Disclaimer: Characters not mine, situations not mine.

Staunch

She knows the scents of each kind of blood. Blood from the arteries smells different than blood from the small veins, and blood that just passed though the heart and over the lungs smells different from blood that has been out to the edges of the body.

I've known that since I saw you.

This boy's wound bleeds arterial blood, rich and strong from each broken breath he takes. It should be healing him, but instead it streams down his back and front, staining.

You're beautiful.

She can't stop the blood, but she can ask for a miracle.

No. Live.

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Shed

Moro is losing everything.

She is dying, the forest is falling and failing, her children will fall with it, and her daughter has found a mate in a doomed man.

There is little left to hope for, and so she lies half in the Forest Spirit's pool, breathing shallowly, waiting. Her limbs are weak, but her teeth are still sharp.

Moro believes in knowing the inevitable, but also in pride, and honor, and revenge. If she must die she will not die alone.

The boy speaks. She doesn't answer.

Blood for blood…

Not so much longer, now. She can wait.