Redhawk Caldera There's just us. People. Doing our best to get by.

Eljay nodded when Reyes said that nothing impressed Towhee. The caretaker had often felt the same way. Of course, their relations to Towhee were vastly different. Eljay'd helped raise Towhee, and had been serving under her in her pack for a long time. Reyes had been her partner. Eljay could only try to imagine how much more difficult it had to be to be Towhee's partner than her relative; partners should be on equal ground. Eljay had a feeling that Towhee couldn't accept that. Not unless her partner was as fierce and unforgiving as she was, perhaps, in precisely the right ways.

Eljay did not, in fact, know exactly the details of why Reyes'd been kicked out of Redhawk Caldera. He always figured it was simply because Reyes and Towhee broke off their relations, and either she didn't want him in the Caldera anymore, or he decided it was time to leave. He was shocked to hear that Towhee actually kicked him out because she thought he tried to kill one of their children.

After Reyes finished speaking, Eljay nodded. Yeah. It'll be weird for a little while. But good, too, he hoped. They could reclaim this caldera and make it their own home again, without fear of being reprimanded for not doing good enough. Quite out of the blue, Eljay said: I'm glad you're here, Reyes. He looked away, a little awkwardly so. Eljay wasn't really sure how to say this sort of stuff, so he decided to just go out and say it. Reyes made Teya happy, and it somehow did Eljay good to know that he'd given a home to someone else who had failed to live up to Towhee's expectations.