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None of it would come off.
No matter how much she scrubbed or washed it was still there. As if the red liquid had tattooed itself into her skin.
They say the first one always stays with you and truer words had never been spoken. He was somebody's son. Probably somebody's father, brother, husband, lover.
"Why won't it come off." Hermione huffed, nails digging into her skin. "Why won't you come off."
"'Mione?" The familiar voice trailed off behind her, but she didn't have time for him.
Her mind was frantic and screaming. Clutching and pulling and clawing, everything was moving too fast and too slow. Nothing made sense anymore. "'Mione?" He called again, this time closer.
It was in her hair and on her face, she could taste the metallic taste of his blood on the pallet of her tongue. The man, she thought. The way he looked at her, brown eyes wide. Shocked as she plunged the sword into his fragile body.
"Stop." Robb's calloused hands rested against her own, but her nails kept scrubbing. "You're going to hurt yourself."
"I-I can't," Hermione mumbled. "It won't come out. It won't come out Robb. I'm just trying to-to get it out." Her words were distant, as if she was here and somewhere else at the same time — at the base and still at battle — and maybe that piece of her would never return. "Why won't it come out?"
Robb grabbed her hands with more force this time, though not enough to hurt her. In one motion, he turned the sobbing girl around and pulled her into his chest. "I'm so sorry," Robb breathed into her ear.
Sorry because he should've prepared her better for war. Sorry because he'd always put so much on her shoulders. Sorry because, even he knew, that sometimes being a warrior had its downfall and ones first battle was the beginning of that.
"I'm so sorry." He held the sobbing girl. "I'm so sorry."
