Blackfeather Woods How could this happen?

Again, his offer had been declined. The matter was not pressed, however, as he'd decided to drop it for the time being, given her response. Someday, perhaps, she would request his presence so that he might be able to retrieve he plants for her, and he would go onward through the days to come anticipating that very moment. For however long he'd be made to wait, the boy could not bring himself to really mind, as that only meant more days would pass with the promise of having another moment alone with her. Truthfully, the boy was still not her father's greatest fan, but she was a different story entirely. Kendra seemed to brighten his very soul, and in a way he'd never before experienced prior to befriending her. For a long while, he'd tried to deny that he'd harboured any sort of fondness for her, but no longer would he, for no longer could he. And, as he was slowly coming to realize, that was okay.

There came, then, the moment in which he'd achieved the goal he'd set out that day to conquer. There, upon the girl's face, sat a hint of a smile. At that, a smile seemed to pull at the corners of his own lips, which he'd allowed to then take over his features entirely. Xan was happy. He was glad that he'd completed his self-assigned task, but more importantly, he was pleased that she seemed to be happy. It wasn't much just yet, but it was a start, and that was all he'd needed to take off. Yet, her words had then struck him down. She missed her brother and the plants, which was reasonable of course, but he'd felt his heart harden when the latter had been referred to as the one thing that she had loved. It'd hit him rather harshly, but he knew not why, and had quickly resulted in his smile falling away. However, naught more than a second later and he'd placed it back on his maw, but this time around it did not reach his eyes. Even if he had not made it onto the list of things that she loved, he could not make her unhappy—not again. Thus, when she'd commented on her luck for having him there, he'd nodded with a small smile splayed over his mouth. The expression was followed by words that never would he have ever expected to slip out across his tongue:

"I'll always be here to make you feel better, okay? I'll never leave you alone, I promise."

As I was writing this, all I could think is that it sounds so similar to something Kove would have said to Scarlett. So I went through their threads together and found this one—Kove made a similar promise to Scarlett, hah! Hopefully history doesn't repeat itself, yeah?