Arrow Lake abbatia

She searched him upon his return, a shudder of her lissome form as she moved to investigate him for injury and then rendered useless when her body would not respond the way she intended. He pulled mud to himself, and then to her—and she searched then his eyes, and found nothing in his stare. 

Somehow, that hurt even when the open flesh of her side and flank did not. 

Her cheeks flushed at the mention of Arsenio and Reyson, shame blanketing her and weighing her down, and only then did she relax into the snow, mud and dead grass. It was not their anger she feared, but to watch the realization that should surely come from her soldier when he would realize just what could have been had karma not struck them now. 

And with that the most awful realization and fear: what if this truly broke him.

Nausea and heat embraced her then, and she turned from Germanicus, her body trying to heave the contents of her stomach and yet giving nothing—nothing left. 

There was nothing left, and when her panicked eyes sought his again she finally did feel the glaring pain of her torn flesh—and blissfully, she slipped to a world of unconsciousness as the blood would still sleep through the muck that covered her.