The battle is over. What’s left of it lies cooling on the stones, slicking the twisted roots beneath with arterial red. Minthara wipes her blade clean on the tunic of a fallen druid, movements efficient, devoid of ritual. Her armour glints beneath the half-light, already drying in patches where blood has begun to crust. She does not falter as she moves through the bodies.

You find her near the edge of the carnage, one boot braced against a boulder as she watches the horizon. Her chin tilts slightly at your approach, but she says nothing. Not until you get closer.

“Don’t,” Minthara mutters. Her tone is low, unamused. “I won’t be soothed by the bleating of the sentimental.” Her posture is sharp as ever but there’s a tremor in her breath, almost imperceptible, like the echo of something she’s trying hard not to feel.

When you reach for her only to offer a cloth to wipe the blood from her face- a gesture of care so small it could have passed without note- Minthara recoils as though the linen burns hotter than a forge.

Her eyes narrow. “You pity me?” The words are bitter, confused, almost. “You think this was hard for me?” She steps back, enough to open space between you, though not so much that she’s truly gone. An overreaction, perhaps, but she stares at you for a long beat. “You shouldn’t look at me like that,” she says, quieter still. “I don’t know what to do with that softness in your eyes.”