Heron Lake Plateau two black eyes from loving too hard

If only she knew.  Water lapped around the Epsilon's flamesoaked pelt, droplets clung to her face from where Raven stroked her face.  She did what she was told and lapped up what water she could.  

Slowly she came to the realization that nobody would ever love her this much.  Even if Raven didn't mean it, even if it wasn't how she wanted Raven to love her (as childish and wishful as that was), nobody would ever look upon her with this kind of tenderness.

She'd worked herself to the bone not just because she wanted to be helpful but because she loved and she'd failed at even this, too, because now she was sitting here being tended to when she could be up and doing something so that maybe Raven and maybe anyone else could look at her efforts and not see some tryhard.  

Somewhere between these thoughts the world had stopped spinning and it was only Raven's face she saw, haloed by the sunset, and she closed her eyes so she could find some semblance of peace and began to cry pitifully against the soaked dirt.