Northstar Vale i've delivered us to where we are

To put it lightly, Cypress wasn’t feeling his best.

The heavy whump of the heel of the bear’s paw hitting Cypress square in the ribs had concealed a sound akin to the cracking of ice in winter — “Watch, Rian! D’you wanna try?” — but adrenaline had been kind to the boy at first. It was only now, several hours after the event, that he was beginning to fear something wasn’t altogether right with him. This was the first time in his young life that he’d found something as simple as breathing to be painful, and keeping up with the caravan was growing more and more difficult. He lagged behind, dropping further and further back in the sequence of wolves, his head hanging low as the ragtag group drew to a stop. A smattering of the pack spoke, but Cypress remained silent, blind to the beauty that surrounded him as his vision swam blearily. There was only one thing he needed to say.

Stepping forward into the center, a place he normally tried to avoid with everything he had, Cypress cleared his throat. “There’s something I ought to say,” he murmured, his characteristically steady baritenor reedy and thready in the face of his bruised and possibly cracked ribs. “I disobeyed an order.” True, he’d done it because he’d wanted to keep his family safe, but the grave fact remained: in that moment, he hadn’t trusted in his brother’s leadership. That, he felt, was significant enough to apologize for. “We’ve got good leaders here. Rannoch and Rian are — the best wolves I know.” His breath hitched unevenly, not out of an uprising of emotion, but because breathing was fucking painful.

He made himself small, moving gingerly as he prostrated himself before his brothers. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, wanting them to know it. Wanting the others — especially Redshank and Titmouse, who were younger and would do well to learn from his bad example — to see it. Rannoch’s leadership over the group wasn’t solid yet. He was a new leader and they were a new pack and this was a new land, and if Cypress didn’t support him, what kind of brother would he be? He knew but couldn’t admit that if a bear attacked a second time, his reaction would mostly likely be exactly the same, and he hoped that he wouldn’t be tested in such a way. “I trust your leadership — you’ve gotten us to safety. I never once doubted it, and I’m sorry.”

He drew a deep, painful breath.

“I shouldn’t have acted against your orders, Noch.”

There was a significant part of Cypress that didn’t like public displays and it was true he harbored a deep-seated loathing for groveling, even before the wolves he loved most — but his trust in his brothers was absolute and he could only hope that the rest of the pack would one day learn to feel the same.