Chimera Fields Roast Mutton

There was no saying Mal was totally innocent in why things ended up the way they did, but he certainly didn't know why they had.  It was much easier to just say screw 'em and prove them wrong by going elsewhere.  At this point there was no reason to think they would have gotten along at all if he'd stayed.  It probably would have ended badly.  And honestly, there were some things that just couldn't be argued, like the fact he oh so rarely saw an adult.

That was all just history at this point.  The present was complicated and uncertain enough for Mal, and he'd have plenty of new and shiny ways to keep screwing that up without involving his old scores.  All things considered, thus far he'd pretty well behaved himself, hadn't he?  This had gone far better than just about every other interaction he'd had.  Certainly if she appeared again in the future, he wouldn't be annoyed about it.

But then, what he wasn't expecting was that she was asking to stay.  That was what she was asking, right? Right?!  That or she was totally trolling him, but she'd been nice so far.  So?! Maybe not that?  Yeah, you can come stay in the forest too.  Again, he's trying to be cool.  So though he wagged his tail wildly a few times and did his best to not sound excessively delighted, he mostly toned it back after that once he realized, Um. I don't think I said?  I'm Mal.  Perhaps in moments like this it was more obvious that he was emotionally still pretty childish -- which probably explained a few things that related to the present, and was the result of things from the past.