Sunset Valley don't sweat the technique

Katmai didn't like these questions.

The young male turned his face away as if bothered by the wind, wishing he had an excuse to further hide it. In truth — being with their family upset him. It reminded him of something that had been lost. Not just their grandfather or the seal hunters or Moontide itself, but something in him that hadn't been the same since returning home from his long absence.

He hadn't talked about what had happened out there with anyone. He didn't want to talk about it, now.

"Nothing could keep me from you all," he replied, just a little sullen. He resented — not quite the question, and certainly not Kitimat himself! But the feelings these things evoked in him, and his own inability to make Kitimat understand. He could not articulate just how deeply he'd felt the need to get away.

"I don't know how long I'll travel," he went on, still feeling hunted, "but you're still my family. I'll visit everyone. Our parents and our grandmother and our cousins." Whatever the wolves of Round Valley were, and any maternal cousins he could track down as well.

"I need to do this," he said, looking back up at his brother's face. "I need — I just needed to be somewhere else. Do you ever feel that way?"

His burnished gaze was imploring. He had long wondered if he was the only one who felt the heaviness of their fractured home.