The intruder was caught at the gate. There was little known about him, other than that he didn't want to put up a fight and might not have been able to. Nevertheless he was immediately brought to the dungeons when introducing himself with an odd request attached.
"I'm Ansel. I want to speak to Hope Klausson."
"We have questions for you. Why are you here? What do you want? What do you know about the prophecy?"
Hope tried to keep her calm and harsh interrogation voice.
"Yes, but what do you want to know? I have heard my fair share of stories in the afterlife. I will try to answer as truthfully as possible."
He smiled softly and with a wink at the end, exactly like she would have imagined a grandpa to do. It was slightly unnerving. She hesitated for a bit.
"Do you know if my dad loved me? He always told me and I remember using that against him when he made the decision to sacrifice himself, to leave me. I told him he wouldn't do that if he loved me. I don't have children. I don't know what that feels like. But I know that parenthood doesn't automatically come with love. Mikael didn't love dad."
Her conflicting feelings were pushed aside for a moment and she revealed a side of herself she usually tried to hide.
"His stepfather hated him, despised him. For not being his but mine. Because of what his mother did and what I did. I never got the chance to be his father. The father he so desperately wanted for a thousand years. The father who'd love him unconditionally and embrace his werewolf side instead of suppressing it. And still, when through nothing short of a miracle, I came back to live and to him to fill that hole that had been growing and growing for over a thousand years, eager to give him everything I could… He didn't hesitate one second to rip my heart out. Because I knew you were alive. I didn't know where you were, I had no intention of ever hurting you, but I still posed a threat. And he couldn't have that. Not the tiniest bit of it. And I understood. Because I, too, got to feel this love a father holds for his child. A love so gigantic, nearly immeasurable, that after only less than a year it outweighs what might have been his strongest feeling to that point after a thousand. You can doubt your father, his actions in the past. But you can never doubt his love for you. If the sacrifice of his own life didn't convince you, because he was old and tired of life anyway or because he hurt you by going, then consider this."
The room was filled with silence. Hope tried to catch herself and lifted her head up.
"It is good to finally meet you, granddaughter."