As much as she wanted to avoid Amalia's gaze, there was no avoiding it when she felt her wife's muzzle pull up on her chin. Athena reluctantly lifted her tear-filled eyes to Amalia's and her heart ached when she saw the same tears in her pretty blue gaze. She didn't want either of them to cry, but if she could she would take the entirety of this sorrow and this ache. She didn't want Amalia to have to shed a single tear over any of this. Amalia assured her that there was no reason that she shouldn't be proud of their son, but Athena couldn't make herself agree completely. Yes, she should absolutely be proud of Bacchus because he was her son, but... She wished she could explain her feelings better. If she had heard Bacchus call for any other alpha to challenge she would have been there at his side with her chest puffed out with pride. But he had called for Leo. That complicated everything.
She listened quietly to Amalia. When she talked about Bacchus' possible reasoning it made so much sense, but worried her all the same. She had been trying to avoid connecting her father to this situation, but she couldn't help but wonder if Isardis wouldn't have done the same thing in order to get his family back under his sphere of influence. She would follow Amalia's gaze as she looked back at their daughters and she'd watch them sleep for a moment. They were so innocent... She wished she could freeze time and keep them like this forever. "This is the worst thing about being a parent..." she commented softly as she turned her head back toward Amalia. A sigh passed her lips and she frowned as she let her eyes find Amalia's again. "I know it was nothing we did, but..." She shrugged and let the sentence trail off, not really sure what else could be said. "It's just hard. It's all so hard."
She looked down to her forelegs again and after a moment of hesitation she dipped her head down, taking each of her bracelets between her jaws one at a time and pulling them off her legs. It took a little effort to work them off over her paws. She remembered when she first found them, when she was still young enough for them to be almost too big for her. She nudged them away from her and looked back up to Ama with a shuddering sigh. "I think... I think I need to let go of those. I was a completely different wolf when I found those... They were me trying to be like my father. Before I realized how awful it all was..."
