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She sat on the edge of his bed, smiling down at him.
He had a rather awful wound on his arm that he needed to take care of. He remembered her delicate hands on his, showing him which herbs could be used to treat which ailments.
He didn’t have many. Most of their herbs had burned with the Fairie Fort.
Carefully, he wrapped his wound with the last of his bandages. Right to left, not left to right. For luck, she’d told him.
She had lots of little things like that. Things she said would bring a little luck to them in a situation so unlucky.
Ren hadn’t thought he’d been unlucky. He’d thought he’d been damned. After all, to be in a situation like the one they were in- he had to have done something terrible.
But she was here, too. And he knew there was nothing she could have done that could condemn someone so lovely to a fate like this. And- if he were here, with her, then whatever he’d done couldn’t have been too terrible. He must have done good, to be able to be with her, even for what little time they had had together.
“Stop thinking so hard,” she scolded him. “You’re going to bleed out on the floor. What an embarrassing way to go. Finish with your wounds and then we can have dinner.”
He smiled at the sound of her voice. “It’s far too late for dinner, my lady.”
She scoffed. “Any time can be dinner time. Time is what you make of it.”
He laughed shakily. After he finished wrapping his wounds, he stumbled to his feet and went off in search of dinner.
Her smile got brighter when he came back with berry jam and only slightly stale bread. He offered her a slice, but she shook her head and laughed.
“Don’t be silly, Ren,” she said, still beaming at him.
He had to look away from her, from how bright she was.
“Don’t be silly, Ren,” she scolded, still smiling. “You can’t wear a crown with hair like that. Have you even brushed your hair since we got here? Your head is a wreck. Sit here. I’ll make your hair look less like a creeper’s nest, and then I’ll show you how to make yourself a flower crown.”
She spent hours carefully combing through his hair, teasing out each and every tangle. He told her stories while she worked, of fantastical worlds far, far away from their own.
There wasn’t much he wouldn’t give to feel her hands in his, her fingers in his hair, her nails scratching at his scalp.
He missed her like a missing limb, like she was a part of him, like someone had cut the heart out of his chest and left him with nothing at all.
She was there with him, but she wasn’t really there at all, and Ren didn’t know if he wanted her there or if he’d rather she wasn’t there at all.
All he had left of Lizzie was a rotting flower crown and his mind playing tricks on him.
If he was lucky- which he wasn’t- he would see her soon.