Brotherhood. He could feel the bonds that tied him and Mauja together tug at his heart. Could he be this openly honest with anyone else? Kou was the only other that sprang to mind. Not even with his children could he bare himself to nakedly, they needed to know he was strong and that these stupid emotions didn't effect him. He couldn't deal with these feelings, he didn't know how to respond to them or what was the right thing to do. So much of him rejected them, rejected the hurt he felt towards the moon and the indecision he had towards Mesec. How could one both love and hate their own son? Why had the Moon abandoned the Edge, her own sons home, and why did he feel guilty about it? It was true that it still plagued him that he wasn't there when their old home fell, that he was too weak to even make it to the battlefield and was instead caught so easily by the enemy. It was so long ago, the seasons had been and gone. Yet, these problems still played on his mind. Weakness. d'Artagnan the Nightshade didn't like to feel weak.

He looked at Mauja when he spoke and grimaced. These words were not going to be easy, but maybe if he said them out loud he would feel better for it. The icy lord turned his head and he spoke a probing question again, there was no turning away now. He had to lay out his heart before the white stallion he had come to call best friend. However, a shaky laugh left his lips first and he too tilted his head to the Frostheart. "Don't worry I'm not dying so you can wipe that look off your face." He smiled briefly then turned to the matter at hand, turning thoughts around in his mind until finally he put them into spoken words. "It's a long story and one you already know most of. I've been berating you for being weak when really I am no better. I could not even help you in the battle for the Edge, I was held captive instead and I wasn't even strong enough to free myself. I thought, maybe, in my time as a prisoner that she might have come in aid. It was her land after all, the Moon, it was the home of her son. Yet..." He sighed rather loudly and controlled his plummeting voice before continuing.

"I hate her, but there is also apart of me that still loves her, still wants her to be the Goddess I once thought she was. I feel guilty because I shouldn't feel this way... Kou deserves better than this. Than me. I hate my son and I love him. I despise what he is and fear what he may become. When I travelled to the beloved Moon's shrine she said little to me and nothing about her betrayal or why she did it. I even did her damned quest and was blessed with her damned magic."

The Doctor looked away from his friend then and sorrowfully gazed out towards the mountains that guarded them day and night before he looked down to his hooves, eyes hardening in anger before a short ironic laugh began to tremble through his blood coloured body. "I am d'Artagnan the Nightshade. Even my name sounds like hers. I'm supposed to be fearless and not troubled by petty things such as emotions. I am the weakest of all who live here." He wallowed through the last part before lifting his head to watch the road ahead. Feeling the concern that was projected towards him from Aramis. Even though the pup was out ahead of them, he could still feel his bonded's discontent and it worried him.

d'Artagnan tried to find the pride he always carried as both Time Mender and Plague Doctor. The pride that had driven him to defeat Aaron and to remain with the herd as their healer. The love he felt for Kou and his daughters. The thought of Mesec now would be too much and so he pushed the child's image to the back of his mind, he had already failed his first born son.