This patrol was so uneventful that Peregrine felt like he might fall asleep standing up (walking, even!). When a headache began to develop, he wryly chalked it up to the lack of mental stimulation. He even pictured a tiny wolf inside his brain, pounding on his skull, demanding something interesting to happen. The Alpha snorted at the ridiculous mental image, then blinked harder than usual when he felt a strange moistness on the inside corner of his left eye. Have I really been bored to tears? he wondered.

He stopped to swipe at his eye. The light pressure of his paw against his eye socket hurt and he gasped lightly, dropping his foot back to the ground. There was blood on his toes. Swallowing, he bent his head down to sniff at it, then felt an enormous sense of pressure around his sinuses, eye socket and cheeks on his left side. With it came a wave of dizziness, causing the black wolf to sit suddenly. He kept his head still, even when he felt another droplet of blood slither from his eye down over his cheekbone.

The recurrent headaches, the occasional pain around his left eye, the loss of consciousness... and now blood? This can't be good, Peregrine thought, taking a deep breath that caused his head to throb painfully. He knew he needed to call a Healer—Sebastian, Magpie or Raven would be happy to help, he was sure—but if it was something like a brain tumor, Peregrine knew there was very little anyone could do for him. His lips drew into a thin, frightened line.

"Peregrine?" Elwood called out as he approached, brows knit together with concern. He had spotted the swarthy Alpha from some distance and planned to join him for a patrol, but before his eyes Peregrine seemed to become unsteady on his feet. He watched as Peregrine dropped onto his haunches, and as he drew nearer he spotted the trace of blood on his friend's cheek.

Drawing in a sharp breath, the mottled grey male came to a halt, yellow eyes boring into Peregrine's face. The blood seemed to be coming from Peregrine's left eye, following the same path that a teardrop might have -- although it was certainly different in color. "Are you okay? Should I get Sebastian?" he asked, his stomach giving an uncomfortable squeeze.

Someone called his name and Peregrine's eyes shifted painfully to locate Elwood. His hoary faced knitted with concern, the Beta male approached with questions springing off his tongue. The Alpha male began to shake his head, yet stopped when a sharp needle of pain throbbed through the corner of his eye. He could have sworn his actual eyeball pulsated too, which was both alarming and disgusting.

"I don't know what's going on with me," Peregrine admitted, unable to keep the slight thread of panic out of his own voice. "And I'm not sure Sebastian could help. I don't think even Blue Willow could help. There's something wrong with my hhh—" His voice cut off abruptly as he hissed with another stab of agony. It felt like his eyeball might explode as more blood began to stream from his eye.

There was worry evident in Peregrine's voice when he spoke, and he seemed to be in a great deal of physical pain. Elwood couldn't keep his lips from turning down in a sympathetic grimace, though his eyes widened and his expression became more horrified as the flow of blood suddenly increased. Peregrine cut himself off in the middle of his sentence, unable to speak any longer as blood streamed freely down his cheek.

"Oh my god," Elwood said, taking a step back. What the hell was he supposed to do? He needed to call someone -- anyone, really -- he couldn't handle this alone, and Peregrine needed serious medical attention. But the Alpha didn't think that even the experienced healer from the Plateau would have been able to help him.

"Lay down," he said, his voice shaky. He really had no idea if that would be helpful, but it seemed reasonable. His tail wrung anxiously behind him as he shifted his weight, then loosed an abrupt howl calling @Sebastian, Ashton, and/or @Fox. Even if they didn't come, he knew he had to try to alert them.

@Ashton

As the pain seared through his head, Peregrine felt himself swooning. He began to sway to the left but jerked himself upright again. If he fell on that side, who knew what might happen; the impact could possibly kill him. He ended up sinking forward, slumping onto his belly and then rolling onto his right side. His vision dimmed and it felt like his entire head might burst. But at least he was safely on the ground.

A frantic Elwood sent up a howl, which sent an invisible spear through Peregrine's left eye socket, causing him to cry out. "Stop," he begged under his breath, resisting the growing urge to paw at his bleeding eye. "Make it stop," he added in an agonized whisper. The pain kept getting worse and worse. He was afraid he might lose conscious and never wake up.

He grew still, as every movement was agony. This allowed Peregrine to really focus on the pain. It was definitely near his eye. There was an uncomfortable pressure underlying the pain. Unbelievably, he swore he felt it moving... but that was his last conscious observation before he suddenly began to suffer a seizure, his tongue lolling, his eyes rolling and his limbs jerking.

