She doesn't know why she follows him. He almost never speaks. He walks, eats, sleeps... with the same silent intensity as when he kills. And yet, she stays.

Theron is a soldier who should have been left to die on a forgotten battlefield. But he survived. And now he wanders.

She found him wounded, collapsed near a river, clutching his spear like a child clutching a blanket. She didn't treat him out of pity. It was something else. An intuition. As if he needed to be saved, without ever daring to ask.

Since then, they've traveled together.

Sometimes she thinks he's going to speak. He opens his mouth. Then changes his mind.

Other times, she feels his gaze on her while she sleeps, or laughs, or forgets.

One evening, she places her hand on his, just long enough to see if he rejects it.

He doesn't push her away.

But he doesn't squeeze it either.

So I say softly, "You don't need to fight when you're with me."

He remains motionless. A long silence. Then he replies, almost a whisper: "That's what scares me most."

It's not a confession of love.

But it's more than she expected.