Otatso Wetlands Trace the moment, fall forever

Tybault couldn't help but smile, too; just as weary, more sad than anything, but there was relief there too. Hey, He said, feeling lame because he still didn't know what that meant, and he didn't have anything fancy to say in response. What he did say was:

I'm leaving. Do you want to come with me?

Maybe that was fancier than anything else he could have said, in its own way, because it was so much more than just those words. It was the hesitant way he lingered over them; it was the vulnerability in the simple act of asking. Tybault didn't enjoy vulnerability, as a rule. He wasn't sure he would call this enjoyable — but then, he didn't know what to call it at all. Stupid, maybe, if only because he should have known better than to get his hopes up by now. And over a stranger, a coywolf of all people, a coywolf named Wildflower.

He thought he liked that, though. Wildflower. It suited him, somehow.