Bermondsey didn't mean to be so stern, nor did he ever mean for his son to face the brunt of his anger, but the panic had already set in. He hadn't even realized the way Nour's tail had gone crooked, she was just shivering so much as he wrapped himself around her, trying to dry her off as much as possible. He swore under his breath, before turning to Laertes again. "How did she hurt her tail?" he demanded, "and how long was she in the water?"

Laertes' words trailed off, and that twinge of guilt didn't go unnoticed. "Laertes," he spoke again, a deathly quiet seemed to be in his hushed voice, "what did you do?"

When Ber had set out to look for their kits, Eshek had followed, fretting and working herself close to a panic attack, and finally split up to look in the opposite direction. Tilly and Cordelia were safe in the Mansion under lock and key, little better than prisoners under Elizabeth's watchful eye, and Eshek wouldn't worry too much about Nour if it were only her; she was always getting into trouble. But for Laertes to be out so late by himself — just thinking about it made her chest seize up with terror. She'd noticed a change in her son, noticed he was eating less, talking less, muttering out the odd word when pressed, growing ruder and more defiant, avoiding eye contact, sleeping away from the rest of the family when he used to always sleep in the crook of her neck; but it didn't anger her, didn't hurt her — it just frightened her. When he left before dawn, she didn't ask where he went or what he did. And when he came back cold and tired and bruised, she tended to him if he'd let her, quietly brought him food and left it by his sleeping head and watched him from across the dark room with a heavy, fearful heart throughout the night while the rest of her family slept if he didn't. She tried to cheer him up, tried to give him space, tried to respect him and whatever growing pains he was going through; tried to play with him, ask him out for walks, hug him, but he always found a reason to excuse himself. And even as her smile fell, it was still just worry. Bone-deep worry. Grief that she couldn't help her kit. That whatever he was going through, he wouldn't tell her. That he had to go through it himself. She'd cried about it to Ber, but she would never let Laertes see her tears; she didn't want him to feel guilty on top of whatever else he was feeling. She wanted him to know his mother loved him, that she was there whenever he needed her again, that she would greet him with the same smile she always did, if a world more relieved.

So now, when she heard voices through the dark woods and ran towards them with relieved, gasping tears pricking at her eyes, when she finally saw her missing kits, her first instinct was to run to Laertes and bundle him up and cover his head in licks. But Ber's voice made her slow. Padding more cautiously towards them, she poked her head around Ber and asked the group in a quiet, worried voice, "what's going on?" If it had been any other time, she would have put herself between Bermondsey and their kits and snapped at him to lay off them. But now, the atmosphere was so different that even Eshek was cowed. Her eyes fell on Laertes, gently imploring him to speak, to prove them wrong.

But then she saw the state Nour was in. Eyes widening, she immediately circled around and fell down beside her on the other side to Ber, frantically licking her head. At her son's explanation — all irritation at being caught, no remorse — she looked up at him in stricken, bewildered horror. "When she stopped moving much?" she echoed, and her voice broke with fear. And now she grew angrier. Pushing away from Nour, eyes locked on her son, she snapped up and loomed over him, voice raising in fury. The terror of what she had done to her own half-siblings, the memory of their blood on her paws — the thought of Laertes being broken enough to follow in her pawsteps made her tremble. She practically shouted, practically screamed, in his face. "You have no right to be angry, Laertes — as her sibling you have a responsibility to care for her, and instead lately you've been acting like your family has no meaning to you. I hardly recognise you. Are you my son anymore? Are you?" She pressed in closer, desperate. "You're rude, you're belligerent, you hurt your sister." Her voice broke on that and, casting a glance back at Nour, she crumbled and folded down beside her once more, touching her forehead to her cheek for a moment before looking back up at her son, eyes pleading and grief-stricken and disapproving. Afraid. Cold. Final. "It's time to grow up, Lae. This?" She glanced around pointedly before meeting her son's gaze again. "Is where everything ends. Grow. Up."

