we heal with love,

The instinct to move closer to Rohan, to drape her wings around him and hold him like he was a child that needed comforting, grew in Alysanne but her hooves did not move. Not yet. She smiled warmly at his compliment and the sideways glance he offered her when he spoke it, catching even the small smirk that came with it. For a fleeting moment, it was good to see him smile - but she does not react verbally to the words.

She did not want to change the subject while she waited, patiently, for him to decide whether to respond to her prodding.

It was infinitely easier to focus on someone else’s pain than her own. Easy to ignore how she had been fracturing over the last few seasons, how she had come undone and only recently had been too busy to allow herself to crumble. She kept herself on the move, kept herself without sleep, because she feared those moments when she slowed down. Now, though Rohan’s next words reminded her dangerously of her own state, she could brush it aside and focus solely on him.

Any selfish thoughts would have left anyway when he did speak, when he turned to look at her - and though there was an echo of humour on his lips her heart broke at the expression in his eyes.

The look she saw there was what she feared others saw when they looked at her when she was falling apart.

What could she possibly say that would help? Could she even presume that anything she did would help?

But of course, she was Alysanne and she would try. She was hardly just devoted to the herd as a whole - she was devoted to each and every member, and she would do anything to help piece Rohan back together again. “I think…” She started slowly, as he turned away from her again, trying to sort out her own thoughts while puzzling out his. “... the strongest ask for help to hold the pieces together.” Alysanne shouldn’t be giving advice when she shied away from everyone who cared about her for the exact same reason.

But, perhaps, she would’ve had an easier time picking up the pieces of herself if she had not avoided them.

With a soft sigh, searching her mind for the right things to say to him, Alysanne finally responded to his previous question - her face wrinkling into a delicate frown as she forced her eyes away from Rohan and out to the sea, not wanting him to feel uncomfortable under her gaze. “I don’t know what I would say to a broken man… the usual speeches about having hope, I suppose.” She considered him for a moment before reaching out carefully with her muzzle to touch him gently. Through every centimeter of movement she was painfully aware of how the last time she tried to offer a comforting touch to someone on these cliffs, he had not so much shied away from her touch as leapt away from it (thankfully for them both - not off the drop).

So whether or not Rohan moved, whether her muzzle was simply near him or touching his skin, her words were the same whisper. “But I would keep him company.”

alysanne