Blackfoot Forest Foolish Protector act 2

the titleeee *inward screaming* @Olive

He lay there one eye staring blankly at the area that Mawk had dragged Onyx away from him. His blood pooled the snow beneath him and soaked his fur, the gap where his ear was torn off going down his face and over the matching eye. His breathe was shallow and wheezing, body shaking so badly it looked more like he was siezing. "Onyx....Onyx..." he murmured weakly before blacking out.


After coming to again his body felt numb. His fur was stiff with blood and his shredded eye could be cracked open but the sight was blurred badly. Memories hit him hard, Lonzo with Onyx, the battle. Aries. His son had helped kidnap Onyx and then proceeded to go as far as to attack him. Aries had shredded him so badly as Dakarai held back,not wanting to kill his son but he had known he would have died. He couldn't die before seeing Onyx safe and so he'd attacked, bitinf Aries on the throat. A spray of blood had resulted and he'd jumped back in horror, thinking he'd killed the boy. Blood dripped from his son's throat as he backed into the bushes and away from Dakarai and the fight. He had collapsed then, watching the rest of the fight. Lonzo had run off and Mawk and Onyx had come to him but he wasn't moving, couldn't move, the horror of what had happened was too much. Mawk had thought he was dying and dragged Onyx off toward home. 

Now he lay there eyes cracked open and staring blankly. To anyone who didn't dare come close he'd look dead, but to those who bothered to look they'd see his flanks rising and falling slowly and his eyes dripping tears slowly into the snow.

You’re going to make me cry!

Olive hadn’t moved very far since getting Dakarai’s warning of a killer, loosed in the area. The mother felt obligated to stay and find Cassiopeia, not only to spirit her away from the path of danger but to heal her from her most recent endeavor with her father. It was a turn of events that, once Olive had the time to muse upon it a little more, disgusted her. To lay a hand against her children was a punishable offense, and had never been something that easy with the dove, especially when the wolf in question was Dakarai. Their most recent interaction still infuriated her, confused her, frustrated her — but most of all, it saddened her and left her bereft.

The druid nurtured the smarting of her soul deep in the heart of the forest, where she often found herself — deep in the arboreal darkness of thick forests, or high upon some alpine peaks. There were no in-betweens. Here, she deigned to spend long swathes of the day sleeping, drifting off to some dreamland where everything was good and nothing hurt; where her family had remained intact and no one ever died.

When she wasn't sleeping, the waif walked about aimlessly as if she were a ghost. She did not see many things, or hear many things, and in this she found peace — until, one day, there wasn’t.

The blockade to her peace came in the form of an inky mass, spilled upon the frozen ground. Olive might had mistaken the wolf for detritus, or simply a rock, had it not been for the iron-sweet scent of blood misted upon the stagnant forest air. Immediately, there was cause for concern; wherever there was someone wounded, there would also be Olive to try and remedy the entire situation. However, Dakarai’s sonorous warning rang deep in her ears, and she could almost hear the echo of his voice talking about a murderer and a rapist as she walked towards the [for all intents and purposes] slain wolf, cloaked in a pervasive sense of dread.  “oh, god…” the wastrel moaned as she edged forward in her approach towards the brute’s fallen form, recognizing him instantly despite the grievous wounds that lacerated his body. Olive dropped to elbows and knees and crawled over the earth, next Dakarai’s lifeless form, easily falling into racking sobs at the immediate sorrow she felt and regret over pain the man must have felt upon his death — pain she had wished on him, but never imagined might come to fruition. 

Thus was the power of the gods.        

As he stared from his fallen spot upon the cold snow, a beautiful form appeared before him and approached. He was so tired and shaken that he thought it was an angel coming for him to take him away but he had no qualms at this moment. He trusted Onyx was safe with Mawk on their journey back home to Bearclaw Valley,She would move on through the pain eventually and he would greet her with love when she joined him in thee stars.

Yet as he felt the teeny droplets of tears splatter his pelt and heard the sobs he knew this was no Angel of death. He hesitantly sucked in a breath and with it Olive's scent and his brows drew taut with confusion. What was this? Why was she mourning over his dying form...Where was Onyx?"Olive...don't cry, please. I deserve this. It...Lonzo had Onyx and Olive, baby...He convinced Aries to help him and Aries attacked me"he croaked out hoarsely,the memories beginning to make his body quake and tears to fall more freely as he sobbed. The jerking of his body hurt but suddenly he couldn't stop. "I held back. I was so angry he would do this but I held back but Olive...he was shredding me and tearing me apart. He tore off my ear and damaged my eye and just continued. Is..Is this what I've done?" He spoke through body wracking sobs and then turned his damaged face to her weakly, head lolling in a tired manner. 


