as all of the treatments any of the healers he asked to help continued to not work. She was his blessing, the one he had managed to save.

When Lilith leaned into him and wrapped her forelegs around him in return he felt relief wash over him and a soft, shaky sigh passed his lips as he held her just a little tighter. She was okay. She was here and she was okay. He just kept repeating that to himself while he held her, keeping her smaller form against him for a long, lingering moment. She felt so delicate and fragile in his oversized embrace and he felt like he was holding the most precious little thing in the world - which in his eyes she was. After a while he felt himself slowly begin to be able to breathe a little easier, the panic that had crept up on him beginning to fade. There was still more emotions that he didn't want to unpack around his sweet girl, but she helped to ease that fear and he was so grateful for her for just that alone.

"Thank you, Lil," he said softly as he lifted his head from her scruff, giving her a gentle smile when he looked down at her with her beautiful garnet eyes. He gently released her from his embrace then, settling beside her with just his paw over hers how they had laid so many times before. Even just that small touch, that small reassurance that she was real, warmed his heart. He gave her paw a gentle squeeze as his smile faded, resting his head on the bed beside his foreleg dejectedly. He knew that news had gotten around about Aranea and it was something that as much as he wanted to keep it quiet there was little he could do about it. Between having certain wolves carry supplies out to her when he had her staying in the gardens to him doing it himself once she was moved closer to the castle it was impossible to not know that something was going on.

"The pups didn't make it," he told her softly as if to explain what had gotten him into this state. He knew she wouldn't ask. She was too kind, too gentle. She deserved to know though. He didn't want his children to still be expecting the half siblings that were never coming even though he had never explicitly told them about the pups. He hadn't gotten the chance. "Aranea is gone too. They were all too sick, I couldn't save them." He tried to be as gentle with his words as he could, but it was a harsh, sad truth. At a certain point he had to just say what it was.

Ulric Adravendi