Feeling a lil nostalgic

Azure, slumped in the grass, absorbed Hanako's words with a mixture of disbelief and despair. He couldn't fathom how his status - the cornerstone of his identity - could mean so little to her. To him, it was everything. The idea that she had come to value him beyond his title seemed almost unimaginable. Silly. Stupid, even. Just lies. His thoughts spiraled, self-esteem crumbling.

After a prolonged silence - broken only by a deep, resigned sigh - Az gave his softly spoken reply. "You're not equipped to be a loner." He admitted, almost apologetic. "You've been alone before, sure, but you've always had somewhere to come back to. Somewhere safe to rest. Somewhere to recover when you took injury, or caught sick. A stockpile of food to raid in winter, when the lakes have frozen over and the fish are out of reach." Az's voice was flat, his words flowing with an ease that spoke to how often he'd run this train of thought internally.

"And tension -" A bitter, humorless laugh escaped his lips. " - tension implies an eventual recovery. What if there's nothing left to salvage? What if it's not the middle of our story, but the end?" Az was nothing; a mere shadow of the prince she had met here. Now he was just another wolf with too many enemies, too many scars, and a trail of destruction behind him.

His tail gave a solitary thump, then grew still and limp in the grass. When he spoke again, his voice was a mere murmur. "I've lost everything that defined me. I don't know if I can find my way back... or if it's even worth the effort." Even his children, one by one, had left him.

"I understand now why my mother did what she did. Why she didn't fight harder. Sometimes, the fight is just too much. She was tired. I'm tired, too." He tried to muster then the faintest semblance of a smile - an apologetic and comforting gesture for the raw vulnerability he had exposed - but even that small act felt monumental. As he tried to curl the corners of his mouth upward the effort quickly faltered, dissolving into a grimace that etched upon his face only pain.

"Speech"