Grouse Thicket yn ei drwchus

She is beautiful, fair--not the sort he'd necessarily expect to greet him at the border. But it would do the great matriarchs of his ancestry a disservice were he to discount her based on size or sex. Instead, the golden prince regards her coolly, respecting that she lay on one side of the border--presumably her claim--and he on the other, with no right to the land. He takes a long pause before answering her question, voice a deep rumble.

"I am trying to decide where to go," Llewellyn explains, the irritation plain as day on his broad face. "I clearly cannot travel any farther this way--" He gestures with his muzzle to where she stands, and the plateau beyond it, "--and behind me are lands I've already seen, and not cared for." He lets a huff of air through his nostrils, agitated. "Never in my life have I felt so. . .trapped."

He does not know why he utters these words to the unknown woman. She knows not his name, nor his title; she doesn't know him from any other wolf and yet, here he has given her an intimate detail of his recent life, bared part of his soul to her. It is perplexing, to say the least, and it takes him aback, sapphire eyes blinking slowly at her for a long moment before he speaks again.

"Madame, are you familiar with Mynydd? Ever hear of the land, in your travels?" He wanted to ensure he was far enough from home that Ioan's scouts could not reach him. It was a cowardly move, and he feels the weight of it in every step north he takes, but he cannot help but ask. Battle-tested he might be, but there was a difference between being on the winning side of a fight and emerging a loser, an outcast.

The horrors he had seen were etched into his soul, now. He knows that never again will the hills of Mynydd be as green as they once had been, to him; they are forever splattered in the crimson blood of his blood, his kin.