Moonspear with that silver dagger in his hands

For a lengthy second, everything seemed suspended and Dragomir had time to burn with shame for his outburst. But then Arcturus conceded, providing a succinct explanation that created more questions than it answered. Dragomir scowled. He knew they were harboring a stranger in the territory, but he'd been kept in the dark on the details. They all had. Jarilo's arrival bolstered Dragomir's confidence and distracted him, causing the boy to take a menacing step closer to Wraen, shoulders hunched in preparation to take a chunk out of her face if she didn't get a move on.

All of that was halted by Hydra's arrival. Dragomir stumbled back, away from the tawny outsider and away from Arcturus, in an effort to avoid becoming a target himself. He splayed his ears and shrank back to the sidelines as the siblings sized each other up, but the fight Arcturus had called for never came. Thank god, he wasn't sure he could handle watching two wolves he respected so deeply tearing each other apart.

What he witnessed instead was much worse.

Not only did Hydra begin with a blatant lie—Dragomir had been at home the entire time and there was no search party sent to look for Arcturus, so he didn't know who the "we" she referred to was—but then Arcturus was saying she attacked a defenseless wolf, Hydra was calling him deluded, Arcturus was calling her insane and denouncing the mountain, they were all snarling and shouting and...

Dragomir's carefully constructed vision of Moonspear as a united and stable pack crumbled right before his eyes. These wolves were no more stable than his own family had been, and his family had been more royally screwed up than Dragomir thought possible. Brothers attacking brothers, potentially killing each other? Hydra attacking her subordinates, the wolves she was meant to protect? It was insane, all of it. As Arcturus turned to leave, resolutely forward-facing, and Hydra bounded down to try to reason with him, Dragomir felt his heart pull apart at the seams. On one hand, Arcturus treated him like an individual rather than a pupil. Arcturus worked to foster and grow his confidence and his interests, not just to expand his knowledge. Every occasion spent in the Beta's company was a cherished memory. On the other hand, Hydra had taken him in, provided him a home, showed him what a proper family could look like, soothed the anguish of Aurëwen's carelessness, and was helping him become a fine young man.

There were too many missing puzzle pieces for Dragomir to know whose word to trust in that moment. Now they were too far away for him to hear what was said, and that was for the best. His hazel eyes were vacant as he stared after the two dark wolves, torn completely in half with his heart broken by what he'd just witnessed. Arcturus was leaving. He was one of Moonspear's pillars and he was leaving. He was Dragomir's favourite mentor and he was leaving. Vehemently. He'd never seen Arcturus moved to such passion before, whereas Hydra remained as level as ever, which only made it more difficult to tell who was in the right. But she'd lied, and Dragomir caught her red-handed in it, and that alone rattled him to the bone.

Wordlessly, the boy turned on numb legs and walked the opposite way. He walked past Jarilo, past Kukutux, past spindly mountain trees, past cracked boulders and budding shrubs, right past the borders and out into the valley below. He needed to be alone with his thoughts and he couldn't stomach any lecture or lesson Hydra attempted to make of all that. His heart couldn't take the inevitable command to treat one of his beloved mentors like an enemy, and he couldn't presently think of Moonspear positively without Arcturus, so he left the territory entirely.

There had to be a proper explanation for all this, and until he understood, he couldn't handle being around the fracturing pack. It reminded him too much of what he'd been trying to escape his entire life.

Exit Dragomir!