She was supposed to let him die. Thalorn medics don’t waste bandages on Ravian soldiers- not after the burned towns, the hung bodies

But she found him choking on the rain soaked mud, buried beneath a pile of corpses. Ravian corpses. Men with slit throats and shattered jaws. Ryn sucked in a gasp and she unsheathed her small knife they’d given her on her first day. The ground below her shook as a bomb landed far away. She gripped the handle hard as she approached him and ignored her pounding heart and short breaths.

“Get away-“ he coughed and body trembled, “get the hell away from me, Tharn.” His voice drips with hatred- and mud.

Ryn steps closer. She should kill him. Should let him feel the pain his country carved into her and her people. “And leave you to die in the trenches?” She crouches, pressing her blade into his filthy neck. “I’d rather end you now.”

The man’s eyes flash disgust- and pride. Ryn dug the knife deeper. She wanted him beg for his life like an animal, like the mutt he is.

Instead, he glared at her through cold blue eyes. “Then do it.”

Her brows softened- he wasn’t supposed to want his death.

Her hands trembled. Before she could stop herself, the blade pressed too deep, his blood leaking from the cut and staining the mud below him. His body jerks and his desperate and ragged gasps fill the empty trench.

_No_.

Ryn’s breath hitches and she rushes to press her hands around the wound.

She didn’t mean to-

Ryn grabs him by the collar of his uniform and dragged him out from under the pile. She drags his limp body through the mud as another bomb strikes the ground. The air burned with gun powder and fumes strong enough the burn the inside of her throat.

The soldier’s blood clung to her hands, mixing with the mud and rainwater as she dragged him they through the broken earth. Her legs were numb and body weak from exhaustion and the rain pounded against her shoulders and wetted her brown hair.

She should’ve let him die. The thought gnawed at Ryn, but it was too late. He was still alive, his breaths shallow as they ripped across his chest.

The hospital camp came into view and Ryn let out a relieved sigh. The tents flapped violently in the wind and thick black smoke rose from a nearby trench.

“Help me!” Ryn shouted as she stumbled into one of the hospital tents, dragging the soldier’s weight behind her.

A Thalorn medic’s head snapped up.

_Tavik_. Ryn released a heavy sigh and the tension in her shoulders eased.

Tavik’s eyes widened once he saw the limp soldier in her arms, “what the hell did you do?”he hissed as he rushed to Ryn’s side. “We don’t heal Ravian soldiers.”

“I- I couldn’t let him die-“ she gasped as she doubled over. “I can’t bury another corpse.”

Something Tavik’s eyes shifted and his furrowed brow softened. “Put him on the table.”

Tavik spun around and began to gather supplies. Ryn hoisted the soldier onto the table, her arms trembling as she cut through the fabric of his uniform. The scissors sliced through the blood soaked shirt, revealing the gash in the man’s neck.

“You went for the artery.” Tavik muttered as he steadily cleaned and wrapped the bandage. “Gods…If you pressed an inch deeper, he’d be dead.”

Ryn’s stomach twisted. Her eyes stung, either from tears or from the fumes outside the hospital tent. “I know,” she choked out.

Tavik eyes were trained on the man infront of him. “If anyone finds out what we’re doing right now, they’ll kill us.”

Tears prickled Ryn’s eyes. “I know.” She whispered. “You don’t have to do this for me, Tavik.”

“Yes, I do.” He cast her a comforting glance, his deep brown eyes the only comforting thing in the room. “I owe it to you.”

The soldier groaned as Tavik tightened the bandage. Blood soaked through the white cloth and stained the man’s pale skin, stealing Ryn’s attention.

“Is he going to…” The knife strapped to her side felt heavy, as if the blood dripping down the blade weighed more than the man had.

“Yeah, he’ll live.” Tavik replied, turning towards Ryn.

Ryn’s hands still shook. A fiery hot anger bubbled inside her stomach, her head aching. She should’ve killed him. She should’ve left him in the trenches to die- but she hadn’t. Ryn didn’t know exactly why she hadn’t killed him.

Tavik wrapped a warm, blood soaked hand around her arm. He leaned down, lips grazing her ear. “Get out of here before they find out. I can’t let them kill you.”

“I can’t leave you.” She shook her head, ripping her arm away from him. “I can’t leave _him_ either.”

Tavik’s eyes darkened. “Ryn-“

“I can’t.” She cut him off, “I can’t leave.”

The soldier groaned again and his eyes fluttered open. Both Ryn and Tavik’s attention shifts. He looks at Ryn with cold, dark eyes. He looked at her not with gratitude but instead resentment. He looked at her like she was a monster.

“You let me live.” He rasped but his voice had no hint of gratitude.

Ryn hid her surprise. No thank you? Even after saving his life, he still was stubborn and cold.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

The Ravian soldier narrows his eyes at her. “Why’d you save a man that’s kill you the second he’s given the chance?”

“I…” Ryn’s voice was soft. Through the band of groaning, dying soldiers, the sound of footsteps broke through the usual silence. “I don’t know.”

Her hands, still stained with blood and dirt, shook at her sides. She wished it were mercy, that she’d done it because of humanity. But deep down, she knew it wasn’t.

The sound of footsteps grew louder, echoing through the medic tent full of broken soldiers and rotting bodies.

Tavik stiffened beside her. “Ryn, we have to go.”

“I know,” she said, her eyes never leaving the injured soldier.

The man let out a strangled sigh, his voice hoarse, “you should’ve killed me.”

“I know.”

Tavik’s tight grasp pulled Ryn away from the table. Tavik lead Ryn towards the exit, the sound of rain pounding against the hospital’s tent flaps.

“But now,” Ryn began, a small smile playing on her lips as the soldier’s glare hardened, “you have to live with the knowledge that you ow your life to a filthy _Tharn.” _

_ _Ryn allowed Tavik to pull her into the shadows and far away from the soldier. The cold rain beat down on her shoulder’s as the tent flap’s closed, severing her connection to the Ravian mutt.

Inside, he layed bledding and breathing- alive but forever in Ryn’s debt.

She’d saved him, not out of kindness but instead out of weakness. And Ryn would carry that guilt for the rest of her life.