"I should have went after him the day he ran. Tracked him. Taken him back from blackfeather. But i didn't. Then I ran away and left you and Cassi. She attacked me too. No wonder you all hate me. At least....At least now I have proven myself to the gods. I saved her...I chased him away and saved her. Onyx is safe and I gave my life to make sure of it..." Guilt made his body feel heavy and as he finished speaking he fell silent simply studying her. He smiled weakly and a tender look crossed his face. Even though he expected her to react with rage that he fought Aries, he was actually happy that she was here. She was so beautiful and in this moment he remembered why he loved her so much. Even though she hated his guts she still lay here mourning him as if they were still together and in love. In this moment she was still his Anthousai and his heart squeezed with the knowledge that he had caused her so much pain.

There was nothing for Olive to do except lean into her all-consuming sadness and guilt. This was how this magnificent want was to end, torn apart and brutalized and left in the snow? It was not an end befitting her king, and the wastrel mourned for it. Tears fell freely, the heat of which evanesced into the permafrost. Her sobs came uninhibited, for the heaving and hitching and wailing was the only thing that abated the shabby feeling she felt in her heart. It was almost too much to bear.

Olive was surprised when the mass of muscle and bones moved and spoke, however feebly. The fact that he was alive made her feel no better, as now she was struck by the sheet amount of pain he must be in. At least in death, you were spared such torment and he might certainly die from wounds so grievous — but it seemed, at first, he must suffer.

“Shhh, shhh,” she cosseted, crawling ever closer in order to press her nose weightlessly against his side, in a place where there was no wound. I am here it spoke, and her twiggy forelimbs found their way under his head and neck in order to cradle and inspect the worst of his wounds. The druid folded easily into the role of nurturing healer — or, perhaps, palliative nurse — especially when it came to Dakarai. This was not the first time she had seen him like this, wounded and feverish and losing life, fast. His words were largely dismissed as the ravings of a man in the throes of extreme pain, and anguish, and wolves were prone to speak too freely when their soul was in the process of leaving the body. “You will not die,” she said in a saccharine-sweet tone, perhaps eerily too calm for the situation at hand.  “Remember? You never die.” It was less of a funny statement than the sheer truth. Hadn't all of his near-death experiences built him up into a man who could survive even this? “We must disinfect your wound. I must give you something for you pain…” Her head swung to and fro, trying see what supplies she had at hand, but winter had blighted most of the delicate herbs. These were slim pickings.  

He closed his eyes again as the physical pain began to torment his body as the adrenaline faded. Everything hurt, everywhere hurt. He lifted his head the best he could so she could ease her forelegs beneath his head. Her proximity was comforting to him even though Onyx was the one he yearned for deeply in this moment.  Her statement was taken as a joke by him and he gave a low laugh, eyes cracking open to roll up and look at her. "Perhaps this was why I never died" he murmured gently.


As she began to list what was needed he rest his head back down and sighed softly, exhaustion and pain making him weary. "If you could stop whatever is bleeding first that would probably make my survival rate go up" he tried to put a teasing note into his voice and a lopsided smile formed on his maw but it was ruined as the realization that he could barely see from one of his eyes set in. His right eye hurt so badly and when he closed his left and stared at her from the wounded eye all he could see was a blur of color and shapes. "I'll be damned....I might go blind in this eye. How bad does my face look Olive?"He asked nervously. He had no idea that the wound went from his missing ear, across his eye and ended in the middle of his cheek.

Oh, Dakarai was so silly! Even on his deathbed the man tried to control of the situation and take care of these things for her. Hadn’t that been they entire relationship, up to a certain point — Olive needing something done, and Dakarai being all-too-willing to do it for her? In this case, he simply could not, no matter how much he wanted to. Instead, the man lay amongst the snows, bleeding, torn, dying. The sights and the smells of it was almost enough to turn Olive’s stomach in revulsion, but her sorrow and desperation kept her grounded in the needs of right then. The fae leant her visage close to his, flicking her tongue to lick his nose and cringing when she tasted blood there, too. It was everywhere.  

