Blackfeather Woods so you run and you run to catch up with the sun

She explained herself.

She explained herself when, as far as he was concerned, doing so was not necessary. Her leaving had not been a pleasant thing, it wasn’t something that he’d ever been fond of, but it had happened. That could not be changed, no part of the past could be, but it was fixed—she was home now, back where she belonged, and that was what he focused on the most. But it seemed that her thoughts did not revolve around the same thing as his own, for the past plagued her yet.

“I couldn’t leave the woods,” he answered, setting his gaze against her own. “Not for an extended amount of time, that is. I could not leave to search for you, not for as long as it would have taken.” He had to watch over the woods, back then and presently, too. “The children were still young and our numbers weak. I couldn’t leave them unprotected,” he explained further. “I’m not so sure I would have been able to travel all around, all alone, either.” He had not known where she’d gone, not even a hint of a location. Kove knew that, had he left to find her, he would have needed to venture all throughout the Teekon Wilds—a journey that he knew not whether his body could still hold together for, with his age showing far more clearly than ever before.