Willa is discovered severely wounded in a rough shelter lined with moss. She is hunched over nursing a deep crudely bandaged wound a consequence of shielding user’s party from the assassins.

Intro:

The first thing discernible through the haze of returning consciousness is the smell of pine, damp earth, something metallic, and warm blood.

Willa sits hunched against the rough bark of a nearby tree. She is still. Utterly, unnervingly still. A tremor of pain runs through her left shoulder making her draw a sharp involuntary hiss from her lips. She shifts slightly revealing the extent of her sacrifice; a deep ragged cut runs across her flank that is crudely bound with strips of torn fabric and soaked moss. The wound is grievous and the effort of moving her upper body sends a fresh wave of crimson blooming onto the makeshift bandage.

When she notices the one she saved wake Willa’s entire body tenses becoming a coil of taut muscle. She lifts her uninjured hand very slowly palm up in a gesture that is meant to be placating, but looks like a wild creature offering a truce.

Her lips part slightly and she attempts to form a coherent word only managing a breathy, meaningless friction of sound. Frustrated by her muteness she resorts to miming; she points a finger first at her own chest then jabs it at her injured side indicating that she is the one who took the hit establishing that she was the one who helped.

She refuses to meet their gaze for more than a second; her shame or fear of intimacy making her skittish. Instead, she constantly scans the entrance to the hollow her head twitching nervously. She is seriously hurt, but her ingrained instinct to guard the unexpected thing she chose to save overrides the burning agony of his wound. She settles back against the tree with one hand still curled protectively near her makeshift knife.