"To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind."
― Theophile Gautier
She thought she just admired him.
His strength, skill, his personality, his quick thinking on the battlefield- she thought it was all admiration. After all, she didn't know what else that feeling could've been.
It was a burning in her chest, the need to be by his side all the time, to be accepted by him fully. She wanted him to like her, to be impressed with her, to want to talk to her and hug her and hold her.
Wasn't that just admiration?
As time went on, she started to realize that perhaps she had made one of the easiest mistakes of her life. The pounding in her heart did not signal how much she admired him, no.
It signaled how much she loved him.
Silent tears traced down her cheeks as she stared up at the sky from the hill near Crocus. She traced constellations, reaching up to brush her tears away every now and again. She laughed humorlessly to herself.
One year away from him was what it took to make her realize, she guessed.