Sun Mote Copse let the river run

Eljay still vaguely remembered meeting Maia before, but he didn't know a lot about her. Other than that she was bubbly and liked stories. Not exactly things he was good at nor wanted to explore further right now. Mommy responded enthusiastically to Maia joining the pair of them, and Eljay forced a smile to his face. It was easy to see that it wasn't very well-meant, though. Losing Elfie had in many ways renewed the loss he'd felt when Wiffle had been taken from him.

Maia was still much the same. It was strange, seeing someone who was a lot the same ways as you were used to, but being a completely different person yourself. The 'food thing' reminded Eljay of what Towhee had said -- that he should eat more and take care of himself -- but Eljay just wanted to be sure that Weejay had enough food to get by, at least. He didn't want to lose her, too. But neither did he want her to go through losing another of her parents. He frowned thoughtfully about it and nodded, though didn't comment on what Maia said.

Maia then said that Wraen was stressy, which was new information to Eljay, but then he'd realised that he hadn't spoken to her in quite some time, anyway. Maia asked if they were 'good' or if stressy was a pack thing, and honestly, Eljay didn't know how to respond to that. He shifted his weight and then asked, rather than answering the question, What's Wraen stressed about? He sounded mostly interested, but there was a hint of worry shining through his words. Wraen had done wonderfully to keep the pack together when the going got tough, and Eljay hoped it wasn't anything really big that bothered her now.