Blacktail Deer Plateau something in my heart

The speed at which she answered only increased his growing discomfort. “But why do you have to stay together?” he asked, frowning. His own siblings left him, so why couldn’t she leave hers? “Then they can go to the beach and you can stay here.” Siblings didn’t have to stay together forever—that was one thing he learned in life, albeit harshly.

“I can’t go back to the coast,” he said. “I don’t think anyone else would want to go back, either. The coast… the sea hurt us.” And even though many of those lost returned to them, they were still not what they once were. Even to visit, like he wished to do, felt like he was betraying his pack—siding with the enemy, so to speak.

“I like you, too,” he told her. “You’re a good friend. I don’t want the sea to take you, too.” Even if she said she would come back, would she really?