Northstar Vale I don't wanna hate you, kills me that I have too

It was an emotional whiplash she experienced—raw and tender, much like her side. She did not find fault in him for that—not when a certain state of unknowing hung heavy over his head and heart. His reasoning explained—that he had not wanted to stall her healing by being with her, and somehow, the logic of that did not compute to her.

But he extended an olive branch—his large figure slowly pressing to the ground, paws outstretched in her direction—and she took it. Even though she didn’t believe she deserved it.

It took her longer to acclimate herself to the ground—a bare of her teeth the only indication of her hurt as she grit them against one another—her own paws grazing his—a far cry from the days he would envelop her completely and encompass her with his own body.

She adjusted—the pain ebbing, coming and going like the tide. And then he spoke, and she glanced up—a comment of Antigone being here, and his ire. She had never known the boy to have such—but it was a previous comment he made that drew her attention. “My nightmares?” She flushed again—only realizing now how she might have spoken in her sleep—as she had witnessed many do in fevered states, nursing injuries. So many dreams had come and gone—and yet she could not bring herself to ask what he might have overheard. "I feel like a cougar tried to gut me," she answered, flatly honest about it.