Peregrine's pleading cut Elwood's howl short. He hadn't even considered the fact that such a loud, sharp sound close to his friend's ears would cause him more pain. With a whimper under his breath, Elwood dropped to the ground next to Peregrine, gnawing fretfully on his lower lip. The Alpha grew still for a few seconds, which Elwood mistook for a good sign. Maybe the pain is passing, he hoped fervently.

But he soon found he was wrong. With no warning, Peregrine's body suddenly began to convulse. Alarmed, Elwood backpedaled away from him, recognizing the signs of a seizure but unsure of what to do. Luckily, Peregrine was already laying on the ground and there were no obstructions nearby. With his heart hammering in his chest, Elwood came to stand over the leader, watching him closely. There had been no response to his call for help as of yet, and all he could think to do was try to keep Peregrine safe until the seizure had run its course.

"Shit," he whispered.

«I made it. :D  Now what's wrong with him, Kat?»




The golden teen had been a bit better spirits. Moreso from his constant routine of running around the Dera, getting a feel of the good air around him. He had kept his lighting form up to shape, and was damn proud of it. He knew his Alpha was taking boundaries as usual, so taking a shortcut from his woodsie track, he found a company of two, not one.

Knowing he had to remember his place in the pack, Ash kept his body relatively neutral, blond banner wafting slightly in the nice breeze. 
Why was Per shaking like that?

A bit of nervous caution in his voice, the teen approached.

"Hey guys, what's hoppin'?"

The dark man was shaking. Badly. 
What....
Seizures. Shit. Please don't let this be another rabies case.

The hippie sniffed around the shaking man, his own bod covered in fluffy on edge and ready to bolt fur. 
Not the Curse. 


"El, what's going on here? "

The doctor continued to examine the convulsing wolf, emerald eyes probing everything that could assist in a cure.

During the seizure, no conscious thought passed through Peregrine's head. He existed only physically for those agonizing ninety-six seconds as every nerve in his body seemed to pop and jump like oil in a hot pan. Blood veritably poured from his left eye, obscuring the eyeball itself in a pool of red. It bulged from the socket, right as the seizure began to wind down somewhat.

Even as awareness began to return to him, Peregrine experienced the worst pain of his life. He felt something snap inside his head and he let loose a bloodcurdling scream. It was so painful, he lost consciousness within seconds. His left eye did not close, too bugged out and swollen for his eyelid to seal. Blood continued to drain, smearing across the right side of his face and pooling around his head.

Ashton arrived on the scene, unbeknownst to the unconscious Peregrine. He was just in time to witness as a disgusting and jellylike blob of congealed blood slithered from the wolf's tear duct, sliding over his muzzle like some sort of foul, alien slug and plopping on the ground with a distinct (and disgusting) sound. Perhaps he would recognize a blood clot when he saw one, though no one—not even Peregrine himself—would probably ever realize that his brain had been bleeding very slightly ever since an ill-fated hunt in late May and that today's events were the direct result of a long-term subdural hematoma.

And who knew what condition he would be in when he awoke? The brain bleed was gone, the clump of blood having been pushed unceremoniously from his skull like toothpaste through a tube, evidenced by the revolting red blob beside Peregrine's head. But what sort of trauma had it wrought on his brain as it had forcibly birthed itself from its makeshift womb behind his eyeball, its warm, wet nest of optic nerves and other tissues?

Although the seizure only lasted ninety-six seconds, it seemed like a lifetime to Elwood. He hovered nervously over Peregrine, only touching the dark wolf when it seemed that he might roll himself onto his back. A nudge or two to his shoulder kept him on his side, at least for the duration of the epileptic fit. Elwood's lower lip was nearly raw by the time Peregrine's body finally stilled.

He wasn't out of the woods yet, though. In the next moment, Peregrine screamed, a sound so shrill that it caused Elwood's hackles to stand on end. He didn't know what was happening inside Peregrine's head, but his eyes were drawn to the blood that puddled quickly on the ground. The eye itself looked swollen, and Elwood's stomach turned as his mind raced and he tried to think of how to help the leader.

A shaky voice from behind caused him to whirl, and he was relieved to see Ashton, despite the healer's trepidation. "Ashton," he said emphatically, turning back to Peregrine. "He had a seizure--" he started to explain, and that was when the blood clot made its appearance. Of course, Elwood didn't know that's what it was; he swallowed back bile at the sight of it, feeling more squeamish by the minute. "What is that?" he asked, looking to Ashton and hoping he would know. Peregrine's body at least seemed to be calm for now, but it appeared he had slipped into unconsciousness once more. What the hell had just happened?

