Aya shakes her head and sighs. At least he seemed to be doing okay now. "I missed you too, Destin. Don't ever do something stupid like that again, okay? I don't want to have to miss you for the rest of my life."
Aya felt the blush from earlier return to her cheeks. "If you wanted to see me, you didn't have to drown yourself to do it." The words were matched by a pouty tone.
"Herbs?!" Aya repeated in disbelief. "Destin, you should have come to me! I have plenty of spare herbs! If your group has money to spare, you can buy them in town." She forced herself to calm down and go over his problems one by one. "Everybody makes mistakes, okay? I know that sounds like a stupid thing you hear when people want you to feel better, but it's true! And by mistakes that healers can make, this is hardly the worst. Did you accidentally feed someone nightshade instead of elderberry? Or did you fail to check an infection? There was nothing that couldn't be fixed. K-killing yourself wouldn't only make things worse!" she flinched at her stuttering. The words had been difficult for her to say. "If the Broms are anything like the Rabins, they'd die in their tents of a fever if you weren't there to check on them. Don't you dare think that you're useless."
Aya desperately tried to stop the tears from falling, but it was little use. "Why would you try to drown yourself then? Nothing would upset me more..." She looked down at his face through her blurry eyes. "We just talked about this, Destin! Every life is special! You were so willing to give yours up... Why?"
The words were like a knife to Aya's heart. A horrifying thought flashed through her mind. Suicide! Destin was trying to commit suicide! What had lead to this? In her days of studying how to heal people she'd of course looked into mental health, but it was really her forefront. What if he was depressed? What if he was delirious? Throughout the muddle of thoughts only one thing was clear to her. "Destin, I'd never let you die!" She pressed him closer to her and felt the uncertainty of her young age crash in. Although she wanted to be strong, she started to cry uncontrollably.
Aya relaxed and removed her hands as she saw him calm down.
"What do you mean 'supposed to save you'?" she frowned, feeling a nurturing instinct take over her. She scooped up his body and laid him on her lap, gently patting the fur between his ears. "What happened, Destin? Did someone try to hurt you?"
"No!" Aya quickly puts her hands over Destin's body, terrified that he would run. If he did that, he'd hurt himself even more! She put little force on his body, conflicted between keeping him down and not causing him pain. "Destin, you're not captured! I just took you here because you fell into the river. Don't you remember?"