In part it is because she doesn't want to hear it - if it's a soldier she could dismiss it from both their minds as a cruel joke, talk to Piotr to vent some of that feeling. Because it is the path of those that drink the blackwater, to watch those around them die, that was the price. She would eventually, lose them all.

But it didn't stop her fighting that as often as she could.

This though, neither of them had a doubt about Dixon, and it wretches ugly in her chest in the thought. It was not as if that wasn't the way of the world, girls as sweet as her died often. Sometimes to cruel butchers blades, sometimes to sickness, to children. But it happened.

None of that, made it easy. "Oh daughter, no."

She pulls her close. Arm tight around her shoulders, as exhausted as she is, barely well, but not dying this time, but hanging on. Pressing her face into her hair, shutting her eyes tightly as she holds onto her. Pressing a kiss into her hair.