Heron Lake Plateau Speak of the not devil.

Thank God for Elwood.

Fin had considered long and hard about what had happened and how they might work their way through it. She did not like this feeling of resentment she held towards her goddaughter. She wanted to let it go, but her mind was clouded by bitterness over it all. Finley had never been great with emotions or introspection. When she got into an emotional pickle, she got angry and she withdrew from the conflict as somewhere in her subconscious, she believed all she ever did was fuck things up. It was defense for herself as much as it was defense against herself for the sake of others. But, it was clearly not the healthy way to resolve things.

And that is why we say things like Thank God for Elwood so often in her threads.

Fin turned her gaze to Towhee expectantly after Elwood laid out the plan and posed the first question. Unlike her mate, she didn't award her any sympathy for how torn up she apparently was over this. It was not a light-hearted matter that they discussed, and it was not an inconsequential decision that Towhee had made. Much as she loved her children with all of her heart, Finley was not the type of mother to allow that to keep her from holding them responsible for their mistakes, and she definitely considered this to be a mistake.

But in any event, Fin listened. The girl responded, but offered an apology first and foremost. It tempered her anger, but not enough to placate it fully. She was attentive as the girl continued to explain her side and her reasoning. All the while, she hoped to find the words that would settle her unrest. The fact that Colt, Sebastian and Andalusia kept popping into her head didn't help at all. 

They didn't come. Not really, anyway. She didn't know what these proverbial straws were exactly that had gotten thrown at her and broken her proverbial back, but it didn't matter much to her. She wanted Towhee to be strong enough to withstand them. She wanted Towhee to believe in herself the way that she did. She wanted Fox's and Peregrine's daughter to step the hell up and be the alpha her parents would've wanted her to be, just as Fin knew she could be. But she refused, and Finley had no idea how to make her. Insisting that she didn't want it was all well and good, but the Blackthorn knew what it was to make yourself believe something simply because you didn't have faith in the alternative. She'd done it many times in her own life.

But, what could she do? With an inward sigh, Fin dropped this one in the proverbial Failure bucket along with the many, many others in her life. "It is what it is..." Fin said with an outward sigh, "I won't lie and say that I'm not disappointed, but I can't make you believe in yourself. If you truly think that you're not cut out for the job and that you want something else then that's the way that it is. I'm not going to force you to do something that makes you unhappy." But oh, if she could.