With Hanska gone, there was no warm body for Cvetka to use at night. No ears to listen to her stupid words, no broad muzzle to exuberantly snap at.

But, after the fall, the mountain of blonde fur was little more than a faded memory. So were the late-night conversations and the escapades through nature; merely reduced to things that she pondered—'did that truly happen?' Was the big bear-man a mere fragment of her imagination that, perhaps, got too vivid?

Cvetka stuck to believing in his existence, somewhere out there. A figure of golden fur, thoughtless, charming grins—far beyond her grasp, yet still present, as though he were a star in a pitch night sky.

The girl resorted to sticking with the next best thing by this point, closely following Amaris with wide, absentminded eyes. Countenance stagnant with an expression devoid of anything, besides perhaps a sense of naïve adoration for this man who'd saved her. That's the extent of her memory, by this point; she'd fallen, hurt her limb, and he'd saved her from a certainly untimely demise...risking his own life to do it. Though her mien remained vacant, there was a small wag of her tail and a subtle fold of her ears against her skull when she caught sight of Amaris and his silvery coat.

He seemed lost in thought, and Cvetka would not interrupt his musing. Her arm was still cradled to the curve of her bosom, unable to support the weight of her small body. She could feel the remaining forelimb burning with overuse as it hauled twice the mass it was accustomed to—and eventually, she let herself give in. Soft gaze still fixed on Amaris, she turned and shuffled awkwardly into the thicket nearby with hobbled steps, curling up at the base of a tree and nestling into the curvature of a gnarling root.

Settling her chin against the ground, her sights lingered on Amaris, with the usual languid expression unwavering from her sorrowful visage.