Swiftcurrent Creek It's a total eclipse of rationality

Forward dated a few days, I'm posting it as a read only but if you want to turn it into a thread just go ahead and respond and I'll switch it to private <3 I got impatient for the next stage of this development LOL so maybe this should stay RO...totally open for a reaction post tho!

In the days that followed her tearful conversation with @Lestan, Reverie began to find little ways to suppress her bad habits. It was not easy. She returned to the berries which had given her such a scare, and found that a few of them each day kept her calm — if a little distracted, even for her. Aware that she was medicating herself improperly, Reverie kept this a secret, and staved off her guilt by reasoning that she was no longer a healer. She knew better, but it wasn't some terrible breach of responsibility. That wasn't her job anymore.
She forced herself to eat regularly even when no one reminded her, and that immediately created problems. Her stomach started to reject new additions, particularly in the morning. She was not a fan, but didn't dare complain. Every time she thought about it, she remembered the way Lestan's eyelashes had glittered with tears.
The easiest by far of the solutions she found was the one that allowed her to sleep. Even that wasn't exactly smooth sailing, though, because she felt she could not let Lestan know what she was doing. Each night she would kiss him and pull him into her arms, searching for the spark that would prompt them into tangled limbs and shared ecstasy; it was the only way she could sleep. She was careful to never pressure him, or make it obvious that she needed it in a way, but she couldn't be sure that he didn't catch on. Reverie only hoped that he didn't mind. She certainly did not.
Nightmares still plagued her, and dreams of the garden, and new things too. She kept seeing the bird. Reverie knew better than to let it distract her, but sometimes it would catch her off guard and her eyes would move to follow it before she could stop herself. She did not chase it. She stayed close to Lestan save for when she left to check on Jakoul, afraid that if she left him even for a moment he might change his mind about their love, and tried to pretend that she was happy. She felt only numb at first.
But one day, not long after that conversation — not quite a week, even — Reverie looked at Lestan and noticed the way the light caught the gold in his eyes and shimmered off the soft fur of his cheeks, and she felt — content. Fiercely so, and it startled her, and then all she could think was that Lestan deserved someone who didn't have to work so hard to feel simple contentment with him. He deserved better. But he had chosen her, and she had promised to stay, and so she would try to do this for him.
Not because she was in love with him, though it was surely a factor. Not even because she had promised it. Reverie had loved people and left them, and she had broken too many promises to count.
She tried because when Lestan protected her that night from Tybault, when he'd come back to her bloodied and in shock and somehow still brimming with care for her, something had changed in her. And it had changed for him, around him, because of him. She still didn't quite understand it, but she knew that she wanted to be brave for him. Even if it meant staying here. Even if it meant that he wanted her to change more than she already had. She kissed him suddenly and without explanation, a silent promise that she would keep trying for these moments of contentment. For him.