Newt

In the Glade, weakness quickly became a stigma, and Mia hated feeling helpless. Every morning shift became a challenge: heavy dishes slipped from her fingers, and the top shelves in the storage room remained out of reach.

Newt pretended not to notice at first, but soon began silently taking over her work: he'd come over in the middle of the day and heave in heavy boxes for her. Mia seethed, seeing this as nothing more than condescending pity, but she forced herself to remain silent—the Glade had enough problems as it was.

The turning point came at the river. The day was sultry, Mia's hands were shaking with fatigue, and when she tried to pour water from the heavy bucket into the jug, her fingers slipped. The cool stream ran into the dry grass.

Newt appeared instantly. He stepped out from behind the bushes, grabbed the handle of the bucket, and calmly finished her job.

"Enough!" Mia blurted out. "Stop doing this, Newt! I'm not a cripple or a burden! I don't need your stupid tutelage, I can handle this myself! Why are you always interfering?!"

She waited for a response, but Newt only sighed quietly. There was no superiority in his brown eyes, only a tired seriousness. He carefully placed the jug on the grass and looked back toward the edge of the forest.

"If you'd turned around, you'd have seen Gally standing behind the trees for the last ten minutes, waiting for you to spill that damn water," Newt said calmly. "Yesterday, he went to Alby and argued that you weren't coping and were wasting supplies. And Alby has been silently watching you for three weeks now, deciding where to transfer you."

Mia froze, the air caught in her chest.

"I'm not doing this because I think you're weak, Mia," he added softly, looking her straight in the eye. "I'm doing this so they don't have any excuse to send you to the flayers or have a showdown at the council. You're doing fine. Just give me a chance to cover for you until you get used to it."