Moonspear you can feel it in my pulse

As his daughter crouched to pay the due respect for a moment he considered that he may have been mistaken and it was Alya instead — she was the hardest for him to tell apart, because on a scale from Lyra to Hydra, Alya was in the middle — who had been pretending to be Hydra. But then when she spoke he was sure it was Hydra, from the fire behind the words she spoke and the urgency with which she breached the subject without a moment's pause or care.

But the subject itself was startling, a grim reminder of the death of his own parents as well as Eshe. Was Rannoch another one of Eshe's — that Cypress boy's brother? He swallowed away the wave of grief he felt to think back to his mother and the sacrifices she had made, that he had never gotten to know her. But then he put it aside, for worry for his daughter was suddenly imminent instead. "No," he was quick to say. "Taking on a bear is a pack task, not a one wolf task." He remembered meeting Barf face — what was her real name again? — when he was Hydra's age and convincing her to teach him about killing bears. But in hindsight her encouragement on the matter had been foolish and dangerous.

"Bears are large and strong, so the only chance is to distract it while other wolves attack it. If you ever meet anyone who tells you otherwise, who tries to convince you you can take one on alone, they're a bunch of fucking liars. Do you understand?" He looked pointedly at Hydra, not meaning to put her on the spot but feeling angry at the thought someone may teach her what he had been taught when young; and that she may pay the price for it that he never had to out of sheer luck.