"We were attacked. We lost the guards," she sobs, and I shake my head, needing to focus. I swim and swim until every child that fell in the water is on a life raft whilst Rexxan unloads the smallest of the children from the sinking boat. He lifts Mary up, gently handing her to Frian in the water and asking him to give her a healer and a therapist.
I start to swim further out, back in the direction the boat had come from, further and further until I can't see land, and my body is wracked with exhaustion. "Poppy!" I scream, over the water. "Poppy!"
Just the distant sound of the chaos behind me and the quiet sloshing of the river meet me.
I swim further out, and I hear the sound of coughing over the gentle waves. "Poppy!" I shout again, and I hear a quiet voice, then some muffled screaming. I find her half treading water, half clinging for her life onto a piece of driftwood that's triple her size, coughing up the floodwater that washes over her face.
"Poppy," I say, and it’s both a shout and a sob. She looks up at me with terrified eyes. "It's me. It’s Renna. Do you remember me? Rexxan's friend?"
"I falled out!" She cries, between coughs.
"I know, but I'm going to get you to safety."
"I lost my toys," she says, sobbing into the driftwood. I cannot cry. Not here. Not now when she needs me. I tread water, pulling the piece of wood towards me.
"I'm going to help you," I repeat, holding onto the wood instead of her, remembering Rexxan saying how scared she is of strangers. "You need to close your mouth, Poppy. See like I'm doing?" I breathe deep breaths through my nose to show her.
She nods but keeps coughing up water. "Can you hang on to me? I'll swim us back to the land?"
She looks at me warily, mistrust written all over her tiny face. I slowly reach out my hand to touch her, and she shrinks away. A warm, strong hand settles at my side, piercing the freezing cold around me, and suddenly Rexxan is here beside us.
"Poppy," he whispers, and she sees him and immediately starts crying harder. It's overwhelming relief on her face, relief at seeing a face that she trusts. "Renna is right. You need to hold onto one of us. Is she choking?"
"She almost drowned."
Rexxan gently places his hands on Poppy’s arms, her wrist almost the width of his giant fingers. "Renna and I are going to help you, okay?"
She nods. "I lost my toys.”
"I'll have my soldiers keep an eye out for toys, alright?”
She nods, hiccuping a breath. Her arms are too short to reach all of the way around his neck, so he holds her hand and swims with her on his back. "Okay, Ren?" He checks, stopping to look at me. I nod, but I'm not. I wish he'd see himself how everyone else did. I wish he’d understand.
To this little girl and to me, in this moment, he is everything.
Rexxan swims back to the shore, talking to Poppy the whole way. She doesn't reply, just trying to breathe through her never-ending coughing. When we make it onto dry land, he lifts her into his arms and jogs straight into the immortal healing tents. I follow, grabbing a blanket on the way in as he sits her on a makeshift floor bed and leans her forward at the waist, forcing her to cough up the rest of the water.
She screams in fear as he firmly claps her on the back, trying to escape him but he holds firm until the last of it is out of her lungs. "Stay here. I should tell Mary we found her," he instructs me, standing and heading into another section of the tent.
"I fell out and I lost my toys," repeats Poppy. Her huge green eyes are full of tears, her short blonde curls matted to her face. I'm not sure I've seen a sight so heartbreaking. The healers around me get to work on all the orphans, all of the children starving and shivering. The staff is calm, collected, and organised under the leadership of Rexxan and Lynna, and my pride to be becoming part of this kingdom triples in size.
"I know, and I'm so sorry. But we'll keep looking for more toys. Can I see your leg?" I ask, watching a small trickle of blood run down her shin. She nods, watching me with a fearful expression. "Wexxan?"
"He'll be back, my love. He's just speaking to Mary," I say, gently. "Can I touch your leg? Would you let me touch it where it's been bashed?"
She inches away from me and I soak a small ball of wool in water. "How about you wipe it, and I'll show you how?"
She nods, taking the ball off me and wiping the blood from her cut. "You're so brave," I whisper, giving her another dry one to use.
The smell of forests, leather, and wine invades my senses, then I feel a rush of warm air, and I know he's back. Rexxan kneels down beside me and Poppy hands him the cotton wool, letting him clean her up. I refuse to believe this man is real, or better still, that he’s mine. His gentle hand is as big as her shin as he heals her cut with his magic. My heart aches for the children that we cannot have together. He's so good with them.
"Somehow, all accounted for and no casualties," he says, pulling me out of the dark depths of my thoughts. Relief runs through me.
"I lost my toys," she whispers again. "I fell out."
"It must've been so scary falling out of the boat. I can't even imagine what it must've been like," he replies, wrapping a small white bandage around her leg. "But you were so strong and you held onto the wood until we saved you."
She nods, the tiniest bit of pride in her eyes, and Rexxan taps her tiny foot. "Remember who got you these boots?"
