Morningside Cuesta sat my back to your stars and breathed in your sighs

Day resisted rolling his eyes at Sunny and Dawn's dramatacism. Mostly Sunny's. Of course, he'd probably be a lot more concerned if he'd known all that Sunny did - but he didn't know, and so he simply assumed that Sunny was being over-protective and borderline overbearing.

"You can't protect Dawn from herself, Sunny," Day said, managing to speak gently to his son. "You two are getting older, now, and that means you're getting new freedoms. Dawn's not always going to make smart decisions, and neither are you."

He laid down in the grass, done speaking over them, for the time being. His scolding had turned quickly into a far more serious topic than sibling rivalry.

"When I was a young man - not much older than you two - I decided to leave my father's pack," he said solemnly, giving each of them a measured look. "I had a lot of fun, but there were also days I nearly died of starvation, or wounds or thirst or sickness. To this day, I regret leaving like I did. I don't know how to get back there, and I have to live the rest of my life wondering what happened to them, if they're okay, if they remember me at all. There are times I wish my dad would've stopped me. But you know what?"

He sucked in a breath, only just realizing how close he'd come to tears. "He didn't. He said, 'Day, you go out there and find what you need.' And I did. I found your mom, and I had you two. And if my Dad had said to me, 'Grayday, you're not strong enough,' or 'Grayday, you're going to get hurt' - I would never have had the privlidge of becoming your dad. And you know what else? I wasn't strong enough, and I did get hurt, just like he knew I would. But dads gotta live with that, knowing that their kids are gonna make their own decisions, and that they're gonna get hurt along the way. And brothers gotta live with that, too."