Bitterroot Valley you hit me yesterday because i made you cry

Valiant fought the urge to step back, away from Reif. He'd been glad to see the boy at first, but now felt a little strange and wary in his company. "I suppose not," he allowed, but still felt guilty for all the things he'd seen but couldn't change. For having a living father — even one who was far away — when others did not.

Reif's outburst did cause him to draw back half a step, his ears pinning before he could stop them. He tried to make himself relax, but it hurt to look at the other boy's pain and to remember how things had been before. He hadn't allowed himself to be angry about the other pack's formation. What would be the point? And he hadn't allowed himself to really miss those that they'd lost. How could he, when he didn't even know what had happened to half of them? When he hadn't been able to save them? When others had lost so much more?

What happened to you? he wondered, wishing he could be a ghost in Reif's pawsteps for a day, and see what had transpired since the sweet hush of their infancy. But he couldn't, and he didn't ask.

"When the ground was shaking, my dad gathered up everyone he could find and led them away from the willows," said Valiant, feeling as though he was admitting to some great crime. He'd only been a child, but he felt deep guilt and discomfort over all those they hadn't managed to connect with. "He said it wasn't safe anymore, and we were going to move... but then I was separated from him. From everyone, really. My aunt managed to find me and dropped me off somewhere safe while she looked for everyone — she says she checked the willows and left scent markers, but she never ran into anyone else."

He was glad to hear that Cam was alive as well, but after revealing how he had been complicit in the crime of abandoning the willows and its wolves to their fate, he didn't feel he had the right to ask about thier other cousin. (Were they cousins? Some of them were, he was pretty sure.)

"I'm sorry," he said again, unable to help himself. "I should've looked harder, or gone with her. She didn't know all your scents, so maybe she missed something. I wish you and Atwood and everyone could've been at Round Valley with me, too."