Morningside Cuesta different now; better than

Day let out a huff of laughter - half amusement and half relief. "Yeah," he agreed, not surprised at all that it had taken Dawn about ten seconds to understand what he'd been struggling to figure out for the past year. Perhaps more. "Yeah, that's it pretty much exactly."

He shifted uncomfortably, knowing now that the hard part was about to begin. "I, uh - " He cleared his throat. "I've known Addie for a long time, now. I met her when she was just a tiny thing, and when she was - well, she was not much older than you were when we left Easthollow. Anyway - when she was about that big, I realized that, uh... I realized that I loved her," he said, his voice hushed and low. As if this were a secret that only Dawn was allowed to know - and maybe it was. Maybe he would only ever tell her.

"And - and it was good love, at first. I loved her because she was silly, and sweet, and beautiful - and I wanted her to grow big and strong, and I wanted her to be warm during the winter, and most of all, I wanted her to be happy. I wanted to do things to make her happy, because she made me happy," he explained, his heart twisting painfully at those far-off memories. They seemed like so long ago. "And all I did... all I did was think about her, and what I could do for her, and how I could make her laugh and smile. Because I loved her, and because it made me happy to see her happy. There were - I mean, there were days... sometimes, it was the only thing that made me happy. For a long time, I was sad, and I was only happy when I was with her. I felt like she needed me - like I had a purpose."

The words tasted sour in his mouth, but he went on. "It's kind of like how you want to become a good hunter, so that you'll be a good packmember, so that you'll feel like you're important to the pack. When I was with Addie, I felt like I was doing something important," he said, hoping that this would help her to understand what the older girl had meant to him, even back then. "And it's good to have something like that - like how Heartha wants to care for us to contribute, and how Sylvas and I will protect us, and how all of us hunt together. It's good to do things for each other. But it should never become so important that it makes you unhappy, or so big that it's the only thing that can make you happy. You gotta have balance - and I didn't have balance. All I cared about was her, and what she meant to me."

"D'ya... d'ya see how that can be a bad thing?" he asked her. "Even though I was trying to make her happy - do you see how it might hurt someone, to only focus on one thing like that?"