Emberwood if he's a king, he's a priest and god too

Ashlar hadn't expected to escape unchallenged and he was not wrong, for soon enough Merrick appeared in a fury above him. He cringed into the dirt where he cowered, did not attempt to rise. The fight had never even entered him in the first place; none of it was present now, not even a flicker. Just shame and a burning confusion, dread and a failure to comprehend.

He could not look at the leader or he would lose any ability to form words, he knew. The shame and despair of it would engulf him completely. He did not think that any excuse would help, for he'd run when ordered otherwise. But he did not understand and, once, the bear king had been kind to him.

Maybe there was a reason. Maybe there was something he did not know, a secret to where they found the instinct that drove them.

I've known th..them. They w...were'nt.... on your land. This wasn't... he trailed off, because all he would say seemed as presumptuous as saying 'our land' had seemed. Wasn't right? Wasn't needed?

His teeth had never seen use, never needed to. Always words had served him, songs and talk making strangers into friends and carrying him through lands. He was sick at the memory of the blood, the way the coyote had cried with pain, fought in turn, wounded Avicus. To defend her should have been enough, but it hadn't been. So he was not enough.