In that moment time seemed to move in slow motion. He saw the wolf begin its pounce, jaws wide open and eyes focused on its target, front paws outstretched with poison claws ready to grab and hold. He tried to lift his sword in time to swing at the wolf, but seeing that this would take to long he began to crouch before a small figure pushed him and his still attached log out of the wolf’s path. Confused, he took a closer look and noticed it was the girl, torch held up above her and flames licking at the beast as the stick entered its belly, blood quickly flowing from the wound she had inflicted. But the wolf simply gave a howl of pain and swiped the girl hard, claws splitting her skin across her back and ribbons of crimson blossoming through her shirt as she flew across the clearing towards him.

Acting quickly he was able to catch her and carefully place her on the ground, his hands carefully assessing her injuries as he monitored the wolf. It was writhing around on the ground trying to get the stick dislodged from its stomach, blood still pouring out from the singed hole. While it was distracted he worked on checking her, noticing that her eyes were open and filling with pain as he slowly flipped her onto her back to check her front side. Her front side had no obvious injuries, but she was already showing signs of poisoning, her face paling and her body already heating up with a fever. He noticed that she was muttering in her native tongue again, and watching her eyes, he noticed she was scanning him up and down and speaking in a concerned tone. She was worried, he realized. Worried about him.

Even with poison tearing her insides up and blood dripping down her back from the long gashes, she was still worried about him, wondering if he was in pain or injured. That feeling he had felt upon seeing her smile came back to him full force at this point, a feeling so warm and tingly that he felt energized and stronger than he ever remembered feeling. At this moment though he felt her cold hand touch his cheek and looked back at her to realize that she was fading- and fast. She was also giving him a look of quiet acceptance. One he had seen on the battlefield countless times. She was accepting her death, and telling him to leave her to die. He could sense it, knew that she did not want him to die with her and that she was trying to stay behind as a sacrifice to the wolf to buy him time to run.

The thought sent a new sensation through him. Fear. For the first time he was afraid of losing something, of losing the tingly feeling that he got from her smile and her presence. As he was coming to this realization, he remembered that the wolf had yet to die and glanced back at it to see that it had finally dislodged the stick and was gathering its bearings for a second attack on the two. Seeing it coming back to deal them more damage, its eyes focused on her this time, he felt a third new emotion, one he knew the name of. He had seen it the most on the battlefields, it was anger. No not anger, what he felt was more than that, it was pure rage.  Taking off his shirt, he carefully set her down in the grass with his shirt as a pillow beneath her head.