Sunset Valley darling don't you weep

sobbing already twin

Emýr was ashamed to admit he had looked back. Jaded eyes of emerald watching Erys scamper away like a dog who'd been scolded. It wasn't guilt he felt—the man had gotten himself into that mess, and he deserved the punishment. But there was an inkling of a sinking, gnawing feeling. One the Crownore is either too cowardly or too stubborn to acknowledge. 

Let him sulk. Perhaps he'd learn that all that bark would eventually be met with a bite. And that his mother of all people was not a woman to be tried. 

And so the sullen man trailed after his mother. Desperately, as the thought of her vanishing around the bend made his heart ache. He had lost her once. A piece of himself left to haunt the cold, dark halls of Winterhelm. He would not lose her again. 

The moment he finds her, it's as if the walls he'd built come crashing. No longer does he feel like the jaded, angry man. With her, he didn't have to wear that armor and he did not have to wield that sword. With her, he could just exist as her son. The boy that used to beg her to roughhouse and spar, the boy who saw her as the moon to his stars. 

His throat feels tight. An unfamiliar, grating sensation, but he has no anger. Not now. Right now, there is only relief as he finds his place at her side. Yearning to feel her warmth but afraid to ask for it. 

The silence is thick, heavy. He doesn't know what to say, or where to start. He didn't know if she was overjoyed to see him, or disappointed that he had left without as much as a goodbye.

"I'm sorry," is all he manages. Stormy and dark but no less raw. An apology long overdue, and surely not enough to right the wrongs. If she were to listen close enough—and she would—there was the slightest tremor to his voice.