Moonspear the world is a place where the villains wear a smile on their face

He could see the ocean from this great height of the mountain. Clouded sky broke way to waves the man could almost feel, almost taste. Inviting, in once innocent ways. Now both alluring and repugnant, in how they reminded him of the crone.

Merrit yearned to start moving again — for surely they would lose their quarry! — but his allies bade him stay. They had preparations to make, precautions to take, and Merrit, being a man of like mind, understood. But how long?

He would wait for now, but his restless paws would not rest forever.

Dragomir sprang up the mountainside, all youthful vigour and spry energy as he climbed to reaches that were once unattainable. His healing was complete. Aside from some stiffness when he woke or when the weather took a nasty turn, his legs no longer bothered him. Where it had wasted away in the summer, muscle once more padded his frame. He'd filled out into a build his father would be proud of. Not as tall as the man, but powerful all the same.

He didn't expect to find another soul besides Hydra or Arcturus so high up the mountainside, so he came to a pleasantly surprised stop when he stumbled across Merrit among the mountain's upper crags. He'd made no secret of his arrival, what with his breath huffing through his nose and the clicking of his nails on stone as he surged upward, and so he made no effort to conceal himself as he padded toward the Xi.

It's pretty, isn't it? he asked, sweeping his gaze over the twinkling ocean in the far distance. It would have been his home, once, but now he was a mountain wolf. He yearned to know the ocean better sometimes, but knew he would live and die close to the sky.

He still wasn't used to company -- not the kindly kind, anyway -- and his attention turned the moment he heard the sound of clicking claws up the mountainside. In the confidence of his privacy, he stiffened for a moment, and inwardly, he sought to suppress the shivered rush that set him on the defensive, and willed him to swing round with hackles flared. By the time the boy stepped into a full range of sight, Merrit was waiting, stately and composed -- his fur lying flat, and his heart rate just a touch quicker than its usual pace. His face beheld the sea, but his gaze shifted with a backward glance to follow the boy's approach.

There was great beauty in the sea, Merrit remembered from when he had travelled there himself, yet he could no longer separate the waters from his enemies. He procured a smile for the boy, small though it was, keen to keep his thoughts concealed and wholly his own. "Mmm, I suppose one might say so," and he appraised the child with a thoughtful look. He was dark, unblemished, and Merrit assumed, on age and appearance alone, that this must be one of Hydra's kin. "Have you ventured there before?"

If Dragomir detected anything off about Merrit, there was no indication in the easy way he seated himself. Here the thinning air was ever-so-slightly flavoured with the salt of the sea and you could see for miles. He took the time to draw in a deep breath, savouring it all. Was anything so grand as living on a mountain?

Merrit's rejoinder was phrased a little strangely, but again, Dragomir overlooked that. He wasn't critical enough to catch on to such things. In his experience, everyone loved the ocean. Vercingetorix insisted they should have been raised on its shores. Dragomir couldn't say whether his life would have been better or worse if things had gone that way.

My dad took me once, he said. Don't remember it too well, except that it was hard to smell anything but the water. He didn't feel too much of a need to mention all the other things: the pack they'd almost joined and then left, the fight with his parents, Merrick and Astara and the cave... no, Merrit didn't need to know any of that, and Drago didn't need to relive it. What's your name? I'm Dragomir.

He smiled at the boy. "The brine is quite encompassing, isn't it?" he said. And those who lived by the sea carried the scent of the ocean so strongly, that one might believe the waters to be their mother. That one might believe they were forged from the ocean itself, and not of wolfkind at all. They carried the waters wherever they roamed; they were easy to track on land far removed from the salty depths, but not so easy to kill. As much as their mother was tempetuous, unpredictable, and cruel, so also her offspring proved to be.

Dragomir, as he introduced himself, only carried the scent of Moonspear, of mountains, and stone. The only salt on the air was that carried from the ocean, miles from the height at which they perched. His name was not so easy a question to answer, and Merrit paused. Considered giving Dragomir the reigns to choose what he would call him. Instead, the raven-furred man slipped the title the Queen had bestowed. "Theseus," and with a turn of his head he appraised Dragomir again. He looked young, but already he cut a strong and formidable figure. "Who is your father? Are you one of Hydra's children?"

His experience with sea wolves was admittedly limited; for Dragomir, the ocean was just a far-flung promise of a life he could've had. For that reason, he had a deeply rooted longing to visit it and see for himself what all the fuss was about. Could the salty air possibly refresh a wolf more than the cold alpine breeze? Could the cold sands welcome a wolf home the same way a scrape in the trees did? He had doubts about it, but if Vercingetorix was to be believed, there was nowhere like it in all the world.

Putting it from his mind, Dragomir forced himself back to the present. Back to Theseus and the mountaintop. He asked a question and Dragomir couldn't help the wry chuckle that burst inappropriately from his lips. No, she's not my mom, he said. He only wished she was. Next to his real mother, Hydra was perfect. My dad's gone. My mom, too. Hydra just took me in.

It was something he could never repay. Have you been here for a long time?