Horizon Ridge insuring body parts isn't just for celebrities

in wintersbane's mind he'd been trying to protect teaghlaigh. he'd been trying to protect his family. the very tenants they'd lived and breathed had been the family comes before all else and protect the family. words drilled into his head by cennasach until they were like a second heartbeat. he took them to heart even as a frightened, malnourished little boy crying out for his mother. he remembers that, too, despite how fiercely he tries not to. that moment of pure vulnerability and fear has manifested itself in wintersbane. he does not immediately make the connection himself but it's the driving force of why his relationships have been nothing more than superficial at best. he's discovering himself, slowly, and with his re-settlement into blackfeather woods he realizes there are things he want than just power and control. things he wants more. he doesn't want to shut everyone out. it's a lonely existence. he wants to start a family. he wants to get it right. he knows he's failed the fearghals. lotte doesn't hold it against him ( at least, dream lotte didn't ) but that doesn't mean that the others don't. that he isn't more than just winter's bane. that he wasn't the ruination of a whole pack and family.

he swallows the guilt suddenly heavy on his shoulders, ears slicking back to rest at half mast atop his skull as she presents him with a question. he feels as if there are sharp daggers of teeth pressed against the tender flesh of his maned throat. like some invisible beast of truth and justice has placed him on trial. "no," he says but lets it open so he could explain. "i thought i was protecting teaghlaigh, protecting the family." wintersbane realizes now as an adult what roarke hadn't as a child: that he might've misinterpreted the creeds. that he caused his family unnecessary pain by thinking he had to pretend he was someone else from somewhere else. he'd pretended it so much to the point he'd begun to believe it himself.