Big Salmon Lake I got used to living without you

She didn't understand him. She couldn't. The way he was talking... how? How the fuck did he not know what to do?

It was impossible for Fennec, having been here, to ever imagine herself letting anything take her away from Killdeer. The answer was so clear to her that she had to stop herself from absolutely ruining her life right then and there by calling him an idiot and leaving him to it. He was trying to decide between making a sacrifice play and facing whatever the fuck these things were on his own or allowing his family to fight with him. She was at a loss for words and it showed.

She couldn't change what had happened. She couldn't rewrite the time he had lost or go back and make any of that okay again. All she could do was try and minimize the damage now, with or without his help. She couldn't be selfish. Bronco wasn't the fighter that she was; she knew that. But it was hard for her to see this side of him and harder still to grapple with her gut reaction to it.

For the first time, maybe ever, Fennec had to actually think about what she said next. So the silence stretched.

Either we face them together, or I'm going after them alone. She would remove his choice from the equation and give him a new one, then. This was her decision. If he ran away, then he'd have to deal with the fact that she wouldn't. She could follow his trail just as easily as they did, the other direction, and would be there waiting for them. They could fucking try and make an example out of her. They were no monsters - they'd die as much as any other wolf with the right fangs in them.

It was cocky, it was stupid, and maybe it was even unrealistic. But Fennec's entire core rebelled against what Bronco was asking her to do; she refused to roll over and admit defeat, or to live in fear of something she hadn't even tried to face down herself. She couldn't.