Redsand Canyon I don't know the half of it anymore

She allowed herself a moment to get lost in her own head. Somewhere behind all of the logic and reason she offered others was a section of her mind overflowing with emotion, her judgement clouded by it in that moment. Once again her expression softened as he touched his nose to her cheek, the action snapping her back into the present as he suggested the beginning. She let out a soft sigh in return. Where did the beginning even begin? She supposed that was what she needed to figure out next, so instead she took his advice.
 
She started at the very beginning. “I was born in a pack called Cold Stone Trail… it was much like Mereo is, except Germanicus is fairer than my father was. The pack served at his pleasure, my mother included.” There had been moments of whims leading to major changes in ranking. Merit, while important, was not what made the ultimate decisions. “My brothers passed in battle… my father was a warmonger and often sought conflict… and my mother, she fell ill from the grief and complications giving birth to my younger siblings… I tried, I tried… I did everything I could. I used every remedy I could remember her teaching me but…” The silence lingered for a moment as the grief crept into her voice. She would never forget that night. “With the loss of his mate, he needed to look at the future… my father was cold, and there had been no tears shed for her. Like she was just disposable, someone to patch him up and bare his children.” She had never allowed herself to be angry like she was. “He no longer had that, and he chose not to remarry so in some way I supposed he cared… but his oldest, the only one of age to take over, was a woman. A woman wasn’t allowed to lead, not so long as he drew breath…” She explained, even now the idea that she might be lesser due to her gender lingered in the back of her mind, even if she never voiced it. It influenced her actions, her doubts… she wished it wouldn’t. Flashes of the blood rushing from wounds… the front lines had not been pretty.
 
“That meant I was expected to marry, to take my mother’s place, with a warrior of my father’s choosing to be my husband…” She trailed off quietly, finding herself subconsciously tucking against him as if closeness to him would keep her safer from a man who no longer had any power over her.