He doesn't see her stagger again as he walks away – her legs very nearly go out from under her this time.
She exhales – a sick, double-hitching sort of reverse gasp – a profoundly hurt little sound.
Hurt more from the physical wound inflicted by the bowman, or the emotional one inflicted by the man she loves? At this point, she can no longer even differentiate between the two. They're all twisted up together. This is horrible. Horrible.
She turns her head, looks down at her sword. She actually had forgotten it until Gunther mentioned it.
Mentioned it? Flung it in her face, more like.
Do something useful. Pick up your sword.
[But I only dropped it when – I did it for –]
But it's irrelevant. it doesn't matter. Not unless she plans to tell him what she did and why. And she doesn't plan to do that. Ever. So.
[So pick up the sword.]
She crouches down, moving slowly, cautiously. She's been moving slowly ever since the arrow hit her, but she understands that this isn't a luxury she's going to be able to keep indulging in. She's going to have to project a sense of normalcy if she wants to keep this to herself. Gunther is right; she needs to pull herself together.
She retrieves the blade, gets back to her feet, and heads for the treeline. Privacy is required for what she has to do next.
OOOOO
She makes it a few feet into the trees – just out of sight of the clearing – and that is when her legs really do fail her.
She stumbles and falls sideways against the nearest tree trunk, then slides down it until she's on her knees on the ground.
Not good. Oh not good. If Gunther had seen that –
[He did not, though. So breathe. It is under control, just breathe.]
All right. She's going to get through this. It's just her shoulder. Just a nick to her shoulder, that's all.
She fumbles with her jerkin, distantly surprised to find that her hands are shaking so hard she can barely make them obey her.
[Get it together. Master yourself. Breathe. Breathe.]
She inhales sharply, through her teeth, as she probes tentatively at the wound with her fingertips. Her exploration more or less confirms what she already thought; the wound is neither large nor deep, and it did not damage anything... essential.
But God almighty, does it ever hurt.
Making a valiant effort to ignore the pain, she gets to work doctoring herself as best she can.
OOOOO
When she reenters the clearing a few minutes later, she finds her group getting ready to ride out. She hears the tail end of Gunther's command;
"– back to our last campsite for the night, then on to the castle with all possible haste to turn over the prisoners and make our report."
She is faintly, distantly annoyed by this. It isn't Gunther's mission, it's their mission, and he has no right to go around issuing unilateral orders without consulting her first. She recognizes that under different circumstances, she'd be absolutely furious at his high-handedness.
As it is, though, faint annoyance is the most she can muster. And even that is tinged with a sense of relief. She's not clear-headed enough to be making those kinds of decisions at the moment. She's compromised on every level; physically injured, mentally scattered, and emotionally devastated. She just wants to keep her head down, attract as little attention to herself as possible, and get home as quickly as she can. And Gunther's orders don't interfere with any of those objectives. In fact, they support them.
So she takes a few deep breaths in an attempt to steady herself, swallows hard and mounts up.