Sleepy Fox Hollow Gain the weight of you, then lose it

Skipping Phaedra with permission for now!

A dry cough soon followed, wracking Wylla's weakened figure while Mahler bustled nearby. Her eyes remained fixed on Phaedra, but her daughter didn't stir. It didn't take much puzzling out to figure out why her daughter might be so exhausted. The realization of it speared her with guilt, for in the depths of it, she had wished for death. Maybe she had wished for it even before this; maybe it wasn't such an accident that she wandered too close to those bear cubs.

How could she be so selfish, with Phaedra and Thade both still out there? Tiercel was a lost cause when it came to winning back forgiveness, despite her hazy hopes from the night before, but her two youngest didn't deserve this.

Broad gunmetal paws filled her field of view moments before a couple drops of water pattered against her hot nose. Another day, Wylla would have turned stubbornly away, remembering keenly their last meeting and desperate not to give him the satisfaction of being near her. But she was parched, and her dreams lingered still in her mind, and he had saved her life, together with their daughter. A life she wasn't sure she wanted, but saved nevertheless. Without complaint, she lapped water from the moss and gulped it appreciatively down.

She peered up through her eyelashes to try to see what he was doing when he moved away. Wylla wished he would rouse Phaedra; she didn't want to be alone with him right now. It seemed he was absorbed in his work, however, focused on that and not on her. She wondered for a moment, while he dressed her wound with whatever he'd chewed up, if he regretted wasting his time to save her ungrateful hide.

All such doubts erased when he turned and she bore witness to the raw emotions chasing across his scarred face and through his twilit eyes, half the hue of the melded sunrise of their daughters'. Her heart thumped in her chest and she wasn't sure if it was because she was a stupid, stupid idiot or because her body was fighting against further illness.

She wanted to say something she might later regret, should Phaedra ever hear it, but instead she rasped out a low, thank you, and found herself at a loss for what else to add.