Sun Mote Copse Sword of Damocles

@Towhee but the rest are welcome too.

It was a lazy afternoon for Wraen - she had been up before sunrise, hunting diligently, while the temperature was still bearable. Once the combined weight of sunlight and heat became too difficult to survive in comfortably, she returned to one of her hiding spots by the river and slept until she woke to see the shiny celestial object descending in the west. 

She yawned, she stretched and left her hiding place to have a stroll in the copse. In fact, she felt so good and her tolerance-meter for puppy mayhem in such a decent level, that she headed to the randevous site to see, how the younger generation of Firebirds was doing. And this moment of inner-calm, curiousity and pleasant expectation would be the last thing she would remember afterwards. 

Someone before her had either destroyed a hornets' nest or it had fallen from it's perch by one or another laws of mechanics and gravity. With it being a recent event, the angry insects were still swarming around the area, where the remnants of their home were. Wraen happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, she registered the first very painful bite on her forehead, before hundreds of workers were attacking her viciously. 

Wraen yelped in pain, rolled on the ground, trying to get rid of the bugs that kept coming and coming, then she broke out in a run, but after few strides she tumbled to the ground limp and unconscious. Her face was swollen, eyes were squeezed shut and she struggled to breathe all the while hornets were circling around her and still biting. There was stench of urine around her, where she had soiled herself and little streams of drool were trickling down from the corners of her mouth.

when arcturus heard wraen’s scream, he did not stop to think. he was lucky he had been so close to the rendezvous, and as he charged through the summery wisps of green foliage, he barely had time to even grasp the full magnitude of the scene before him.

he could hear the furious swarm as it rose in a black cloud over wraen. her form was hunched and a sour smell trickled through the air — none of which Arcturus cared about as he dove into the buzzing cloud of hissing insects.

he shook his head as first his ears were stung, and then his nose, and neck and face. he strove to seize wraen by the back of her neck — the first and last unprompted attempt at contact he would likely ever make — and while every nerve of his was on fire under the assailants, arcturus would do all he could to drag her out from under the wrathful hive, and somewhere safe.

Towhee and Meerkat were napping together in the shade, as it was the easiest way to avoid the midday heat. The former was having a wildly inappropriate dream about @Bronco when the cold press of a nose right between the eyes startled her awake. She snorted and sat up with several blinks, looking around for danger, before her orange eyes fixed on the frantically signing Meerkat.

-"What? Where? Take me to her,"- the Regent said when she picked up the gist of it. She sprang after the pup when Meerkat bolted, temples pounding in rhythm with her heartbeat.

Meerkat stopped abruptly and Towhee very nearly tripped right over her. "Meerk—!" she shouted in surprise, brow furrowing when she saw a strange expression on her child's face. Meerkat looked like she was in pain. "What is it? What's wrong?" the Regent said, her heart now leaping into her throat.

Before Meerkat could reply, Towhee felt the reason for herself. "Ow, fuck," she hissed, turning to nip at the spot on her shoulder where an insect had bitten or stung her. But there was another buzzing around her ear. She couldn't hear it but she felt it, her ear automatically flicking in response and earning another sting even as Towhee spotted several more hornets swarming toward them.

"SHIT! MEERKAT, RUN!!!" Towhee bellowed, shoving the pup back toward the rendezvous site. Wincing, she waited until her kid scooted before facing forward and bursting into a fresh gallop, straight into the thick of the swarm.

She spotted Wraen before long, Arcturus standing over her, and ran up to the fallen Sovereign as more stings rained down on her. Although they hurt, immensely, she ignored them as she moved in beside her comrade and also latched onto Wraen's scruff. Sorry, Wraen, she thought even as they began to heedlessly drag her.

It would be a long night for Wraen, much of it she would be unconscious, struggling for every breath of air, having nightmares and hallucinations her oxygen deprived brain would conjure before her eyes. Moments of utter panic and anxiety, exaggerated by pitiful whimpering and screams, would alternate with long periods of utter calm. Her heartbeat would be slow, her limbs and muzzle cold, the only sign of her still being alive, would be the rapid wheezing breathing. 

By morning she entered a calmer state, lifted her head and managed to open her swollen eyes just at slits to look around. She attempted to raise herself to her feet, to move away from the stench of, where she had soiled herself, but her limbs and body were weak and the sudden light-headedness made her sink to her belly again. With a sigh of resignation, Wraen closed her eyes again and fell in a heavy sleep.

joined by towhee, arcturus repositioned himself by wraen's neck. the wasps came in mercilessly, stinging him along his nose, his ears, his eyes -- even his belly and flank felt their share of barbed reception. through out all of this, arcturus dug his heels into the dirt and hauled and hauled and --

they were finally at the den.

safe.

he felt.. he felt not well. it was hard to explain the way he felt, but looking at wraen he knew she was worse off for it. he was eternally grateful towhee was there, and mumbled something about getting water -- something about bringing weejay with her moss and her honey to help.. and then he was tottering off, feeling sick to his stomach that wraen was so ill, and he could do nothing to help her.

Everything became a bit of a blur as Towhee and Arcturus worked together to drag Wraen to safety. When the Sovereign was situated and medical help summoned, she took a step back to breathe. She couldn't stop staring at Wraen. She looked... dead. Towhee swallowed, squinting to make sure the gray she-wolf was breathing. Her flanks moved shallowly, which was a bit of relief, but the whole thing left her with so many questions.

The most important one had nothing to do with the ailing leader. -"I have to,"- Towhee explained abortively to Arcturus (and whoever was close by) before leaving Wraen in their capable hands. She rushed to the rendezvous site to make sure Meerkat hadn't somehow suffered the same awful fate as Wraen.

The puppy was fine. Towhee found two distinctive puncture wounds while nosing her over more than once, though Meerkat seemed mostly normal. The Regent sagged with relief, ignoring her own aches and pains as she coaxed her daughter to follow her back to where she'd left Wraen and the others. Once the medics had attended the Sovereign and Arcturus too, then Towhee would have them tend to Meerkat and herself.