Otter Creek Break the cycle.

Whittier was licking splinters out of his teeth when the girl informed him he was eating his lunch wrong. He paused, staring at her. Blood rushed to his cheeks as humility swept over him, but he was determined not to lose face. His brain flailed about frantically to find something to say or do that would make he seem cool before finally he gave a casual grin and shrugged. "I don't like to waste," Whit assured her, tearing another strip off of his branch and beginning the arduous task of chewing. Truth be told, he didn't even know what he meant by that statement. But as long as they could move on in the next minute, it would do the trick.

Her response to his question made him cant his head. He swallowed his latest mouthful and paused, ignoring the snack for now to give her his full attention. "Other places are way different," Whit informed her, surprised that she didn't know. He was not so adept at understanding things from other points of view yet, and had been given a taste of the world as a wide and sprawling place when he was far younger than most were when they were introduced to the concept. So, it was rather astounding to him that this girl seriously thought the whole world was a dark and gloomy place.

"You're safe outside of there too, even if your fur is black," Whit informed her eagerly, "And you can get used to how bright it is. Your eyes adjust. And my aunt taught me that a lot of other animals don't have as good of eyesight as us, so your coat color doesn't make you stick out any more than mine, and I'm almost as white as my mom." But still, he didn't want her to think that she had to stay in the dark, creepy forest all the time. He barely knew her, but she had fed him, and thus he wanted to help her. Or, what he saw as help anyway. "There are lots of really cool places.  Some are all dark like your forest, and some are really bright like the field," he commented with a gesture over his shoulder, "But some are a mix of both. And there's mountains and oceans and rivers and all kinds of neat things."