Whitefish River old friends, sat on their park bench like bookends

Despite his neutral look, Phocion felt the all-too familiar twinge of regret and guilt at Grayday's words. Yes, he had left. . .at the tail end of a famine. After watching fellow packmates die, pups ordered to devour their dead mother's carcass, bones strewn about. . .  He knew that he shouldn't have left Silvertip, under any circumstances, much less the ones he found himself in all those seasons ago. He knew that.

"No, I didn't," he responded, gaze sweeping downward. He lifted his head and saw, in the corner of his eye, the shadow of that mountain in the near distance. "I was young, then, and didn't know what I wanted from life. I should have stayed."

He pointed his nose toward the plateau behind Grayday, a smile returning to his features once more. "You live here, now," he guessed, half-rhetorically. "This is your pack?"

Phocion wondered when Silvertip had disbanded and scattered to the winds--was it soon after his departure, or much later, and the echoes of it were still felt here? Where had Steady gone, or Krypton, or Ezekiel or. . .Anita? His mind settled on the last name with an internal sigh; he had betrayed her most of all by leaving. Did any of them even live, still?