Big Salmon Lake i remember the make-up running down your face

bebe love, my bebe love *sing sings*

Timing was everything. It always had been. He could've told her when they'd first met that he liked her. He could've told her under the shooting stars that he was starting to feel something real for her. He could've said it a hundred times while they lived together at the Plateau, he could've said it when she left. He could've come to her at the Caldera and said it. He could have come to her when she was injured a hundred times and said it, but when he had, all he had to share were riddles and lines for her to try and read between. He'd done none of it, and Finley Blackthorn had had enough.

And yet, when she heard her name in his voice upon the wind, she had answered. The beta had hated herself for each step she made, knowing that she didn't want to make them. Whatever lied at the end of this interaction, she had no doubt that it was going to be miserable and emotional and just awful. She could see no happy ending. She'd given up on the happy ending when he'd given up on them without a fight.

Fin came upon her doppleganger standing near the edge of the Caldera. He looked awful, but still handsome, still charming... She sucked in a deep breath and hardened herself against him before trotting up to him, her tail and head raised in the way one would expect a beta wolf to carry themselves.

"The Caldera usually doesn't take kindly to trespassers," Fin said sourly as she approached, "We usually run them off. Or attempt to murder them." Either option seemed pretty good to her at that moment.