Paradise Falls this is letting go

Chan, Addy, @Micaden and Marigold are leaving Paradise Falls and Relic Lore altogether. Anyone from PF is welcome to post, but it will only be this one round and the thread will be archived on the 30th. If you want something longer with Chan specifically, let me know and we can have a separate thread.
@Isla @Miriam @Riven @Nadine @Indigo

out with the old dreams i've borrowed
a syllable repeating, like a warning we aren't heeding
when the wheels brace and the tires grip
a map we've been misreading, a defeat we're not conceding

until now
there must be some other way out

the wind died, the whole world ceased to move
now so quiet, i made most of all this sorrow
i tried to brave this discontent, but now i'm through
i'm letting go of you

— rise against

Chan had tried to give in. He'd returned constantly to the place where Flair had been, and pushed his own head under the metaphorical waters of shame and grief over and over again. His worst fears had come true. They had bene right here, and he had missed them, over and over again. They had been right here, desperate and dependent on him to find them and he hadn't. Instead of being able to rely on his father, his yearling son had needed to make the choice to leave his mother to find him, and then... then Chan still hadn't been able to help.

He had failed them so completely, and still his children wouldn't allow him to disappear in all that darkness. It had taken time, but they pulled him from the worst of it, and as a family the quartet had come to a decision.

They could not stay here, circling around her death continuously. It was finally time to move on from Relic Lore completely, and to make one last effort at reaching the ocean which Chan had dreamed of seeing since childhood.

Standing at the very edge of the pack's domain with his children, he looked over each of them to ensure they were truly ready. Then, he nodded to his eldest.

Addy would miss Miriam and Atara both, but even in acknowledging that they could not feel sad or disappointed over their family wishing to depart these forests completely. They felt it too, the desire to detach and escape, as though the air had grown thicker and the trees had started pressing in...

Mother's laughter was everywhere, her spirit far too strong a presence in the woods that she had owned. She took up everything, and there was no more room for Addy. They needed distance, they had to come to terms with her shapeshifting from afar. From what their father said, the ocean had nothing but open space.

They met up with their family at the agreed upon place and time without having said a direct goodbye to anyone. They had left messages in the form of trinkets instead, at least for a select few wolves. @Miriam's sleeping place had been littered with fox teeth, for example.

They would be back. It felt like certainty, deep in their gut. When green eyes met with their father's gaze, their tail wagged.

Marigold felt that it should have been a harder decision for her, conceding leadership to young Ryder and agreeing to up and leave this pack altogether. In the lurch, truly. Watching Chan waste away in the wake of Flair's death washed all notions of societal obligation away, however. This was what her family needed, and they always came before the rest. It wasn't even a question. If they wanted to go, then so did she.

The thought of being without that full support system, especially in winter, rekindled old fears, but they were whispers instead of shouts now. Micaden and Addy were nearly adults, and four wolves working together was nothing to sneeze at. They could make good progress now before the deep snows set in, and find somewhere to winter that gave them all, their aging father especially, the air to breathe.

It was worth the risk, given what staying would cost. She met Chan's eye, and tilted back her head, calling out to the pack to announce their departure here and now.