Ocean's Breath Plateau but in new york city, it rains

Val is currently traveling with his cousin, Dutch

The season was changing once again. Soon, he would enter his third winter — the period of time that his family called Breathe Deep. It was a thing that weighed heavily on him, and he thought that the same could be said of Dutch, his hunting partner and his cousin, but the two men did not speak of this. They had spent over a year now glorying in the freedom of travel, and the pangs that now gripped them both deep in their lungs was as natural as it was foreign to them.

Valiant flicked an ear toward the darker male as they came up on the borders, waiting for Dutch to voice some sort of opinion. That they should swing wide around this claim. That they could push through quickly enough and run if they were intercepted. That they could ask to stay a night or two.

But he remained silent.

Valiant tipped his head back to give a querying howl: We are two. Who are you? Dutch's voice rose along with his own, tacking his verbal signature onto the announcement.