Bearclaw Valley just have the strength to know you're wrong,

lying there underneath the heavy tension between them, indra could feel an indignant current course from the male's roughshod form. she shifted under its inescapable pressure, a flinty resentfulness still in her glare.

yet she could not deny the intensity in which stigmata vehemently defended his actions; it was so fervent it seemed genuine - for a moment, the stony she-wolf appeared to relent.

if she had been wrong to doubt him, or to call in question his honor, she quickly pushed it aside. stigmata may have been the first in a line of males to go against the grain of indra's perceived male stereotype, but the cut left by his predecessors ran deep.

"you'll leave eventually. either you'll get bored of us, or we'll drive you away. you came back now - but what about the future?" indra couldn't stifle the cold snigger as she realized the irony - somehow, xan was their most faithful counterpart -- and he was hardly in the picture at all. perhaps keeping those you live with at arms' length was the right thing to do, so that when they left they hardly left an imprint at all.