Jade Fern Grove i may not know my flowers but i know a bitch when i see one

The panic she’d felt was easy to be seen, but he’d said nothing about it. His focus was put into moving, steps slow so as not to pull too much at his damaged flesh. It was only scrapes—it resembled a bad case of road rash, really—which made it easy to not be overly concerned about it. A greater reaction had been triggered when she’d mentioned how someone should have gone with him. The boy was quick to shake his head, waving the idea off. “No,” he’d said, knowing better than to take someone to the woods. “It would have been dangerous for someone to go with me. It was better that I went alone.” Even if he had come back injured, at least he’d come. Whether or not the same would have happened had he been joined on his journey there, he didn’t know, and would never risk it.

Whenever she’d stopped, he had as well. With the stream reached he’d settled down to take some weight off of his shoulder, and avoided leaning on his injured side. “You can do whatever you need to,” was his response, giving her permission to treat him. Xan wanted to believe that she’d not hurt him further, and so he trusted her with the task of cleaning him up.