There, in the face of mortality, the little desert mare faced the prospect of losing one who was precious to her in ways that no-one or nothing else ever would be. This time, she did not run - she did not have to for the danger had passed and would not sweep her up in it. She did not run, even though there were risks to staying. Another predator stumbling across them, or the prospect that no matter how valiant, fighting to survive just wouldn’t be enough…

There would be no running for her any more.

His eyes flutter open

“Raegar,” his name is as soft as a whisper, uttered like a reverential prayer, and Ripple intends to say more, but there’s a tightness in her chest, and all the air in her lungs rushes out in a heavy exhale of relief. When she draws in her next breath, she finds it catching in her throat, stuttering over a sob. “It’s me, Ripple, I’m here.” With no way of knowing how much he had heard, or taken in, she sought to soothe and reassure him. “You’re not alone, Raegar, I’m with you. I won’t leave you.”

And in the moments after the words she’d spoken faded in the dry air, Ripple found herself suppressing a shiver, aware of the worst outcome, and finding herself resolved to keep to her word even if that were to come to pass. To think of how Raegar had struggled to last this long, alone… It made Ripple’s throat tighten with anguish. She should have been with him. Perhaps it would’ve changed nothing. Perhaps she might not have survived. But at least he would have known that he was alone.

She couldn’t leave him now. No part of her wanted to walk away from him ever again, and it was with bitterness Ripple acknowledged that all the time she’d spent, returning to the nomadic ways she’d fallen into after losing Marceline, could have been better spent at his side. But all the wishing in the world couldn’t grant her a minute, a moment of what was gone.

“Yes,” the sooty buckskin crooned, bowing her head to nuzzle him with utmost tenderness. “Love,” she repeated, wanting to say more, but finding herself caught up in watching with wide eyes as he attempted to move. But it proved too much for Raegar in his injured, weakened state. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Ripple soothed, trying to keep the trepidation and the grief and the guilt from her voice.

‘Love,’ he’d croaked a second time, voice sounding so strained and thin that it made Ripple’s heart ache. But the word itself… Whether he was querying what she had said, was saying it back, or just repeating the last thing she’d said - Ripple couldn’t imagine the pain that he must be enduring, the strength it would take to even speak… No matter the intent behind his uttering of the word, it emboldened Ripple.

Even more than losing him, she could not bear to hold herself back from speaking the truth of what was in her heart. It had been too late when she thought she’d lost Marceline, and so much had changed between them, even though what truly mattered had remained. Traces of it, anyway.

“Raegar,” she spoke his name again, shifting so that her face better fell within his line of sight, so that he didn’t have to strain to see her. The flutter of his lips made her heart skip within her chest and a rush of heat and hope rushed through her veins, pounding in her ears so loud that she almost couldn’t hear the sound of her own voice when she spoke again.

All the time that Ripple’s own actions had cost them in the past, and what future together may yet be robbed of them, right now, none of that mattered, because they were together right now, and they had this moment, and Ripple wasn’t going to take it for granted. “I love you, Raegar.”

His eyes fluttered closed, and despite the way her heart wrenched in her chest - fear that they may not open again, such deep sorrow for all the pain he’d had inflicted upon him - a sense of peace stirred within her, like nothing she’d known before. He knew now, and that was enough for Ripple. “Rest now,” she breathed in his ear. “I will keep faithful watch over the one I love with all my heart.”

After some time had passed, moments of anxiety seeming to stretch into minutes whenever Raegar’s breathing slowed, or went shallow, Ripple turned to where Sway still remained, a stab of guilt needling at her when she realized he had lingered. Not wanting to pull away from where she had settled close beside Raegar, of the belief that he’d somehow still sense her there, even if he was drifting in and out of consciousness.

“Sway?” she called, hoping beyond hope that if nothing else, the sound of her voice would offer some measure of comfort, even if it didn’t beckon him to her. “He is hurt badly, but he’s resting now. I need to stay with him, Sway. Do you understand?” And it broke her heart all over again, that she couldn’t bring herself to go to him to offer comfort, that he had to experience such a thing at all.