Morningside Cuesta maybe there is someone else in my body, at night

You're always going to feel like you owe them.

They were not profound words, but they struck a chord within the aging male, such that his mouth twisted into something that could've been a smile or a grimace. There was so much noise going on in his mind that whether or not he owed the wolves of Easthollow should have been far from pressing - but in that moment it was. And there were a lot of reasons to stay just like there were a lot of reasons to go, but right in that moment, Grayday pretended it was the deciding factor.

"I'm not going back," he said decisively. "Not to stay. The kids - they need to learn how to live, and they need to know I love them." That had always been his goal, and he thought he'd been doing a much better job of it, as of late. "The rest is just noise."

And Akuti? She was noise. She was a freight train in an otherwise quiet period of Grayday's life. He had his kids and he had the wilds to travel, and none of that required a perky little shewolf at his side. He'd left Easthollow specifically to avoid spending his time on others when he could be spending it on his kids.

But -

"You'll stay with us, right?" he asked, even though she'd already told him she would.