Redhawk Caldera rather be

Eljay felt as though he could finally breathe normally again when daddy returned across the border. In return to the bump to his shoulder, Eljay burrowed his face in daddy's fur for a moment, breathing in his familiar scent while he started to feel calm again. Then he detached himself from his father, feeling ashamed for his own reaction, and he looked away. Eljay barely kept eye contact, breaking it off more than holding it while daddy spoke, because he felt like a silly dummy for the way that he had reacted just now. He didn't want to be so scared, he really didn't, but somehow the thought of leaving frightened him so much that it just seemed a whole lot easier to just stay here at the Caldera forever than to learn to deal with it.

Daddy's last words hurt more than Eljay liked to admit. He was trying to be brave, he just wasn't very good at it. "I know," he mumbled while he looked at his own paws. They looked the same as daddy's paws now, but he knew that he was far from the same in his heart. Eljay felt emotion and panic rise up at the thought of his own incompetence, but he didn't want to disappoint daddy again, and so he forced a smile on his face. "I'm gonna try harder, daddy," he said, though it was hard to say the words without breaking into sobs again. Eljay knew that he wasn't gonna be able to be braver just by trying harder, 'cause he was already always trying his very very hardest for mommy and daddy already. But he'd try to try even harder, somehow.