She loved him in spite of herself.
And that day, she felt horrible.
"Just rest for today," he said. "Don't go hurting yourself."
She got up anyway. He took her hands and kissed her and sat her back down.
And she laughed. It would have been easy not to listen to him, but he was just so sincere, so gentle yet adamant about his love. He was the only person she ever felt like humoring.
He worried about her more than he had to. It was sweet, in its way. A human, so fragile and unprepared, was worried about HER.
She hadn't intended to fall in love with him, but he was like nothing she'd ever seen before.
"You know, I completed a stealth mission on a broken leg once," she said.
He smiled down at her.
"But now you don't have to."
It was just something that he wanted to be true. It was his way of saying, I love you, more than the Lion, more than the universe we're protecting.
It made no sense to love somebody that way, but she didn't regret it for an instant.
He brought her a hot drink and some toast. He was sweet to think she deserved all this.
On quieter days he would teach her about the culture of Earth. He'd shown her how to write their letters, though she still had trouble remembering which ones were which. He'd shown her how to write her name in his language. She'd shown him his in hers, too.
He sat beside her today and read to her. An old human text – he assured her it was hard even for humans to understand. But it had been formative to their language and besides, he didn't have many other books on hand right now.
Sometimes she asked him to clarify things, but mostly she lay quiet. It took a lot of energy to speak.
"Back when they wrote this, it was considered pretty bad for someone to marry his brother's widow. Actually, it's still kind of weird."
She wasn't quite listening to the whole thing, it was hard to understand and she was tired and the bed was so soft. She just liked having him there. The warmth of his body, the sound of his voice.
She'd never loved anyone like this before.
"And then Hamlet says, 'Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.'"
So, Yorak was a name on Earth, too.
There were stories among the Blade about a certain agent named Yorak.
Yorak, who ferried Galra babies and children out of the hands of the Empire. Nearly everybody in the Blade today suspected to have an ancestor that Yorak had rescued.
He'd been executed when they connected him to the missing children. The Earth ones would have called him "Saint."
There were no Yoraks among the Galra anymore. The Empire was too angry, and the Blades were too afraid.
She smiled to herself, getting closer to falling asleep.
Yorak.
It would be a wonderful name for their child.