Redhawk Caldera If she gives you her heart don't you break it

He knew right away that he'd done wrong when he saw Maia's face. She didn't even respond to him returning that he needed her and that he did want to live with her, too. It was just.. a lot, for her to show up at the worst possible time and then not just ask her for a solution for their communal problem, but to ask him to move to her. In that question there was the suggestion that she didn't want to move here. Perhaps she hadn't forced him in any way, but she did share a feeling he had too — that he said he had, too — but that he had wanted to talk about... rather than have the solution put on his shoulders.

Normally it would already be a lot to bear and a lot to think on and decide. He'd often thought to run off to Maia in the Copse, but now that he lived in Redhawk Caldera again, and dreamed of raising children at the Blackthorn den, it was all different. It wasn't that he didn't consider at all to move to the Fen. He'd thought on it, and he'd considered it; especially recently, while he wasn't told about a lot of things going on in this pack. Even though the Caldera was his home, he still sometimes felt as if he was the child who was too dumb to tell about what was going on inside of it. As if he was the boy teased by Nightjar, not part of the 'inner circle' of Towhee, Phox and Niamh. He knew it wasn't all like that, but that was the feeling it gave him, and he hated it.

But he also didn't want to be put in front of such a choice without even discussing it. It made him feel, to some degree, the same way that Niamh and Towhee had made him feel when they told everyone except him about their pregnancies. As if his feelings didn't really matter. As if Maia's happiness and the pair of them living together in one pack was just another responsibility put solely on his shoulders, just like the wellbeing of everyone in Redhawk Caldera.

He knew it wasn't all like that, just like how he knew that it wasn't all like that with Towhee and Niamh. But the feeling still clung to his soul, wrenching his gut.

And even though he wanted to share his feelings to some degree, when he saw that Maia was upset, he just couldn't. Instead, Eljay put aside his own feelings again, and he frowned and said, No, no, I... I said I wanted it too, right? I... He swallowed thickly. He wasn't sure how to fix it, other than giving up a part of him without thinking about it. Are you sad now? Of course I don't want you to go. I'm so sorry! I... I don't want to make you sad. I want the opposite of that. He wasn't sure how to fix it though, not without just saying yes and doing whatever she wanted him to do. And he just wasn't sure if he could without losing himself.