Dawnlark Plains isbjørn

Grayday, too, remained staring at the ground, glad for once that he could see nothing but dreary grey. It made it easier to picture his green-eyed girl as he liked to remember her. Perhaps he would never again look into his children's faces and see them, but at least he had this. He had a beautiful girl in his memories.

"I broke a girl," he said quietly, and wasn't it funny that the first and last time he'd confessed this very thing, it had been to Aditya's mate? Perhaps they were an odd pairing. He knew they were troubled. But there was a certain sense of truth and honor they both possessed that seemed to draw confessions and platitudes from the older male in turns. "She was young. Younger than Dawn. Restless just the same. She looked up to me, and she needed me - but I only thought about the way I needed her. When I realized the disservice I was doing her - that I was doing the both of us, really - I tried to make it right. But it was too late, and she left with a broken heart. A broken spirit."

He scuffed his paw in the dirt. "I wonder what's become of her," he said aloud, not quite speaking to the younger male. "I caught her scent in a valley to the south. I called to her, and she answered - but I was afraid to see her. And I had to get home."