Author's Note:

WARNING: If you are a new reader, know that this is a sequel. Read Innocent Hopes, Twisted Realities first if you want to know what in the world is up with Hiccup, who Ember, Beryl, Spark, Herb, and Thorn are, or why we care.

Now that that's out of the way, a note to all readers. This is a dark story. In accordance to that, important character death is entirely possible. Stoick and Stormfly are already gone, along with Mildew though no one cares about him. I can promise a happy ending, simply because I don't think I have it in me to write true tragedy, but that doesn't mean everyone will live to see it, or that everyone will be perfectly content by the end.

Finally, this story will update weekly, on the same schedule IHTR followed. It is also substantially longer than IHTR, and the minimum chapter length is slightly higher than any of my other stories to date. It is not categorized as Horror because …

I really can't figure out what to call this. Not Horror, not Crime, and other than that, I've got nothing. So I put Family and Adventure because those are the only constants. A little (or a lot) of everything else is in here somewhere.

The breeze gently brushed the forest, sending ripples through the leaves below Herb, a wave in the green sea of verdant trees below. It fit his coloring, a dark green to contrast the pale light green of his scales. The pale green Night Fury was carrying his latest catch, a small deer that had been unfortunate enough to wander almost right in front of him while he was on the trail of more elusive prey. It was sufficient if not the best he could find, and he wanted to return to his mate as quickly as possible.

He sighed, recalling the reason he was willing to settle for lesser prey. Thorn had not taken Ember's departure well, though the first couple of season cycles had seemed to soothe her worry. But time was passing, so much time. Herb knew in his mind that Ember would likely be gone for many seasons to come, but his heart worried despite reason. So it was with Thorn, but she was less able to bear it.

He disliked leaving her alone, though she had never hinted that it bothered her. Maybe that was his issue, his way of dealing with the departure of the only offspring they'd ever produced.

Another worry, but one dulled by acceptance. It was the way of things for dragons to have many eggs over the seasons, but he and Thorn had only ever produced one, and not for lack of trying. Season-cycles of failure had been offset by one success, but now that failure was back, filling in the void left by their now-grown son departing to find adventure and a mate. Time dulled the pain of that, but it still hurt.

He sighted the peninsula on which they made their home, knowing that the rocky cave he and his mate inhabited would be visible once he circled around, at the moment hidden by the rock formations that characterized their home, sea stacks on land, with soft grass between the towering pillars. It was beautiful in a wild way, but lonely now. He'd gotten used to there being two dragons around, not just one. Even after all this time, he still noticed Ember's absence.

Flying nearer, Herb repeated the often-thought wish in his head. That Ember would find a mate and return if only to reassure them both that he was alive and happy.

Herb could see Thorn, asleep on top of one of the rock formations, basking in the sun. Her grey scales seemed to absorb the light. He set down next to her, dropping the small deer in front of her nose.

She slowly opened her eyes, purring at him. "Thank you. Have you already eaten?" She eyed the deer.

Herb grunted in amusement. "No, but I was impatient."

"As is normal." She replied. "Take some."

"I was going to fish soon, so you can have all of it." Herb stretched, working out a pain in his neck that sometimes occurred for no reason. He was not old, not by dragon standards, but neither of them was young. Enough decades of experience inevitably began to leave marks, little pains that signified the passage of time.

"We both know I will be fishing with you," she admonished. "I like the attention, but what has got you so worried?"

"The usual," he replied wearily. "As always."

"Yes." Thorn agreed. "By the way..."

Herb glanced over at her. "What?"

"Now is a good time of the moon-cycle," she remarked slyly. "Maybe the hundredth time is the charm?"

Herb chuckled. "An egg would be a nice change of pace." He kept the pain out of his voice. After ten season cycles of failure, the hope was fading again. Still...

"Do not tire yourself out fishing." She decided. "I will be along in a few minutes."

