Stone Circle you must go home again

dauntless is ready to go home. he's been ready to go home but stays because pema stays but he feels uncomfortable here, among the easthollow wolves. because they were charged with returning burr safely and the very worst possible thing that could have gone wrong had gone wrong. burr's death wasn't his fault any more than it was pema's but it occurs to him that if he'd been with the other boy when he'd been attacked that maybe burr'd still be alive. he feels indirectly responsible for it and that their continued presence might only be aggravating wounds that will need a long time to heal. not only that, he has to face ishara and break the news to her. that wasn't going to be easy, dauntless knows but she deserves to hear it from him, directly, as opposed to through the grapevine.

he avoids the pack for the most part. while pema scurries about helping out, dauntless feels too awkward and too guilty to want to be anywhere near them. he thinks about telling pema he's heading home but doubts his mother would let him, not to mention he's not overly crazy about the idea of her returning home on her lonesome. no doubt burr's killer was still at large. shale's call rings through the stone circle and there is a sudden and frigidly uneasy feeling in dauntless's stomach at the urgency of the hunter's call. pema beats him to their compatriot but dauntless comes in just as she asks him what's going on. for the sake of not being annoyingly redundant dauntless remains silent but fixes his gaze — more green then it is brown today — upon the older male expectantly, unable to entirely loosen the tension in his limbs.