Redhawk Caldera i loved you first

Dwin and Bronco had never had a close relationship, though he had maintained the presence of a good-natured uncle throughout her childhood and early youth. After her return to Brecheliant both had been busy with their lives, had never properly reconnected and their connection had remained friendly, but formal. 

However, Dwin's keen eye had not missed the level of mutual love and affection between him and Teya. Each had come from difficult places in their lives and found happiness in each other. They had vowed to say together "until death did them apart" and that promise had been fulfilled. The irony of fate and the cruelty of the Great Narrator. 

Dwin was too young yet to have any interest or desire in companionship, but she had always assumed that partners, love and kids simply happened to everyone and that eventually there would be a time, when she too would put her life aside in order to dedicate it to family. The same way many generations of she-wolves in her family tree had done. 

Yet this year had been transformative in many ways. She had first learned that she could not live happily without companioship. She had learned later that fulfilling her duty unselfishly as a useful pack member, while forgetting and ignoring her own needs, made her miserable. She had learned that she did not particularly like kids and that motherhood was not her calling. 

And now... watching Teya consumed by grief and despair, she wondered, if loving someone so much was really worth it. Because here was a woman, who had woven her entire identity around this man and the family they had built, and then it was taken away from her mercilessly, leaving her broken. All throughout the funeral her gaze was trained on Teya, reading and taking in every bit of that emotional turmoil, which was tearing her to pieces. 

Memorizing every single detail. 

Deciding firmly there and then. 

That she would never make the mistake of falling in love. 

Because the trade off was far worse.