Herb launched himself back into the air, curving around out to sea, quickly moving out of sight of the rock formations. He flew over to the fishing spot, a place some distance from the land, three short rock formations barely breaking the water to form a crescent in the middle of the ocean. There was always fish to be found there, and its reliability made up for the distance from home.

He began scanning the water, energized by his mate's suggestion. That, at least, was not the problem. They tried regularly, but nothing ever came of it. Maybe this time would be-

A shadow passed under the water. What was that? He looked closer, wondering where what had to be a tightly-packed school of fish could have gone.

They lived in isolation, and the skills Herb had developed in the wild were dull with lack of use. It took him far too long to realize that the shadow had come from above.

His vision blacked out momentarily from the force of the impact, a sharp pain in his back the only thing that did not falter. Rock met his soft underside, scraping and cutting. He rolled instinctively, tearing his back away from the claws lodged in his flesh, pulling scales away as a consequence.

Snarling filled the air, none of it his. He saw his attacker with a horrible clarity in the moment before pain. A blue akin to that of the sea, deep and striking in its own way. Fey eyes met his, eyes that lacked any empathy whatsoever. There was a challenge there, threat that made his heart seize and mouth curl in the beginnings of a snarl of his own.

Then the moment broke, pain from his injuries intervened, and the blue Night Fury attacked viciously. They tangled for a moment, Herb's skill and knowledge rusty and inaccessible thanks to the agonizing gashes in his back he had already received. A claw raked across his side, a searing pain developed in one of his back legs. He fought like a wild animal, but it wasn't enough.

The end came when a claw he hadn't seen coming tore across his face, a blinding, agonizing pain and light bursting across his gashed eye, feeling like a claw was digging into his mind, agony on a scale he'd never before experienced. He howled, thrashing wildly enough to throw off his torturer. The darkness that came for him was almost a relief.

O-O-O-O-O

Throbbing, flashing pain, bursts of sickly white light visible only in one eye. Herb raised his head wearily, whining at the pain of salt water in his various wounds, the tide lapping at his body, sprawled painfully on the edge of the rocky reef.

Most of his injuries were only moderately serious, harbingers of a few fine scars in the future, but no immediate concern. No, what hurt was his eye. Blinking did not clear the pain, did not return sight. He howled in despair and pain as it became oppressively clear. His eye was damaged beyond use. The world had been shrunk, cut in half.

That Night Fury would pay in blood. But as he shakily returned to his feet, fear clenched his stomach like the bite of a dragon. He knew that look, knew it far too well. The other dragon was not here for him.

Not for him. Thorn!

In a moment of despairing certainty he looked at the sky, fearing the worst and seeing it in the nearly set sun. The day was almost gone, where before it had been young. Time had been lost, time in which Thorn was unaware of the danger, time he was not there to protect her!

He lurched into the sky, ignoring through pure willpower the lancing pains in his side, the throbbing agony of wind over raw flesh where scales had once lain, the pure torture of knowing his eye was gone, or as good as gone. Thorn. He had to get to her.

Flying with one less eye was difficult, flying with injuries painful, but he did both without thought, fear driving him home, to the place where his mate had rested, the perilously exposed rock spire. They had been isolated, had not seen a dragon in many seasons. It was safe here, or had seemed safe.

His heart dropped and shattered in his chest as the spire came into view, the grey mass on top of it lying listless and sad, alone but not unharmed. Signs of a struggle were clear, the small gashes in her back, the scratches of useless claws on the rock. Small tears on the bones of her wings, where the pebbles of the spire had been ground into her, a sense of pain and humiliation clear in the air.

He dropped beside her, collapsing as the ground met his feet, feeling both the pain and the despair anew as he saw his mate's listless eyes, defeated expression as haunting as it was sad. She lurched to her feet at the sound of his landing, panic guiding her to run away, to the edge of the spire.

"Thorn," he cried out, desperate. "It is only me!"

