Her lashes fluttered as pain brought her too once again. Her vision swimming into and out of focus. There was a man, keeping her upright. She strained to focus, strained to see him clearly. It was the highwayman, dark eyes full of concern. It would have been bad to have been some poacher, a working man who could be bought into silence with some galleons would have been bad, but the fact that it was a gentleman of the ton made it so much worse. The fact registered in a dizzy part of her brain.

She wanted to run, but she couldn't move and allowed herself to lean on him, one hand on his shoulder, her hair falling in curtains around her face as she leaned her forehead on the back of her hand. 'My hip' she rasped, trying to keep pressure on it, her medical training registering somewhere in the back of her mind. She wasn't bleeding too badly, but the buckshot, still embedded in her skin were like pinpoints of fire in her skin.

She was caught! She was going to be driven from society for being out so early, alone, unchaperoned, and then being an animagus wouldn't help her case for continued respectability. She forced herself to look up, to meet those deep brown eyes of his, 'Please!' Merida begged, 'No one can find me here.' she said, her green eyes wide with near hysterical panic, that was only in part due to the pain.

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