The hunter is plagued by the stress of being the captor of a sick and twisted bitch.

He has had terrible days- truly awful weeks and even months in his short life- that have brought deep and stinging pain to fill the hidden hollows of his breast. But this week, these days, in the wake of his mother and brother's murder, in the scattered light reflected off of just another pool of blood, he feels hate. Manhattan once would help, but today she does not help. Today she fights with him, growling, spitting, sending terrors flying from her feet and wretched, shouted words from her mind to his own. Today she is as upset as she has ever been, disappointed in her master and screeching, slamming insults against his thick, young skull. He has made a fool of himself—told too many of his secrets to unworthy souls, and whored himself out to a Goddess that will give him no more than a strike of blindness and a streak of errand yet impassioned rage.

The meager spoils of the hunt, a starved rabbit with a broken neck, hang from Manhattan's jaws, dripping with blood and poison. She will not give it to him today, she will not share the victory or pleasure of their efforts. He strikes the ground in wicked anger, threatens to leave her behind here in the deep woods, alone to wander until she trips and falls on the crow-picked corpse of his father.

And she agrees.

The only friend the hunter has ever had turns away and runs into the woods, trailing rabbit's blood that hisses with poison and the black ghosts of a Sentinel's fears, and suddenly Knox cannot bear to be himself anymore. Little defective colt fades away and the memory of the great leader of the Mystic Woodlands roams the very forest where he died.

In the darkness, hindered by the thick haze of a cursed blindness, Roanne navigates faintly familiar woods with his nose pressed to the earth. Every step is one made with care, every snap of a twig in the distance a cause for alert. The sentinel smother's the pain of his son. It is for his own good. It is out of love.

He wanders through a dark forest, aching to transform as he once could, carrying himself with a sort of solemnity that rests easily upon the shoulders of the dead. It is strange for the Sentinel to think that he has fallen—to realize that every step is a borrowed one and every breath a twisted gift. It is has son that has done this for him, for all of his forefathers.

Wretched as Knox may feel, as much hate for himself as he may hold, Roanne sees the gentle kindness of his son. Pride moves him onwards, through the wood, away from Manhattan's cruel words and towards the distant light. In the distance, a silhouette of a mare looms; the faint sounds of upset swing through the midday air. He sees a long shadow, a silhouette cast into the depths of the wood.

Evangeline?

No. He is a fool, he tells himself. A fool seeing ghosts, wanting old memories long since lost to the torment of the shadows. He shakes his head and lowers it once more to the earth, carrying himself through darkened paths and closer to the mare. Each step betrays a difference—an elegant horn revealed with a shift of his muddled view, a lighter, younger tone of her voice.

Still he approaches, still he lets his head shift towards her direction and his nostrils flare to take in her scent. The familiar, salty scene of tears hits him as he pulls close to her; without realizing, his bridled features reach forward, only inches from her form. Old, deep tones sound out in a sort of wistful way. Inside, the huddled hunter hides from hurt. Bridled beneath the boughs of birches, Roanne shines one more time.

"Mim? Are yuh alright?"