«Thanks for that, Kat. Got research done just that fast. »


Seizures. Blood. Unconsciousness. 

"It's not a tumor, but something close to it. Tumors don't just slide out. It's a chunk of damaged muscles from his noggin. We should be happy that thing came out."

The golden hippie walked in front of the prone man. Blood from eyes. Drainage. Ears. Drainage. Nothing from nose, nothing from mouth. Airways are clear. Blood pressure was up, obviously.

"What we need to do, is wait. Darkie here is in excruciating pain, and his body's trying to take care of him. We also gotta wait for him to wake up, so he can down some fruit and veggies. There's an orange tree that still has some ripening rounds on it, and a patch of wild spinach that Wildfire and i have been growing, together. I'm gonna need some those. Per's gonna need vitamin K and vitamin C to clot up his blood, so he doesn't bleed out." 

The doctor felt the urge to prevent his Alphas death, but he remained call under the circumstances. 
It wasn't like he had anything to lose anymore, so panicking wouldn't help the situation.

None of the three would have to wait long to find out Peregrine's mental state following his episode. He began to rouse, groaning as he surfaced from a deep state of unconsciousness. His mind felt fuzzy, his vision was blurry and his face ached, yet Peregrine experienced a sense of relief he could not explain. Momentarily oblivious to Elwood and Ashton, he began to push himself into a sitting position. He managed it, though he felt extremely lightheaded. His face felt strange too, like there was something gooey on it, and his head ached dully.

He sat up a little straighter, blinking to try to clear the metaphorical cobwebs from his eyes. The right one cleared up nearly immediately, yet strangely the dimness in his left eye only seemed to grow worse. He lifted a paw to wipe at it, which came away covered in blood. Peregrine gasped, then glanced up and saw his Beta and Iota staring at him, looks of absolute trepidation on their faces.

"The fuck happened?" he muttered, his speech slightly slurred as if he'd had one too many to drink. "Why'm I bleeding?"

Elwood listened, tight-lipped, as Ashton assessed the situation. His eyes remained glued to the healer, watching while he examined Peregrine's prone form. After a moment, Ashton informed his assistant-of-sorts that there was nothing they could do at that very moment, but that Peregrine would need nourishment -- vitamins, specifically -- once he woke up. He nodded his head obediently, taking to his feet and preparing to go gather the items requested.

But before he could take a single step away, Peregrine stirred. Elwood froze as Peregrine groaned and pushed himself into an upright position, still appearing to be a bit unsteady. He didn't seem to realize that something was truly wrong until he touched the blood on his own face, and then he aimed two mumbled questions at Ashton and Elwood.

"You were bleeding from your eye, and you had a seizure," he said quietly, glancing to Ashton. He would defer to the hippie and allow him to explain in more detail; and, if Ashton told him to, he would go and fetch the oranges and spinach that he had mentioned.

The handsome boy's auds flicked to the stirring heap of bloodied wolf besides him and El, and grinned a bit. Relief. 

El had explained a brief summary of the episode, and Ash nodded approvingly at the greyscale. Well hell, that's what happened. 

"Electro, the spinach plot is by the rendezvous site. By the border on left flank. 
The orange tree is north 261 paces from pomegranate plot."

Turning to the dark leader, he said,

"Yea, you had a bit of an ouch from a fight or something lately, Per? Your brain was shedding its chunk of hurt brain, and that's it right there. A mass of blood. You gotta eat some leafies so your blood can clot and not spill outta ya, anymore."

Ash sat, patient awaiting the reaction from his alpha.
If he needed a more in depth description, he'd gladly give it, but he doubted Per was the kinda guy who asked questions unless it was something that would be a cure, rather than the exact problem.

Elwood's answer made Peregrine gape at him. Ashton's addition quite frankly turned his stomach. For the first time, he noticed the chunk of what looked like fresh liver near his paw. Where on earth had that come from? He didn't even want to think about it. He flinched away from it, rising unsteadily onto all fours. His mind still felt fuzzy but he tried to focus. He remembered heading out on patrol but things went a bit gray after that. Speaking of which, he still couldn't see out of his left eye. Everything was shady on that side.

"My eye," he said quietly, then quite suddenly shouted, "My eye! What's wrong with my eye!" It was much less a question than a panicked exclamation. "I can't see out of it," he sputtered at his subordinates.

