more than i imagined

Her children were her true weakness. Talking about them was like twisting a knife already wedged deep; the wound had never fully healed, the pain only dulled slightly with time. Though she never wished to forget her children she did wish their memories might someday something she could encounter without crippling pain... but how could she? They'd hardly had a chance to experience even a minuscule fraction of life. Their deaths had been pure cruelty; there was nothing to celebrate there. Kirsi steadied her breath and she tried to collect her thoughts and express them properly to Song. His touch steadied her - and for a moment she cursed herself for allowing him to help her find her strength. She was strong, she reminded herself. Not many wolves could have endured what she had and stand to tell the tale, she was certain of that.

"Ignatius and I had children," she explained carefully. "When we were very young." The story was a long one, woven with complexities she wasn't sure she was ready to share with him. It was hard to tell how he'd react to the kind of wolf she'd been in her younger years. Not that she wasn't the same wolf, but.. time and grief had softened her somewhat. "His brother killed them. All five of them, in front of me. Ignatius never even knew I'd been with pups..." Her voice trailed off slightly as images of that day flashed in her mind. Blood, staining the floor of her den, a sharp contrast against the pure white snow that crept in from the last storm; the pain she'd felt that day was hard to forget. "It's hard for me to forget them. And I don't want to, but.." But it hurts, she pleaded for him silently to understand.