The Heartwood she doesn't know she's in love

 

keeping this vague because idk where zada is!  she may or may not be following us in later.

she was happy to have comforted him.

you know, i never got to meet liffey!  i'm sure someone as sweet as rannoch would have good taste in women, though.  she already viewed liffey as larger than life, had admired her and pictured her already: she would be beautiful and serene with a certain tenacity that paired well with rannoch.

perhaps there will be less danger where we are going, she muses, hoping that the boy's days of bad things befalling him were over.  he seemed sweet enough.  to survive both encounters, i'm sure you are more skilled than you let on.  perhaps if she were anything of a fighter, she would have eagerly challenged him to a friendly spar...  but she would let him be humble.

you're welcome, she begins, and he touches her cheek in a way that reminds her of someone — the mysterious shadow who had come and picked her crumpled form out of the snow and shared a den with her after the heartbreak with mato.  his physical nearness was not spurned, though she would be quick to take him up on the offer to head back.