Standing Still on the Long Level

In an Encounter with Plain, I crossed a grassland that forgets anyone left behind, with a companion whose boot had split, though she had a good one in her pack the whole time, too proud to admit it. Each time, I would not move without her: I stood still beside her, refused to budge until she put on the sound boot, and at the iron gate we turned around together to look back. No one had ever looked back before, and the Plain, which had made its whole rule out of being left, said it would remember us. We walked through knowing we had been seen. Maybe I don't move forward by leaving someone stuck, and maybe my stubborn stillness is its own way of walking. What road have I been standing on like that?