It was tremendously like home, and she didn't know why she hadn't explored it before. The walls glowed with various organisms and plants, the water sparkling underneath it all. It smelled different than Fellglow Keep, of course--like salt and sea, instead of the darker smells that lie beneath a forest. But there was magic, here, and for the first time in a long time, Maegi thought she could hear the whispers again.

It was early evening, and she was in the middle of it all, amazed. There was a faint orange hue to the air as the sun set in the west, and a cool breeze from that direction whistled past her, lifting all the hairs on her pelt. The puffs of air of far-off creatures--whales, she'd heard them called--were fountains in the ocean, further adornment to the waves.

She would have to return soon, to the land above, to check on all of her favorite people here. But for now, Maegi was content to sit and wonder at the water, Daedric prayers ringing in her ears.

The sounds of an uneven gait, not unlike her own, reached her ears, and she looked up, intrigued. A grayscale girl was headed her way with a limp, looking dour. She sat down and offered a greeting, and Maegi dipped her muzzle in turn, smiling shyly. "Hey," she said in a hushed voice, the word echoing slightly off the walls.

Unable to keep herself from asking, she gestured at the other's paws, brows raised in curiosity. "Are you okay?" she queried, meeting the girl's eyes again. "You're limping." Maybe it was congenital, like her own deformity, but if not, perhaps she could be of some help. She had been tending to Teamouse for some time now, and he didn't seem to hold the same curse as Cicero or the dead mother. He was still here, and still alive. Maybe her luck as a healer had turned.

She gritted her teeth in sympathy, lips pulled back in a frown. "That sucks," she said, meaning it. Maegi was silent a moment, thinking. Comfrey for broken bones, that was the best stuff. . .but she was stuck on a painkiller for the girl. Sure, she could revisit the tried and true poppy seeds, but they addled the mind as well as the body. No, there must be something else. . .

Celandine. Maegi had overheard Hemlock mentioning that celandine was good for pain, and had less detrimental side effects than poppies. Yellow flowers, the healer had said, and she remembered seeing yellow flowers not far from where she knew a patch of comfrey was. In fact, it wasn't so far from the tunnels, at all. Her eyes lit up with the plan.

"Wait here," Maegi said excitedly, dipping her muzzle in an awkward fashion before skirting away, up and out of Fellglow Keep. She found the comfrey soon enough, and grasped a good clump, then she headed to the yellow, and took some of those flowers and leaves, as well. After gathering a respectable pile, big enough to do the job but small enough still for her to carry between her jaws, Maegi trotted back down to the caves, coming to a halt before the girl.

She started to chew the comfrey into a paste. "Can I put this on your ankle?" Maegi asked, looking up at her. "It will help mend the bone." Beside her, the celadine rested, lying in wait.

At the girl's acceptance, she spat the paste onto the ankle in question, being as gentle as possible as she smeared it over the swollen skin. "Hemlock and Reed have been teaching me a lot," she mused absently, looking over her handiwork. "My mother was a healer, but she didn't much like me. My father worked with poisons." She gave the ankle one last lick, then drew back, staring at Lainie.

"There, that should do the trick. Keep still for a while; try not to put much weight on it." Then she nosed the celandine toward the girl, a neat little pile. "That's celandine. It'll help the pain. You can eat it; it's like poppy seeds. Sorry if it tastes a little weird." While she waited for the girl to ingest the flowers and stems, she sat back, staring curiously at the other. "What's your name? I'm Maegi."

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To the trained eye, there is a distinct difference between celandine and daffodil. Unfortunately for Lainie, Maegi's eye was far from trained (though she made up for it in enthusiasm). Celandine will heal; daffodil, when ingested, is toxic and can be fatal.

During the course of their onversation, Lainie began to seize, convulse, and eventually ceased breathing. Panicked, Maegi racked her brain for what best to do for the girl who had obviously died by her paw--yet another death she'd witnessed in her young life. This was undeniably her fault, and anyone who came across the grisly scene would know it. There was no way to fix this problem besides erasing it entirely.

The girl dragged the inert, lifeless body to the edge of the cave and pushed it into the sea; it plunged down, down, then bobbed up and out with the tide, a gray mass in the green-blue ocean. Trembling with the weight of what she had done, Maegi departed, knowing that this was a secret she must take to her grave---

No Undersea wolf must ever know what transpired in that cave.