Ocean's Breath Plateau sunny days that i thought would never end

aditya and kitimat, side by side, went searching for @Katmai this morning. neither of them had been able to sleep, and so, they had hatched a plan to snag the youth and go for an adventure around the plateau.

dadaji, why were they gone so long? kitimat asked him.

it took a while for him to formulate the answer, but by the time they had reached where katmai was sleeping soundly, curled up near dutch and valiant, he perhaps had something to suffice.

sometimes wolves go away for a while, adi murmured. he crept forward, nudging the other boy gently to rouse him. they still love us all the same.

he could not guess as to why they had been away so long—but they were back, and that was what mattered.

Katmai had slept for a very long time, curled up against his mother and father.

It was strange to be back home. First and foremost because it wasn't exactly home to him — he'd spent precious little time here before setting off to find his father, and that "cousin" he'd never gotten the chance to meet. But it smelled like home; like his mother and father and siblings. And it sounded like home, save for the distant crash of the waves and the much more present cry of the gulls.

Still. It was hard to trust in the peace and safety that it seemed to promise, even if the presence of his family was far more interesting to focus on. He was grateful, then, when he was given no time at all to stew in his worries. Instead, there was Kitimat and dadaji.

"Good morning," he yawned, while his father startled awake much more sharply behind him. He climbed awkwardly to his paws and immediately tried to tackle his brother, unaware of the stark difference between their frames. He was sickly thin, his growth just slightly stunted by the malnutrition he'd suffered during these formative months. Doubtlessly, he would gain the height and weight he'd been lacking in quickly enough.

For the moment, the sight made Dutch sick with shame.