The Proposition

Tamsyn watched Artorias' reactions to her question curiously, a little grin playing on her features. She knew from the first time she saw the two together around the castle that they would eventually become something more and she had been thrilled to watch the little budding romance from a distance - with some teasing toward her son thrown in for good measure of course. She had expected the shy, bashful smile, but when he spoke she caught the "thought they were" part of his sentence and she raised a questioning brow. She didn't question right away though, instead letting him talk as he mentioned how they had been talking a lot - and snuck in a bit about kissing and "other stuff". Surprise colored her face and she chuckled, giving a little shake of her head. Well... Like mother like son, she supposed. She made a mental note to circle back to that bit since shortly after the joy in his expression seemed to fade, causing her grin to fade as well as concern pulled at her expression.

She frowned a little as she listened to how Briar had acted after the festival, breaking things off between them, how upset she had been, telling him she deserved better. Since she had stuck close to the tournament all the way through to the final rounds she had ended up watching almost all of the fights. She did remember how Briar lost her first fight and how disappointed she had looked after that, but she hadn't thought too much of it since she had stuck around anyway and sat with them and Artorias through the rest of the festival... But maybe it had affected her more than Tamsyn thought? Seeing the heartbreak written across her son's face told her that no reasoning was going to make things better and her heart hurt for him, giving him a sympathetic look when he looked up to her after saying he didn't know what to do.

She reached forward and slipped a foreleg around the back of his neck, pulling him into an embrace and nuzzling the top of his head comfortingly. "It's nothing you did, I promise," she assured him, trying her best to put herself in Briar's point of view. She had spent a large portion of her life living with or around Sirius and in the Armada. She knew how much of a pressure and an emphasis was put on being a strong fighter in that pack. She had seen how those high expectations had affected Sirius' older children so she could only imagine how his younger children were feeling now with their mother and brother gone and with Sirius in the state he was in... "Try to be patient with her," she told him after a moment, giving his forehead a soft kiss before letting him sit up so that he wouldn't have to stoop down to her any more. "I doubt she knows how to deal with any of this any better than we do and if she's anything like her father she'll probably try to push away what would help her most - even if it ends up hurting herself in the process. She probably feels like she'd be pulling you down with her and is trying to spare you. I'm not saying that I agree with her mindset, but if I had to guess that's what it sounds like to me."

Tamsyn Carpathius