Olive grimaced and pulled back, her voice coming steady and bouyant; maybe it was something that Dakarai could cling to, and be soothed. “Why don’t I worry about this, and you worry about nothing, dear? You will be fine…” but no more uncertain words had ever been spoken. The unthinkable was coming true — Dakarai might actually die. 

Then, she would truly be alone in this world.

If her heart hadn’t already been thrumming inside her chest, that thought certainly would have done it. The knight made a joke about his appearance and, though Dakarai could not see it through his wounds and the grime, Olive’s grimace turned down into a outright frown. The man was inherently very attractive — it was something about him that appeal to her vanity — but he was physically broken. A gaping wound lay where his lovely ear once did, and lacerations down his face gave him a macabre glasgow smile. Olive had no idea how the lupine body could recover from such trauma, if it did, the man certainly would not be as handsome as he once was. 

“You will look very fearsome, my love.”

Slowly, Olive edged her forelimbs out from under his head. He was right, despite his ravings: the bleeding had to be stopped. Once his bloodflow was stemmed, she could turn her attention to cleaning the wound — infection could be the deadliest killer of them all. Then, and only then, could she deal with his pain. Pulling inspiration from the memories of treating Dakarai’s head wound alongside Carina,  Olive approach a low-lying tree and peeled some of the frozen mosses from its many branches. “Breath, darling, this may hurt…” the druid cooed before laying the frozen lichen upon his lesions. Then, she applied pressure.

He closed his eyes once more as he felt the caress of her breathe against his injured face and the gentle touch of her tongue across his nose. Her proximity and the all too familiar situation was what kept him grounded and awake despite the call of Oblivion that was unconsciousness. She was once again his sweet pretty nurse and him the foolish patient who seemed to enjoy playing cat and mouse with death. She spoke again and his good ear slowly leaned toward the sound, bad ear twitching and bringing forth a hiss from his maw. Now the aching was setting in and he took a moment to fully embrace the way almost every inch of his body ached and burned with pain that set his nerves on fire. Then he grimaced and groaned, wishing with every fiber of his being for the pain to end and just simply leave him numb again.


Her voice brought him back from his agony again and he gave a low chuckle, the sound tight with pain. "Fearsome..Not nescessarily something to be proud of" he murmured weakly and lay his head back down upon her forelimbs, grateful for the proximity yet yearning for the coolness of the melting snow against his aching face. As if his desires were heard he felt Olive get up from beside him and for a moment he panicked. His heartbeat leapt and he called out "Don't leave. Please. I don't wish to be alone" yet his voice came out weaker than intended and he wasnt sure whether she heard his plea.


For what felt like forever he lay there aching, heart racing as he became lost in how utterly alone he felt now. He was laying here helpless at the whim of a woman who he loved and hurt and lost. Then he heard the crunching of snow beneath her paws and the soft warning she gave him and sucked in a breath, holding it and tensing as she applied whatever it was she was placing upon his wounds. It hurt and he wheezed slightly, muscles quivering and tensing though he held still and made no ill move against her. "Olive...Will you tell me about the stars? You...You love your God's up there so much...will you tell me of them as you work?" it was a quietly voiced request, though it was asked in earnest. Her voice soothed him and gabe him something else to focus on besides the pain, plus he simply enjoyed the way she spoke.

Olive knew the physical suffering that Dakarai must have been experiencing, as he lie there beneath her paws, but Olive’s emotional distress was comparable. She grit her teeth and tightened her jaws, trying to remain present for her patient despite her lightheadedness and her almost visceral desire to retch. Though she had some skill as a healer, it was never a task she enjoyed doing, unlike stargazing and prayer.  She always been averse to blood and death and pain — not because she was afraid of it, but she did not like the place it sent her mind spiraling to. She adopted a peaceful lifestyle, using this intuition as her guide, but Dakarai never had. He was seemingly always putting himself into harm’s way; a most willing sacrificial lamb. 

Her dusky, critical nurse’s gaze were trained upon Dakarai’s wound, despite her repugnance. He asked for a star story, and she very much wished to take away his pain with the power of her words/  If she had limitless time, she would have kept pressure upon the wound for much longer, and she would speak at length about the gods and their wonders, but time was not a luxury that Dakarai had, so she shuffled her priorities. When the blood flow seemed somewhat stemmed — at least enough to allow for clotting — Olive turned her attentions towards disinfection.

