They Don't Love You Like I Love You

He could tell just from her weathered appearance that she had become ill, and in spite of how much he loved her and how much he still believed she was the greatest healer in Boreas there was nothing either of them could do. “Are you-?” The last word caught in his throat, unable to voice what he knew would bring her inevitable death to reality where he would have to face it.

He had always been larger than her, but now she seemed so much smaller than he remembered, smaller than she had been when he first realized he towered over her, and more frail than he thought possible. He remembered the day in the redbud nook when she told him how he had been sired and how she had never resented him or his siblings for it. She had loved him in spite of how much his father shone through him. He remembered how she had left her home behind to join him in Dauntless, and how badly he had failed her, and now that he had found her again it was far from where he would be. Without another word he stepped toward her and slowly collapsed beside her to lay on his stomach, grief and regret tearing at him as he laid his head down on the grass, far too afraid to touch her in case he would somehow break her.