Heron Lake Plateau if it's meant to be, it'll be, it'll be

there was some sort of relief that flooded into tegan's body as she mentioned she wouldn't ever leave him. "good," he returned gently, suddenly understanding why towhee hated wolves who left so much. especially phox. tegan could imagine, somehow, how he'd felt if bat actually left. it made him sad-- really, truly, sad. but she wasn't leaving-- that's what she said-- so tegan didn't further voice this emotion. she didn't need to know. 

and then his expression darkened... but not in a mean way just in a concerned way. what did she mean? his ears flicked back for a moment before pressing forwards. "where do you wanna go, pup?" he asked with a heavy sigh, and then tacked on, "i didn't mean some kid. i mean, you're still a kid, but you mean a lot to me." and, no, he wasn't actually misunderstanding what she was asking him... but he wasn't quite willing to answer it in the way she was hoping he would. he knew his way around conversations, he was good at reading intentions. bat was asking something that came as something of a shock to the blackthorn yearling. he was trying to be careful. it was now that he realized he might've been walking on eggshells.