“Of course,” she answered him. “Just… one moment…” her tore her attentions away from the dark night at her feet, his voice and presence so feeble, to once again survey her landscape for any suppliers that might aid her in this task. Winter had blighted the greenery and delicate herbs that she would have made use of, but she knew this environment usually supported arboreal willows. It would take a dexterous and creative fellow to make use of it, but Olive was willing. She pulled herself away from Dakarai, knowing fully that he would not be pleased to be parted from her once more, and tried to make quite work of her search. 

The woman rummaged through the forest in the immediate surroundings and was pleasantly surprised to find a scrub willow growing at the base of a large pine. It was not the white willow that was preferred, but it would do in a pinch. Wherever she could, the sylph picked at the bark with her teeth until she was able to grasp it and peel it away from the branch, letting it float down into a pile of fine curlings at her toes. She scooped her supplies with her mouth and carried it back over to Dakarai, who lay not too far away. “I’m here,” the woman affirmed softly, settling the shavings down to speak and then picking them back up again when she was finished. Carefully, the shewolf ground the bark with her premolars until it was a fine, warm paste. Then, she deposited the makeshift poultice upon the worst of Dakarai’s wounds and smoothed it over with her tongue. Finally she sat back to regard her handiwork critically, knowing it could be a matter of life or death. The bark was both a disinfectant and analgesic, though Olive wholeheartedly believed the pain of losing an ear to be beyond willow bark’s capabilities. If anything, perhaps it would stave off death for just a little bit longer, until she was able to make the man comfortable and ease him into the process. 

There was nothing left to do now but wait and see and keep him hydrated. Olive pulled more of the frozen moss from the stores upon the low-lying branches, placed it besides Dakarai’s muzzle and warmed it with her breath so that the ice crystals would melt and Dakarai could sates thirst, if he had any. Then, she laid down beside him so that he could feel her presence, even if he could not see her presence. “The moon is in Pisces this month.” she mentioned, not one to forget a dying man’s request. “Did I ever tell you about Pisces?”

He could feel when she pried herself away from him but this time was content to remain still and quiet. He had faith that she would come back to him. In a sick bout of humor he mused that no matter what they always came back to one another and a quick burst of air snorted from his nostrils. The pain and blood loss was making him rather loopy but at least he didn't feel so much pain any more, or rather he didnt care about what he did feel. He must have faded out because suddenly her voice in his ear comforted him by confirming her presence "Im here" she spoke and he gave a slight nod, his eyes closing. As I should have been he thought in return though he was unsure whether he said it outloud or not. He wondered if he would ever rid himself of the guilt over what a failure he had been overall to Olive and his children, what he had become was so unlike who he had been with Oxsana and his sons. 

Her breath drifted from  the melted ice and to his muzzle,rousing him again to peer up at her and into her mossy eyes with glazed over blue ones. He gave her a grateful smile and then began to lap outward at the melted snow, the liquid making his dried blood coated tongue feel much better though he could taste the metallic flavor of blood not belonging to him much more now. He suppressed a shiver and a gag, focusing on the warmth of Olive's presence next to him. Good ear swiveling at her sweet voice he closed his eyes again to listen. "No...I don't believe you ever did. Would you?" he responded in turn to her question, imploring her to tell him her star story, begging her not to leave his side just yet with one simple question.

Seems like a natural place to fade ♡

The poultice would need to steep for longer before it was removed and replaced — and as much as she wanted to keep him awake, she knew her wounded love needed to rest and restore his exhausted soul. This would be a long battle for him, and likely one that would not be pretty. It was no matter to her — she and Dakarai had already seen the worst parts of each other, and not only did they love in spite of it, they loved each other more for it. 

With any hope, with her story, he would find repose and find relief from such pain in his unconsciousness. If he needed, there were plants around them which could be used to induce relaxation and sleep; but after so much trauma, she doubted he would need much help. “Yes, of course,” she affirmed in a voice that was hardly above a whisper. “Shhh my love, now you rest… I will be here” with a motherly, nurturing smile, Olive supplanted a sweet kiss upon his blood-stained nose. She would have to bathe him, later.  She began. 

“Pisces is the story of two fish…”