your words in my memory

She could literally feel Indigo deflate when she ceased her affectionate actions to him, the poor sod crumbling in on himself. She wanted to feel bad for him, really she did, but he had been an equally guilty party in this affair. Duchess should not have been trusted, and yet he trusted her far too much for far too long. He'd blinded himself to her obsession with him and dismissed it. His action and inaction had directly caused this situation and damaged his relationship with his sister—and with her now too. She didn't know if she could trust Indy to take care of her and the band, let alone with anything more intimate with herself. Indy lamented his position and how he didn't know what to do, that he only wanted to sleep. "So sleep," she told him. He could get some shuteye now. It wasn't like things were going to be magically resolved now anyway; the fire would still be burning when he woke up. Might as well be refreshed to handle his new role as dad.

Then he asked her that fateful question. What would she do? Again Emersyn froze, her expression neutral but the look in her eyes hurt and conflicted. What would she do? Em had solved all of her problems with violence before now. If it was up to her, Duchess would probably be a corpse, and the bastards inside her belly nothing more than half-baked carcasses. She'd killed dozens of wolves—what difference would one more make? Would she be more of a monster for killing a soon-to-be mother for her treachery in order to preserve their survival? Did she care more about their little family than he did if she was willing to do that for them?

"I'm not you, Indigo," she said after a long moment of thought, fixing him with a passive stare. "I don't have the same emotional connections you do to her or those children. It's far easier for me to look at things logically, consider the facts without feeling guilty about any of it." She let her words sink in for a moment before trying to lay out the situation as she saw it. "Do you think those pups have a chance of survival once the winter comes? With Duchess out of commission until they're weaned, that leaves us one wolf down to hunt and help, and gives us a bigger drain on resources. If this winter turns out to be as devastating as the last one did, what do you think will kill those pups first? The cold? Lack of food? A bigger predator?" She looked away from Indy towards the falls as she continued. "That's not even considering us. We'll be down a hunter in a time of food scarcity. How are we all going to eat? Do you expect us to pick up the slack for Duchess? Bear the punishment for her crime while she gets to live her dream of being mother to your children?"

Emersyn heaved a sigh and shook her head. She turned her duo-toned eyes back down to Indigo, full of sadness and hurt, knowing he wouldn't like what she was saying, but someone had to make him see the bigger picture. "You don't have an easy choice no matter what you pick, Indigo. But you are going to have to make a choice and stick to it. Make your peace with what you decide is important to you. And gods willing, you learn something from it."

"Emersyn"