His smile caused an odd flutter in her stomach. Evie folded her arms in front of her, but her stance remained open and casual. She wanted to seem as friendly as she could, due to the tense circumstances. There were those within her pack that would support an alliance between the two groups, and there were some that would hold on to old grudges. She followed when he suggested they should walk outside, he was right, they were creatures of movement. Their beastly counterparts only stayed still to rest and usually only in places they felt safe or in their dens. Walking sounded like a wonderful idea.<br/><br/>His question caused her to remain quiet for a moment. It was not the sort of thing she wanted to blurt out an answer to. "I think...We all have our struggles in life, but some are born with more weight to carry and some are born with less. I'm not going to give that bullshit 'I'm colorblind' or 'We're all just people' answer. We are, but that throws away systemic disadvantages and privilege. It throws away years of history, some good and some bad. There's probably been adversity on both sides of the pack borders, but my pack, no one makes snap judgments about us because of our skin. I firmly believe deep down we aren't all that different, but I would be a bad leader if I ignored what your pack has faced."<br/><br/>The subject made her uncomfortable, but mostly because she did not feel like she had any right to speak to what he had experienced, little less the experience of his people. Evie glanced over at him again, trying to figure out how she could try and build a bridge between them.<br/><br/>"It's not the same, but there are plenty of older folks in my own pack that jostled at the idea of a female alpha leading by herself. In the wild, wolves are always led by a mated pair, and in my pack, it was either a male leading as he looked for a mate or a pair just like that. A maternal and paternal sort of figurehead. If someone told me they didn't see my gender and that it didn't matter, I'd be pretty annoyed. I had to fight pretty hard to get where I am, and I assume you have some of that same experience, but from a different perspective."