She stopped, chest and wings heaving, breath fast and erratic. Then she slowly curled up into a tight circle where she stood, on the edge of the rock, not looking at him.

He laboriously made his way over, whining when she flinched at his approach. "Thorn."

She finally turned, properly looking at him. What she saw elicited a heart-wrenchingly defeated moan. He moved closer, nuzzling her tenderly.

"I could not..." She started, almost crying.

"I know." He replied sadly. "Did he..?"

"Yes."

"It does not matter," Herb said decisively. "We must get to safety. He may not be gone." He would die to protect Thorn, to prevent a repeat of the terrible violation she had suffered as he lay bleeding and unconscious on the rocks. But this place, it was too open by far.

Thorn nodded dully, standing with a moan. She followed him as he dropped to the ground, both making their way to a secondary cave, one they did not normally enter because it was too narrow and deep to be useful, twisted and claustrophobic.

Or in this case, secure and comforting in its confines, a place where one could not be snuck up on, could not be surprised. Herb followed Thorn in, both making their way to the very back.

If the monstrous Night Fury returned, they would be cornered. That did not bother Herb in the slightest. He would die before the Fury got past him, so being cornered simply meant he would have the best chance of stopping the attacker first; the least chance of being killed by another ambush.

Thorn curled into an even smaller ball behind him, weeping softly in a way only dragons could, a keening whine so soft it did not echo, a sound that made Herb want to tear the world asunder and destroy the one who had hurt his mate so thoroughly, to destroy so terribly that not even bones would remain.

He turned his head sideways, his good eye looking outwards in defense, the sightless bad eye pointing to the one he so wanted to comfort. He shuffled sideways, closing the small gap between them with his tail and wing, covering his mate protectively.

Thorn was not a weakling, not one who always needed protecting. But at the moment, she had suffered far worse than he had, and it made him feel terrible to know that his eye was not the most grievous wound that had been suffered.

Thorn huddled against his side, her keening slowly tapering off as grief gave way to exhaustion brought on by trauma.

O-O-O-O-O

Time passed, and Herb grew hungry as the sunlight grew, the sun rising outside. That was easily ignored. Hunger would be a welcome relief from the terrible images his mind could not help but imagine, the implied atrocities committed in his absence against his mate. The how bothered him, not the why. He knew why. They were rare enough, rare among the hordes of dragons who would fight each other for mates, trick and steal, but they did exist, those few who saw no point in anything but taking what they wanted. They were reviled by dragons everywhere, but it was very hard to find them when they did not want to be found, and there was no outward marking of vile intentions.

One of the many reasons he and his mate had chosen to settle down here, here so far from any type of intelligent life. There were no settlements of No-scaled-not-prey for many days flight, and even their odd wooden contraptions did not sail past this peninsula. Likewise, there were no dragons in the area, and he had deemed this place safe.

Safe. The idea was laughable now, though the vile Night Fury had not returned yet.

It was possible, his terrible deed done, that the Night Fury would be gone for good. That kind of dragon by necessity did not stay in one place very long, searching out new victims and dragons who did not know what they were.

Herb was not going to hope yet. Hope had no place in this terrible situation. But for the moment, he could relax his guard. There would be no way for the attacker to approach quietly, and the light still visible from outside the cave would dim as another body blocked it, an unavoidable warning that did not require his full attention to monitor.

He turned, very carefully winding himself around Thorn's curled-up circle, holding her close to comfort her. She had been asleep when he started, but as he set his head down next to her, she woke with a start.

"Safe." Herb murmured to her. "Just me." It did not hurt him that she looked around wildly, not believing. He would have done the same in her place.

"I do not feel safe," Thorn whined.

"But you are," Herb replied licking the back of her head. "For now, we are both safe. We will know if that changes, have warning."

"No way for him to surprise us?" Thorn inquired quietly.

"None," Herb nuzzled the back of Thorn's neck, "so we are safe. You should sleep more."

"I do not want to dream." Was Thorn's whined response.

