He does succeed in stopping her from circling because she wouldn't duck under his arm while it was in her way. Instead, she tilts her head to regard the hand that seems to her to almost have just sprouted from the tree before she lets her fingers trail up the bark and over the bandage. It said a lot about her, that her mind mostly glossed over the blood as her eyes followed the hand planted in front of her all the way up to a stranger with a pair of mismatched eyes, staring into her own mild black ones.

Tree now long forgotten, her hand comes up to brush against his cheek. Not to see if he was real, of course. Her mind had long since stopped bothering about the distinction between what was real and what wasn't. She only wanted to touch him.