Blackfeather Woods Draw me not without reason; sheath me not without honour.

Truthfully, he wasn't sure what he wanted from her. Part of him wished for her to let him go painlessly, while the other half yearned for her to request that he stay. Venamis was not a boy who openly admitted relying on anyone or anything, but he loved Maegi in his own quiet, platonic way.

He needed her, and he knew it. But what was that worth if she did not value his affection in the same manner?

"Because I’ve understood that the sun shines differently when something changes," he lifted his muzzle, felt the tightening of a muscle in his jaw, "but I’m not in the axis of those changes." In other words, in some roundabout way, Rowan was right. He'd been right all along, and Venamis had stubbornly withstood for long enough.