"Then speak. Where are your injuries?" He had seen the scratches and marks from the struggle. Those wounds were superficial compared to his own, but his did not matter.

Thorn seemed to recover some of her spirit. "No, I want to see yours." She declared, unwinding and stepping back. "My hurts are small or," she sniffed, "not treatable. Yours are bad."

Herb complied without complaint, holding in his pained whines as she licked the myriad of wounds he had suffered in that brief and brutal struggle.

Finally, she came to the terrible gash across his face. She inhaled, whining softly.

"I know it cannot be fixed," Herb admitted sadly. "How bad?"

"Your eye has a cut across it. It does not focus." Thorn replied. "Can you see with it?"

"No. I can move it," he demonstrated, "but I cannot see."

"I..." Thorn licked the rest of the wound, the gash above and below the eye. "Does it hurt, the eye?"

"Yes. But there is nothing you can do for that." Herb turned, looking directly at Thorn with his good eye. "Truly, I can manage. I still have this one."

"You should have both!" Thorn objected angrily. Then she wilted, anger gone in an instant. "Both." She repeated in a soft, defeated tone.

"I know." Herb winced, knowing what needed to be asked. "You are still willing to be with me?"

He had to hide a small purr as Thorn growled at him. "Of course! Why would you ask?!" That was one way to get her mind off of other things.

"Then you know I will stay with you." He admonished. Dragon culture was stupid, in some ways, and though they both had left most of it behind, he had to be sure Thorn wasn't carrying any worries about that. The whole idea of leaving a mate who was proven weak was a terrible and cruel practice, especially when living in groups, where the other dragons would force the issue, regardless of what the two dragons in question wanted. Another reason they lived in isolation. Too much of their lives could be determined by others in a pack.

"Really?" Thorn whined.

Herb growled angrily. "We agreed to leave behind those stupid, rotten customs. This is no different." He had hoped she would have forgotten entirely.

"Right." Thorn warbled softly. "We did."

"We are fine." Herb decided. "Now, the next problem." He growled and rolled his wing shoulders. "Finding that monster and tearing him limb from limb. I will hold him down, and you can-"

"No!" Thorn whined. "If he has left, do not go after him!" She nuzzled Herb. "I cannot bear to see you hurt again."

"He must pay." Herb objected.

"We agreed to leave those customs behind," Thorn repeated his words, "and he will pay. Someone will kill him, likely soon if he tries that with a dragon in a pack. It does not have to be you, my injured mate."

"I was not speaking from custom," Herb grumbled. "But you are right."

"Is he gone?" Thorn asked.

"I will check." Herb flicked his ears before Thorn could object, "carefully."

He snuck out of the cave, using every sense at his disposal to discern anything unusual. Nothing. Then he flew, laboriously checking the surrounding area, the edges of the forest. Still nothing.

There was one more way to ensure Thorn's safety. "Forgive me for lying." He said to the empty air. Then he drew in as much air as he could, landing on the stone pillar that was still marked with the signs of Thorn's struggle.

A blast of sound ripped out of his throat, a screech that had only one meaning. Challenge. He himself could and would ignore such a summons, but any dragon who had not already cast off the trappings of custom would be honor-bound to respond if they knew they were the one being challenged.

The noise echoed, and once it faded he repeated it. Again, as the sound reverberated around him. Nothing. The attacker, the blue Night Fury, was truly gone.

Of course, now he had to explain himself to a very angry Thorn, who had definitely heard him. She dropped onto the pillar angrily, looking around for a full minute to ensure they were still alone.

"You said you would be careful!" She screeched at him, her voice one part anger and one part fear.

"I had to be sure," was his only explanation. "I am sorry."

"If he was still here..."

"I would fight until you arrived and fouled his flight from behind, and we would kill him together," Herb replied.

"Tell me next time." Thorn looked around. "And I want this pillar gone."

Herb looked down at the sturdy rock under his paws. At the scrapes and small bloodstains. He growled. "Good idea."

