Morningside Cuesta isn't hope an animal?

The further she gets away, she doesn’t hear anymore splashing or the sound of wet paws on the ground and she can only assume she’s gone far enough. She’d slipped out of view before he’d taken note and she can go off on her own again, as she had for the last little while. Most days she thinks of Easthollow and what she left behind and did they even miss her? She’s left twice now and while her intention is to return, she can’t help but feel completely separated from them about as much as she feels separated from Grayday.

Adeline feels the burn in her legs from climbing the hill, something she’s taken to getting used to. Her younger life has been spent on a mountain but she didn’t explore it enough before they moved somewhere flat and she’d lost the strength in them. When she pauses near the top, she stares up at the sky. The day is mostly clear and bright and everything her mind is not, keeping her from moving forward. She slowly closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, turning her head over her shoulder to renew her vision a beat later.

Grayday isn’t where she’d left him in the water and it takes a second to locate him a little closer, laying down and pointed in her direction. He’s seen her. Her jaw tightens and she remains in place, picking one paw up and slowly backpedaling and pivoting until she’s turned the opposite way. She does not hear the words from across the way, nor does she realize he’s said anything at all, but she can’t make her legs move forward to close the distance between them again. Instead, she offers a brief wag of her tail and the drop of her head, waiting, but for what she is not sure.