He allowed her to choose from the dresses so that she would have something lovely to wear for once, and as soon as she was satisfied with the lay of the intricate designs that seemed perfectly cut for her frame, he spoke of what he had seen in town, and of the woman who had attempted to exclude him from her conspiracy. He showed her the scrap he had stolen, and marveled at how the drawing resembled her especially now that she was clothed in something tasteful. He could not read the scrawled handwriting of the note, even as he forced himself to study it, so he handed it to her in hopes her palace education gave her an advantage in deciphering it. Holding the paper made her slender hands quiver, her scabbed wounds becoming more pronounced in the process, but she translated for him, "All true citizens restore Her Majesty Princess Lucina to the throne."
"What does that mean?" he asked immediately, watching her face carefully for signs of discomfort. Answers were not worth that price.
"It means the peasants who usurped my father's throne have realized they are no better rulers than he," she growled, suddenly frowning. "I knew there was a large opposition to the rebellion, a majority, in fact, but they were unarmed. They knew rebels were coming to kill us and they hid in their homes."
"It is not the job of the subjects to defend the monarchs," he argued grimly, recalling that his father had once been some great hero and had complained incessantly thereafter about the spoiled expectations of the ruling class.
"I know, and perhaps it is selfish to wish that they had," she allowed this much as if to please him, but it was almost as if he had placed the crown upon her himself, "but there were murderers in my home and... had I not done something, even something as desperate as seeking protection from the witch-"
"And you begged for power and she gave you a curse."
"I begged for power and she gave me a curse." Lucina crushed the measly scrap in an enraged fist and hurled it at him. "Do not speak to me in that condescending tone. You think I deserve what came to me? You think I deserve to be mauled by wolves after wandering in vain for months? You think I deserve to be driven from my home when the unrest of the people was no fault of my own?"
He knew she wanted a fight, an intense match to determine whose lungs could bellow the loudest—he knew he would win until she transformed—but it was not worth screaming at her to make her see that he had little sympathy for those who had been cast from luxury. "I cannot judge what you deserve."
"You are a hunter, of course you have no sympathy for destroying a way of life."
"You are the greatest hunter I have ever seen. Do not accuse me of destroying life when you flushed prey from the bushes like a hound."
"A hound? Now I see. I am deserving to be your hound and nothing more. Nothing higher. And now they seek to return me to the throne and I cannot return."
"What is stopping you?"
He he anticipated the answer. It had been the answer to everything, the missing piece in her elaborate tapestry, the drive behind her very existence then and there, in his minuscule little cabin that was swallowed by the vast woods. Her curse trapped her to the life of a beast; she was not content to remain locked in any sort of cage, no matter how gilded. The lament of the beast's soul that slumbered within her would be heard every night if she returned, and thus it would be a triumphant coronation as she mounted her own funeral pyre. She would return to die, a lamb mindlessly following all the others to the slaughter, blood no more innocent than his own spilled by the town he hated. In some ways he cared; she had been somewhat of an adventure and he could not deny that her presence and her touch controlled him, and he would feel a touch of sadness when he returned home and was alone, and most of all he did not see why she should have to die, but this new Lucina was not his hunting partner, this was some spoiled princess who demanded pity from him despite the fact that he had never lived under her rule in the past. Her fate did not concern him. But he could not shake the impending doom that came with the idea of her death.
"You," she stated simply, obviously, and then no amount of finery could change his wolf girl into a princess.
That night he took her into the woods again. They had precious few hours to roam, and the waning sliver of moon lit their path brilliantly. He brought a bow and shot at the creatures she drove towards him, intentionally missing each one so that they would have to spend longer together in the woods that brought them so close. Two minds, one wavelength. When finally he hit his mark in the neck of an owl, they paused and marveled at the bird together, and then it became a game. They left the body of the owl in a nice hidden spot to be retrieved later, and then he chased her while she barked and snapped ferociously at him, humor in her abyssal eyes. Once he caught her they wrestled, rolling through the filthy debris of the woods and cutting themselves on nasty hidden thorns. He could almost hear her laughter when his hair snagged on a root, but shortly after she misstepped directly into a shallow ditch and he was able to gain the upper hand. They played until the moon disappeared and she transformed in the woods, and once more he carried her back to his home and laid her in his bed.
She woke briefly and before he could leave her side she had stretched a delicate hand up to brush her fingers across his jaw, and he determined that if he allowed the princess to return to her kingdom, even if she survived his wolf would not. He was glad to be the barrier keeping her in the woods, and to prove it he took her hand and kissed her fingers.
"You do not need to return," he told her after it was done, but she was too awestruck to reply. "You are already queen of something."