You think I'd get better at this eventually

She pumped on his chest, feeling a quiver of fear in her paws. No, no! She couldn’t believe this. How many times had she imagined him returning home? Never had she expected it to be like this. She could feel tears dampening her cheeks. How cruel it would be, for him to return to her, only to die in her arms. “Damn you, Iho!” She growled, losing her meticulous air of royalty in the face of her fears.

Then he was vomiting water, and she could stop beating his chest. She rested her paws lightly against him instead. Watching as he emptied his stomach, and drew in lungfuls of air. Maybe he would live. Just maybe. Now that she wasn’t quite so afraid, she looked him over. He was the same wolf - of that there was no doubt. Even mixed as he was with the sea, she could catch his scent. His fur was the tones she remembered, but one of his beautiful icy antlers had chipped somewhere in his travels. She traced a paw across a silvery scar. Hurt, both by the fact that he had been out there adventuring and earning wounds without her, and that it had healed without her. Had another tended to him? She had not seen the scar happen, and she had not seen it heal. Too long. He had been gone too long.

His croaky voice startled her, and she blinked past her tears and glared at the half dead wolf in the sand. “Idiot!” She said, slapping his chest lightly. “Not if I have something to say about it.” She was mad at him, dammit. “Can you walk, or do I need to drag you?” Because she would do it.

"Speech"