Theea
they may say you're too small, you're too young
to do it all, but you're a giant on the inside
to do it all, but you're a giant on the inside
I almost scoff when he says I’ll stay warm, but my jaw clicks shut and I look down into the fire. His hesitation tells me everything—he did mean to sleep on cold stone. The lie sits wrong. I watch him settle farther away, feel something in me knot, and I don’t know why it bothers me as much as it does.
Aria makes her opinion known by stubbornly planting herself in his lap. Trouble, indeed. I manage a small smile at her dogged persistence and don’t realize he’s watching me until he speaks. I look up, meet that steady dark gaze, and see the worry anyway—in the set of his jaw, the crease in his brow, the tension running quiet through him.
I give him a thin smile. “I’m dead tired. I’ll be out when I lay down.”
Truth is, I won’t. I’m cold, and the whole left side of me aches—more than the claw marks, a deep, steady burn under everything. It’s easier to ignore when we’re talking, when the low rumble of his voice threads through the empty spaces in my head and settles like it plans to stay.
“But,” I add after a beat, trading out the thin smile mask for something more smug, “that is why I’m not laying down until you agree to either take this blanket or share this bedroll.”
I tip my chin at the little leopard sprawled across him. Then back to him.
“Just because you’ve survived worse doesn’t mean you owe hardship anything,” I say, softer but sure. “You don’t have to keep proving you can endure when warmth is within reach.”
Aria makes her opinion known by stubbornly planting herself in his lap. Trouble, indeed. I manage a small smile at her dogged persistence and don’t realize he’s watching me until he speaks. I look up, meet that steady dark gaze, and see the worry anyway—in the set of his jaw, the crease in his brow, the tension running quiet through him.
I give him a thin smile. “I’m dead tired. I’ll be out when I lay down.”
Truth is, I won’t. I’m cold, and the whole left side of me aches—more than the claw marks, a deep, steady burn under everything. It’s easier to ignore when we’re talking, when the low rumble of his voice threads through the empty spaces in my head and settles like it plans to stay.
“But,” I add after a beat, trading out the thin smile mask for something more smug, “that is why I’m not laying down until you agree to either take this blanket or share this bedroll.”
I tip my chin at the little leopard sprawled across him. Then back to him.
“Just because you’ve survived worse doesn’t mean you owe hardship anything,” I say, softer but sure. “You don’t have to keep proving you can endure when warmth is within reach.”
