Falls

CW: Injury Description

I was still reeling from his admission that he had noticed I hadn't looked for him, and for all of the ramifications that thought brought when the mood abruptly shifted.

Whatever I had begun to touch inside of him, he yanked it away as if my touch burned, leaving me spinning even as he launched into an attack. I had no experience with battle, nor had I ever even bothered to pay attention to the endless parade of scuffles that had happened just outside my door as a princess and then as a captive. I hated the sight of blood, hated feeling pain, and loathed being tired.

A low growl was my only warning before his teeth latched around my crest, biting deep into the flesh there even as he yanked me to the side. My lighter weight was no match against his strength, and it is perhaps a mercy that I went flying as it was the only thing that kept my legs out of the range of his own. It did not stop his hooves from thudding against the side of my body though, from his hooves scraping down my shoulder. Somewhere in the assault I heard a dull crack from somewhere deep in my body as one of my ribs snapped beneath his weight, but I was too busy trying to drunkenly stay upright as each blow rocked me and threatened to upend my entire balance.

I did not know who I was or what had become of me, all I knew was that I was at the very end of life now. That I was moments away from becoming mere detritus beneath his hooves, and that I did not want that. More than anything, more than my pride, more than my fear, more than my desire: I did not want to die. And so, fearing for my very end, I grasped onto the thread of something.

"Please," I gasped as the momentum from his last attack sent me stumbling to the ground, my hip checking against a tree and blossoming in pain. Injuries radiated from across my body - from the gash of flesh torn from my neck, from multiple hoofprints bruising on my barrel, the scrape on my neck, the broken rip, the miscellaneous gashes from his other attacks - but still I looked up at him. I could feel my mortality hanging in the balance between us and so I reached for that thread, for that something that I still didn't understand, that thing that kept bringing us back together.

The words tumbled out of my mouth without thought, sealing the rest of my life in amber.

"Garmr, stop." I panted, the tears I'd refused to cry earlier spilling from my lashes. "I love you."

I didn't know if they were true. I didn't know anything, really, but the words didn't feel false and that terrified me. Not as much as dying terrified me, but enough that I could say no more, only lay, surrounded by ferns, waiting to see if there was any good left in the Boss.