The sounds of fiery blasts impacting rock echoed shortly thereafter drowned out by the crash of a rock pillar collapsing and smashing into the ground below. If only the other evidence of the attack could be so easily removed.

O-O-O-O-O

Herb's eye never regained its sight in the following weeks. That was the least of his problems. He was not a dragon of custom, had thrown it off many seasons ago. Neither was Thorn. So he had not left his mate after the attack and did not consider her weak. It had been the right thing to do, the only thing he would even consider doing. This new problem was not so clear-cut.

Thorn cautiously nudged the egg she had just laid, looking up at Herb. "Now what?" Her voice shook.

Herb shook his head wordlessly, still trying to reconcile two opposing views of the situation. Part of him wanted to smash it, to deny that monster who attacked his mate any offspring. That was custom, that was right to any other dragon, though it would be truly rare for the mate of the dragon attacked to still be in a position to dispose of the egg of the attacker. Regardless, it was clear. The egg should not exist.

He did not give much weight to custom on its own, but when half of his own mind agreed?

The other half stopped him from voicing that opinion. The part of him that argued against killing an unhatched dragon, regardless of origin. The part that told him he had hoped for an egg, and now was considering breaking one, likely the only one Thorn would have.

Because now it was painfully clear. Whatever was stopping them from having eggs together, the fault lay on his shoulders. He was the reason they had only managed one egg to this point. He had told Thorn his suspicion, and she had agreed that it was a possibility, though she had assured him she didn't care if that was true. Who was he to deny Thorn another egg, regardless of how it had been acquired? Especially when she had not chosen to be attacked, had not been unfaithful. When she had chosen him over having more children, despite wanting more.

Mind versus instinct.

"I think..." Herb struggled with himself. "I think I want to hear what you think," he decided.

"You will not..." Thorn looked up. "I do not know?" She seemed to be having just as much trouble. "I think..."

"Yes?" He encouraged her.

"We should keep it." Thorn began to speak rapidly, giving Herb no time to interrupt. "It is not its fault how it was created, we always wanted another egg, and if we had just found it somewhere without a Sire or Dam we would raise it anyway, so why not?! We cannot just condemn it! I do not like how this happened, but we should make the best of it?" Then she whined. "But I cannot hurt you like that."

Herb made up his mind. "You would not hurt me." He stepped closer, gently nudging the egg. "It is not mine. I will not let that stop me from being its Sire. You are its Dam, therefore I am its Sire. Regardless of the circumstances."

"You would truly..?"

"We left custom behind a long time ago. Our kind is fading. The better question is, why would I not?" Herb hummed comfortingly. "Help me not resent him or her, help me treat them as my own. I cannot fight my instincts alone."

"Never alone." Thorn agreed. "What will we tell them?" She pointed at the egg. "He or she will not remember this conversation well enough to understand, if they can hear at all yet, but in the future what will we say?"

"Why must we tell them?" Herb asked carefully. "It would only hurt to know the truth."

"I suppose." Thorn agreed, though her voice was uncertain.

O-O-O-O-O

It was hard, at times, for Herb to fight the instinct to destroy his enemy's egg. The impulse sickened him, drove him away. He had never had to fight true instinct before. Before, it had always been arbitrary custom, imposed and enforced by others, not something ingrained in his own mind.

But with Thorn's help, he mastered it, brought that terrible urge to heel and locked it away, not letting it influence him. He spent time in the cave, if not too close to the egg, not fully trusting himself. He and Thorn tended to it as they had Ember's egg, speaking to and around it as much as possible.

That time helped heal Thorn's mind, helped her get past the trauma of the attack. She recovered mentally and physically. Herb did as well, though his eye never regained its sight.

The day came, deep in winter's grasp, when the egg began to hatch. Herb watched with Thorn, knowing and subduing that terrible instinct, hoping that the sight of the one he was determined to think of as his own would on its own destroy the instinct totally.

