Silver Creek O Captain! My Captain!

He was pleased to see her smile as he flirted, pleased that the conversation was turning from the things that had hurt them deeply in their lives. Her question caused him to exhale heavily in a sigh. "Oh, wow." He shook his head, breathing the words as exhalations more than true speech. "It's been so long since I tried to think about the time before, honestly. I tried not to think of it much at all. I always ended up back at the ambush, at the fight." Her question was a good question though.

"It was a nice life. I patrolled the borders, talked with my packmates. There were a few males I was growing closer with, near my age. We often wrestled when we had nothing else to do, trying to pin the other." He thought of the jokes they had play on each other, some of them things he didn't want to say in front of Spring. "We were always joking with each other, messing around. I remember I was trying to scare one of them...only he'd found out what I was doing. So instead he sent...he sent that female that I liked over where I was." He rolled his eyes and laughed a little. "They had the same color fur and she was moving fast, so when I saw her I leapt on her screaming stupid stuff. I pinned her down only to feel her turn underneath me. At this point I realized she wasn't my buddy and froze up. Her hind paws slammed into my stomach and she flipped me tail over head, but not before slapping my face with her front paws, snarling at me."

He smiled a lopsided grin, nodding. "She wouldn't speak to me for a week. My buddy...he thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever done. Started calling me Back-Flip when he wanted to get a rise out of me." His mind was flooded with the sound of the brute's voice, and then he recalled the way the male's body had lain, the blood that had stained his fur. He inhaled, blinking the image away. "He was a good dude. We had plenty of good times. He died, that day." His voice was nearly a whisper by the end.

He paused for a moment, staring off, thinking. When he came back to himself, he looked at Spring. "Perhaps one day you can tell me about your daughter, about your good times with her." He wouldn't push her to tell him now if she didn't wish to.