I swear, I swear that I'm a good kid, a good kid, who's had a bad run

Ulric was laying in bed attempting to sleep beside Eska. Attempting was truly the key word here as he continued to struggle to sleep. The ever present darkness was messing with his sleep as much as the stress of the changing world was and the only reason he got any sleep at all was just physically exhausting himself through the day with patrols and work. He didn't have a chance to fully slip into slumber though before he heard a knock on the door. He blinked sleep from his eyes, lifting his head to look at the door with a confused furrow in his brow. Who was coming to their room this late? He got his answer in the form of his son's voice calling to him from the other side of the door. He glanced at Eska who had just begun to stir and he rested a paw on her shoulder to keep her from getting up, saying quietly how he'd be back before he slipped out of bed. Emile was the last wolf he would have expected to have coming to find him like this, but after so much time spent estranged from his brindled son he was just glad that Emile was finally trying to reach out for help.

He opened the door enough to look out at his son and after seeing the distressed look on his face he quietly slipped out of the room and closed the door behind him. "Emile?" he asked as he looked to the young man with a concerned look, keeping his voice down so he wouldn't wake anyone trying to sleep in the rooms that lined the corridor. He glanced up at the thought and decided it was probably best if they moved away from the other bedrooms just in case, wanting to make sure Emile had some privacy before he told him what was going on. He nodded for his son to follow and he stepped across into the hallway that connected the east and west wings of the castle, thin windows that lined the walls letting in the cool moonlight. Once they had some more space between them and the rest of the pack he turned to face Emile again, settling back onto his haunches. "What's going on?"

Ulric Adravendi