That was not to be. When the hatchling broke the shell, he had to subdue a growl, hating himself the entire time.

She was a dark blue, but a blue that faded into grey at the edges of her wings, her ears, along her tail and out in streaks. She was beautiful, mottled in a way he had truly never seen before, but she looked like what she really was. The offspring of Thorn and that monster of a Night Fury. Not his.

Not his. His. He fought himself, balanced on a precipice, one where a fall to instinct would have him kill her.

That brought him back, gave him the strength to resist. Killing a hatchling was wrong, so wrong. No matter its origins, he would never do it.

His. He stuffed that terrible instinct away and greeted the little female dragon as he would his own. She was his. He would not let himself think differently for a moment, lest his instincts break free.

O-O-O-O-O

She grew, learned, began to speak. Thorn named her Storm, after the way her grey and blue mottling evoked the memory of dark storm clouds. Storm was a normal hatchling, rambunctious and playful. It became easier and easier for Herb to forget she was not truly his.

When she began calling him Sire, he laughed happily, for it felt almost true. It was hard to reconcile his hatred for her true Sire and his love for her, but he managed, forcing himself to forget that blue Night Fury in favor of the blue and grey one in front of him. As such, he and Thorn remained happy with Storm.

O-O-O-O-O

Once, Storm asked why she did not look like Herb. The answer was easy, the truth being that Furies only rarely shared the color of either Sire or Dam. Storm had inherited Thorn's grey coloring, but not Herb's green, and the blue was random.

Mostly truth. Better than the whole truth.

O-O-O-O-O

"Sire?" Storm paced in front of a cave entrance. She was young but already mature enough to go out and search for a mate, as her brother Ember had so long ago.

"Yes, Storm?" Herb purred. He had not known she had already returned.

"Can we talk?" Storm motioned for him to follow.

Herb launched into the sky after her, letting her lead the way. Unlike Ember, Storm had come up with a way of searching, a pattern of flight that let her return to her Sire and Dam every couple of seasons. Herb felt vaguely guilty, as it slightly lessened her chances of finding another Fury, and it was clear she did it because she knew he and Thorn would not want her to disappear totally as her brother had.

That was another thing. Ember had never returned, did not know Storm existed. It had been what, forty season cycles now? Storm was more than twenty season-cycles old, had been searching in her own way for many of those. So much time. Herb and Thorn were still not old, but age was beginning to show itself. Furies lived a long time, but not forever. He still had dozens of season cycles to go before old age set in, but the hints of it were starting to be felt.

Storm set down in the wild forest, motioning for Herb to follow. They stood there, surrounded by trees.

Storm began speaking without warning, her voice confused. "I came across a mating grounds, one several dragons had spoken of."

"Anything?" Herb inquired.

"No, no living dragons like us." Storm sighed. "Living, I say, because there was a corpse."

"A corpse?" Herb did not like the sound of that. "What happened?"

"It had been left to rot." Storm still sounded puzzled. "I asked why..."

Because it was custom to burn corpses, Herb knew that and had taught Storm that, though he had taught it as a way other dragons followed, not a rule of life. His daughter would not be forced to follow custom.

"... and they said it was custom to leave the corpses of monsters to rot." She shook her head. "He had apparently attacked a mated pair of our kind a season ago with the intention of violating the female and leaving, but the female cut his throat after her mate had been defeated."

"And did the female leave the male afterward?" Herb asked with a sigh, knowing the answer. Custom, whether or not it was killing an already rare species, would have a female leave a male who proved to be weak.

"No." Storm answered with a sly purr. "They left together before the dragons could even bring it up."

Herb laughed. "Finally, someone else has some common sense!" Then he shook his head. "You know that male would not be happy with you, having lost his mate to custom, so it is all for the better anyway."

"Yes, I know. This was not what confused me," Storm replied, beginning to pace. "I went up to the corpse and took a closer look, intending to, well..." She grimaced. "I was going to relieve myself on it, just to dishonor that monster a little more."