All of this was said with nothing but fear — her son was everything to her, her world, and she didn't blame him for anything, not for Nour, not for the way he'd been acting. If he was hurting, she wanted to be there while he healed. The thought that he needed to heal broke her heart. She should have been there, should have been better, should have protected her son from whatever had been inflicted on him when her back was turned. It shouldn't have been turned. She had failed. She was meant to shelter him, and somehow the monsters had snuck in through the cracks. That was on her, and she would tear herself apart over it, cry until her throat was raw. It wasn't his fault if he needed time, if he needed space, if he needed to work out whatever was causing him such suffering on his own. The next morning, she'd bring Lae breakfast in bed and annoy him with love and comfort and soft words, butting her head against his shoulder until he growled and shoved her away and she just grinned at him with all a mother's tenderness; none of this would mean anything in the daylight. But seeing them come so close to the horror, to the violence, of her own youth that she'd been trying to protect them from had panicked her. And she was lashing out.

With every word, he shrunk in on himself, his claws began massaging the dirt, and he found himself looking away from his parents, ears flattened. Briefly, his eyes landed back on Nour, and he knew he would feel terrible about it later, that it would keep him up. Even then, the thought of giving a genuine, thoughtful apology made him shudder. Finally, he met his mother with a hard glare. You're rude, you're belligerent, you hurt your sister. She was right, and he hated it. He wouldn't recognize her fear, her worry, and neither would he recognize the same in his father — all he knew was that they were angry, they hated him, and he almost killed Nour. 

Suddenly he was pushed to the ground, Bermondsey's paw placed firmly on his chest, his eyes ablaze and furious. For a moment, Laertes looked small and fearful. And then all he felt was anger — all he'd been doing for the past forever had been about that stupid curse, about protecting his family, about ensuring that, hopefully, they could have some form of a peaceful life, that he could deal with it and maybe make his father proud on the side. I almost trusted that the curse didn't follow my bloodline, but clearly something did. He struggled for a moment, wriggling around and scratching at his father's paw until he gave way and Laertes could squeeze out from under it, crouching defensively not far off. He stared defiantly. 

"I'm not the cursed one here, what I did was an accident!" He spat, eyes now avoiding his sister, "I've been trying to help it for you. And I'm beginning to think that maybe it is you who's cursed," he moved past them, keeping his distance and stalking off towards the Mansion, "tear each other apart, see if I care. I'm going home!" Perhaps it was the early teenage angst, because certainly he realized he was in the wrong, certainly he felt bad enough — it was admitting it, it was sitting there and letting his parents yell at him that made him so defensive. Though he realized his own lashing out was due to separate reasons, that he wasn't actually angry, he couldn't bring himself to believe his parents felt the same. Maybe Kier was right. 

The red he could see only faded when he saw the terror in Laertes' eyes, and he didn't need Eshek to say anything to realize he had lost control of that cold calm he always had. That anger had quickly turned into regret, and then the hot burning shame that turned the back of his neck into a searing flame, and he immediately whipped around to glare at Eshek, her claws only making his antsy, itching pelt even more sensitive than it felt right now.

He wanted to speak. I didn't mean it. Yet, his own bitter pride would never have allowed it. "Get your claws off of me, woman," he snapped, as he took a step back, and when she shoved him, his gaze flashed again, and gods, his claws itched to give her a lashing, had it not been for the wide-eyed stare of their daughter, looking up to him. He gritted his teeth. "You touch me again, and I'll make sure that you won't have any claws left," he snapped in the heat of his anger and shame. He had never gotten angry or emotional in front of them, and here he was, the one moment defining who he was for some bloody reason. The tom immediately stormed off, unable to contain the whirlwind of emotions that seemed to swarm him at the moment.

Nour's eyes stared after Bermondsey, before looking up at her mother. Were they fighting? Because of her? Because of Laertes? She felt the same embarrassment roll down like hot soup that burned her throat. "Mama, it wasn't Laertes' fault," she spoke quietly, "he...I...I was the one who wanted to go in, and I was the one who was being clumsy." She didn't know why she was taking the blame for Laertes' mistakes, but gods, her brother owed her one. "Don't get mad at him, okay? And...don't fight with daddy because of me too."