As soon as Ashton described where he could find the spinach and oranges, Elwood gave a curt nod and took off. He trusted Peregrine in the medic's hands while he was gone, and he planned to make it a speedy trip, anyway. By the time Peregrine began to wail about his vision, Elwood was long gone, making headway towards the rendezvous site.

Luckily, he was able to find each plot of land quickly. Ashton's explicit instructions -- down to the last step! -- were surely the reason. Elwood gathered a mouthful of spinach, and then plucked one fat orange from the tree; he wouldn't be able to hold any more than that. He then raced back towards the borders.

"Temporary, Peregrine. I need you to do me a favor, ya? Relax. The sooner you relax, the sooner you get your sight back. Chillax, ya?"

El had taken off rather quickly, and Ash was glad for it. He felt the more company present would increase the nature of anxiety.
However, the quicker the return would reverse such. 
Damn, he should have told him to slug it. 

"You're chill, Cap'n. Focus on blondie here. Bark it to me straight, are there any other symptoms you're digging in right now that i need to be aware of? And how long ago was this guy you nabbed on ya noggin?"

Ashton assured him the condition was only temporary. Peregrine wanted to believe him, yet how could the hippie possibly know that? Right now, the Alpha male didn't trust Ashton's healing abilities much more than he did the wolf himself (very little, though it would continue improving with time). He shot the younger wolf a bleary look, then shifted his head to watch Elwood take off and eventually return with a round orange and some leafy greens.

The would-be medic shot some questions at Peregrine who snapped, "Speak in English, for fuck's sake." Even if he had understood the question, he wouldn't be able to recall when he had taken a hit to the head. It wasn't that he'd suffered amnesia, it was just that the memory of that particular hunt had simply faded from his memory, since it had been a failure and rather unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

It didn't appear that much had transpired during Elwood's brief absence. With the spinach and orange still clutched carefully in his mouth, he galloped towards Ashton and Peregrine. He didn't hear any of the previous conversation between the two, but Peregrine seemed to be irritable -- rightfully so, having just suffered a seizure and a brain bleed unexpectedly.

Elwood dropped the supplies at Ashton's feet, then took a step back, wishing to give Peregrine some space. For now, he refrained from speaking; he had nothing of importance to add, except for asking Peregrine how he was feeling -- and that was a question that would have likely earned an impatient, sarcastic answer. So he waited for Ashton to work his magic as he caught his breath, tongue lolling from the side of his mouth.

Even though the howl hadn't been intended for Pantaleimon, he made his way towards Elwood as fast as he could. Peregrine hadn't been at the rendezvous site, at the borders, or, well, anywhere Pan had searched for him, and he had a bad feeling in his gut about that. With his guts in a knot, Pan started to run towards Elwood's howl, hoping it was something - someone - else (and feeling guilty for wishing another ill in favour of his lover), but fearing the worst.

When a bleeding Peregrine came into view, Pantaleimon rushed to his side. Completely unhelpful, Pan threw himself down by Peregrine's side and started to lick his face -- including the bleeding spot -- with ears folded against his skull and a worried frown that would not cease upon Pan's face; emotion shining in his silver eyes. If anyone tried to stop Pantaleimon, they could expect a surprisingly fierce warning growl.

Ashton took a breath. 
And another one. 
Ok, third time is a charm.
....
Good enough.

"I was speaking English, Peregrine. I said, "

Outta nowhere popped up some random pack wolf, licking all over the dark dude, and Ash laid his ears against his blonde crown. Was today destined to be bad? Or was it destined to be a nuisance?
The teen had patience with his Alpha simply because pain made you irritable. Easy to anger. As the days went by, his patience waned, but returned given the situation.

Cleaning a wound was something he never argued against, so he let it go. 

"I said are their any symptoms you need to tell me, and when did you get hurt?"

Before the hippie healer could respond, Pantaleimon appeared and rushed to Peregrine's side. When the white male began to lick his face, Peregrine gently pushed him away. "Stop, that hurts," he said, an edge to his voice but none of the derision he had directed at Ashton. "I can't see out of it," he added in a low, frightened voice, turning his head to focus his right eye on his lover's face.