Herb was beginning to feel uneasy, so he didn't comment on his daughter's intentions. "What?"

"He had been blue, and he smelled, under the rot and decay, almost familiar," Storm answered slowly.

He had half been expecting it, but it still hit him as a shock. "How odd," he managed in a monotone.

"Sire, who was he?" Storm shook her head. "An uncle? You never told me you had brothers, and neither did Dam. She only had sisters."

"Not an uncle," Herb admitted.

"Who was he?" Storm repeated.

"I love you." It wasn't an answer. He could not lie to his daughter, not now.

"That is not an answer." Storm voiced what he had already known. She was too sharp not to pick up on it. "My brother is orange, so I know it was not him. Actually..." Her voice trailed off. "The dragons at the mating grounds had not seen it, they had only heard of it, and they did not know the colors of the two he had attacked. But that is not the point."

"Please, do not go down this path," Herb begged. "You do not want to know."

"I have to know." Storm stopped, freezing mid-step. "I have to hear you deny it."

"I will not lie to you." Herb turned away. "I love you as a daughter, Thorn is your Dam. I am your Sire... in all but blood. You know what he had tried to do, why his corpse was left to rot. I am half-blinded by injury taken long ago, an injury I never explained."

"You..." Storm growled. "You lied to me. All these seasons."

"It was not a lie!" Herb could not meet his daughter's eyes. "You know your Dam and I hate custom. Custom would say your egg needed to be destroyed. We did not want you to know other dragons would have rather you died in the egg. You cannot be bothered by what you do not know."

"That is not the whole truth, and you know it!" Storm yelled. "You were going to let me live my life, believing a lie! You must hate me, the daughter of your mate and a monster who attacked her!" She was keening now, a mournful whine that underlaid her next words. "Do not lie, please."

"I killed and buried that instinct the day you hatched!" Herb yelled back. "I love you as my own! You cannot say I do not!"

"You would not have been scared to tell me the truth if you did." Storm shot back. "You did not trust me enough to be confident in my love for you, to tell me the truth when I could deal with it. Maybe then I would not have cared. But finding my true Sire's corpse, finding out he was a monster, and then guessing that you lied?! That hurts more than you telling me voluntarily ever could!"

"I am sorry," Herb whined, hearing the truth in his daughter's words. "I thought it would be better..."

"Did Dam want to tell me?" Storm asked furiously. "Tell me."

"She asked whether we should, and I said no..." Herb admitted, knowing what Storm would think of that.

"And of course she agreed when you said not to!" Storm yelled. "She was already afraid of losing you! This was your decision." She turned away. "Herb, I am going to keep coming back, for Dam's sake. But I cannot..." She whined. "I cannot even look at you right now. I trusted you."

"I love you-"

"It is hard for me to believe that when you did not tell me! You might love me, or you might not, but you do not trust me. I need time." With that, Storm launched into the sky, flying as hard as she could away.

His fault. It was all his fault. Was this the last gasp of that rotten instinct he had believed dead and gone? The subtle urge to deny the existence of the monster at all, to forget that Storm was not his own?

No, it would be too easy to blame instinct. This was his conscious decision and his fault.

O-O-O-O-O

Storm continued to visit, but she would not speak to Herb, only interacting with Thorn, who she still trusted. What hurt the most was that she never again called him Sire, in the rare instances he tried to reconcile. Her response was always the same.

"You do not trust me."

Thorn tried to reason with her a few times, but after Storm left angry, Herb convinced Thorn to stop. It was not worth alienating their daughter entirely.

He would suffer the pain he had brought upon himself. There was no need to make Storm mad at Thorn too.

But Thorn suffered regardless. It broke something inside of her, something subtle, and Herb had no idea how to fix it.

Thus was the state of affairs the day Ember returned, bringing with him two grown sons and a lifetime of his own agonies, along with a secret Herb did not yet know.