Behind Pan, Ashton spoke again. Peregrine steadied himself with a breath and replied, "I have no idea. I've had headaches lately, I lost consciousness once... I guess it started a month or two ago." He paused, taking another deep breath. It seemed to bring him extra calm and clarity; perhaps it was the oxygen. "I was patrolling this morning and my eye started to bleed. Elwood ran up... that's all I remember." He looked to the Beta, in case he wanted to add anything.

Despite pushing Pan away a moment ago, Peregrine now pressed against him, drawing comfort. He wouldn't (couldn't) stand to have his face touched right now but he still appreciated his lover's presence. "I'm sorry," he muttered in regards to his earlier behavior. "It just hurts. And the... blindness, it's freaking me out." Just saying that word was mildly terrifying.

At the sudden appearance of a white wolf, Elwood stiffened instinctively. He quickly realized it was Pantaleimon, however, and he watched as Peregrine's lover licked at his face tenderly. Understandably, Peregrine asked Pan to stop due to the pain he was in. Elwood glanced at Ashton, who had rephrased his question about Peregrine's symptoms and what could have caused the brain bleed in the first place.

He chimed in after Peregrine spoke. "Yeah, as I got closer to him I could see that he was unsteady on his feet and that his eye was bleeding. And then it got worse pretty quickly," he said, shifting his gaze between the injured Alpha and the hippie healer. There wasn't much else for him to contribute, but he considered himself Ashton's assistant for the time being; he would follow any instructions that he was given in order to help.

When Peregrine asked him to stop, Pantaleimon shrank back, ears folded into his neck with the worried frown still on his face. It took a lot of willpower for Pantaleimon to not rush back to his lover's side. "S-sorry," Pan muttered under his breath and he looked at the ground momentarily.

When Peregrine explained that he'd had headaches for a really long time, Pan wished that he had noticed them better, that he had thought more of them. At times Perry'd been fuzzy for a moment, but he always said that he was fine. Apparently he was a lot less fine than he himself had thought to be. Pan mentally slapped himself for not putting more stock into the behaviour.

Pan opened his mouth to say it was okay when Perry apologised, but ended up just shaking his head weakly and shuffling a bit closer to Perry again. Pan made sure not to touch Perry's face again, snuggling his head against Perry's good side's cheek, and decided to just stay by his side for now. He wasn't very good at medical stuff, anyway, so this was probably Pan's best station.

Pantaleimon turned to Elwood and the wolf he didn't recognise, eyes still shining with emotion; silently asking: is he going to be okay?

Everyone turned to him for the verdict on the darkies predicament, and as smooth as the original time he said it, he repeated.

"It's temporary. Your eye was a door for the clot to throw pressure, because it's a weak spot. However, out it came through your ear canal. I might be worried about that, more than your eye."

Unusually professional, the teen studied the Alphas face they again, searching miniscule areas around the once affected area, nothing giving any dead away of trauma.
Nope. Nada. 

"Confirmed. Temporary blindness in afflicted eye. If give it a week at most, before you should worry if you're eye spread didn't return to normal sight. With the veggies and other organic goodies Elec..El got you, you should return your sight within that week. "

Another heartbeat passed, and Ash waited for the sights of relief to pass from whoever may have released any, and he finished with, 

"The worst has passed, Peregrine. You'll be fine."

Ashton insisted it was temporary, then explained his reasoning. Of course, little did he (or any of them) know that the clot had actually partially severed the optic nerve, resulting in permanent vision loss. But he seemed more concerned about Peregrine's ear, which threw the Alpha male for a loop. He shot Elwood a baffled look, then glanced at Pan, as if they might explain this talk of his ear. Nobody had mentioned anything coming out of his ear (and nothing had), so what was the hippie Healer talking about?

Suddenly, the younger wolf was in his face, evidently studying his eye. Although Peregrine kind of wanted to shove the medic, he held still as Ashton repeated yet again a positive prognosis about his eye. He would hold onto that hope. He would eat his veggies and do whatever else it took to increase his chances of recovery. Peregrine could neither imagine nor face the possibility of living the rest of his life with partial blindness.

"For your sake, you'd better be right about all of that," was the Alpha's only remark. "I need to lie down. Thanks for your help," Peregrine said to Ashton and Elwood, his right eye lingering longer on the Beta. Ashton might have made the diagnosis but his Beta had stood by him during the entire episode (save for when he'd fetched the produce). It then flicked to Pan. In a voice too low for anyone else to here, he asked, "Can you walk on my left side and help me back to the rendezvous site? I need to tell Fox and the kids what happened." And he hated asking for help but, as always, he knew he could be vulnerable in front of Pan.