wrap my arms around you

Open to anyone - but please keep in mind, Dawa is very injured. (Spine is crushed so she cannot walk, for one thing).

It had been weeks and somehow she had survived them. Time was nothing to her - she had failed to recognize the passing of days back when her sight had left, and now it was only darkness that she witnessed. An endless cycle of pain and foggy almost-pain were what separated moments for the crippled girl. When she wasn't yowling with ache she was drifting endlessly in a sea of shadows and half-remembered thoughts; hallucinations brought on by a quickly rising dose of medicines. In her current state Dawa was awake, but drifting. She thought of Tenzin and how infrequent his visits had become; she thought of Xi'nuata and wondered where the warrior woman had gone to. At some point someone came to her - perhaps hearing the woman muttering to herself, chatting to others that weren't there, and at some point this stranger took her to a new location. She felt no pain in the travel (the passage of time remained a constant fluid thing); but she felt the sun upon her back as she rested beneath the boughs of Chenrezig, her body piled carefully upon one of its reaching roots.

<3

It had been some weeks since Lecter had returned to the Vale, and he did so with aplomb, carrying a wide, carefully folded leaf stuffed full with dried herbs. Though he cursed the very name of Raheerah, and hoped that the goldscale woman had gotten the presence of thought to rid herself of his rancid spawn, he remained a healer, and his duty was to those injured here in exchange for access to their herb plots.

Long strides carried him into the emerald territory, and after a brief pause just over the borders to ensure that those watching saw and recognized him, Lecter set off for the den where he had last known the injured healer to be.

She was not there, and so the madman followed the thin trail of her scent to the sprawling roots of the white-and-red tree, keenly catching sight of her broken body there. Clearing his throat to announce his approach, the madman drifted closer, setting down his bundle of herbs, but said nothing for the present.

The pain was a constant thing. It was the only constant thing now, with the absence of Tenzin and the growing number of odd scents in the surroundings. Dawa could do nothing about the strangeness around her - only sit in it, wading through the scents and the darkness that clouded her mind. Stagnant and useless. A sound pealed from her then, mournful and piercing, but it caught in her throat when another sound broke the air nearby. She took a great breath and caught the scent of a stranger, but... The man had Tenzin's mark as well, despite the airy fading quality. As Dawa took another breath she gulped down a mouthful of herbaceous oxygen. It was time for her dose already? "You are not Tenzin," the woman remarked in her clinical manner, pearly gaze hidden by half-lids, "...but you have visited with him. Is he alright?"

i love her so much ;__;

Dawa spoke, and Lecter nodded. "I have been with Tenzin. He heals. He will survive." Dawa — Dawa he was not sure of her. He doubted she would ever walk again, but stranger things had happened in his life. "I have come to assess your wounds, if you will allow me."

She had not asked for his name, and so he did not give it, wondering if Dawa wished him to exist in the vague camaraderie between healer and ailing. Silently he waited for her to respond.

News of her dear friend would have put her in a pleasant frame of mind, if it were at all possible. Instead Dawa accepted the information with a tiny dip of her nose, saying nothing else. To know that Tenzin was surviving was enough.

"My wounds." she parroted the ghostly voice, but made no motion to aid his discovery. There was little she could do in this state. "My legs." She shifted her front limbs slightly, curling them at the wrist, but her rear limbs did not move, nor did her crooked tail. "Your healing will not help me. Only help the life in me persist," Dawa turned her head now, facing his direction with her blind eyes shining, "And that is a waste of resources."

"Tenzin does not believe so," Lecter rejoined, sitting himself before her, a forepaw reaching to prod open his bundle of herbs. She would surely know what he had brought, but he made no move toward the leaves, not now. If Dawa did not invite his tending, then he would not force it upon her. Such was the dignity she showed, even in shattered repose.

Icewater eyes favoured her with a kind glance. "I do not wish for you to die, and I know it would break Tenzin's kind heart. But it is your right. I can aid you in this also. I would not see you suffer and starve to the end of your days, Dawa."

A strong enough draught of poppy would lead the coywolf into an eternal slumber, and it would not be the first time Lecter had done this for one of his own.

She reminds me of Rati but not a cool Rati. ;-;

Tenzin always had faith in her, even as a child. To look upon her now - a broken body, a mind that made little sense, no skills to speak of - Dawa felt apathy even as she forced a laugh, pushing air between her teeth to imitate a scoff. The girl adjusted again, this time placing her small chin against her extended paws, taking on a resting pose despite the agitation of skin-on-skin contact. The warmth of her disorder soaked through her flesh, but it was paltry compared to the constant burn of her cracked spine. For once she could not feel the pain of touch.

"..break Tenzin's heart.." Yes, it would. Dawa could not allow that.
"Then you may treat me. I do not want him to suffer too soon." Her death was inevitable, whether this stranger aided her or not.

umg rati ;_;

Lecter listened to her scoff, her words, but made no response. It was not until she consented that he drew near, unfurling the bundle further to reveal what he had brought. Catnip, spearmint, and of course half of the geranium he guarded jealously. Taking the mint between his teeth, he chewed it slowly. "I will make a poultice for the base of your spine," he muttered through his mouthful of the plant. Hopefully it would temporarily remove any localized discomfort in the area.

Moving to her side, Lecter pressed the bolus to her spine, just above the rise of her hips, and then drew back to his plants, taking up the geranium as he regarded Dawa quietly.

The woman waited patiently as the man worked, not knowing what to expect from his efforts. Usually the herbs put her in to a state of sleep. One lacking dreams as far as she knew. As Lecter moved to place the balm upon her spine she thought she felt it; in the same manner that she thought she felt her tail curl against her hip. Neither event occurred. They were imaginings, wishes, ghosts of feeling.

Dawa sat in silence while he worked but grew restless as she waited. Perhaps it was these spectral sensations that urged her to act - the stillness being an overwhelming obstacle for the first time in her life. Things were changing for her and it was all happening too late. Dawa chose to remark upon the man's scent: for it was different from the Vale wolves, but only slightly. "Salt." She breathed the word, sifting it with her tongue as if to taste the substance, "You must travel far to be here."

He treated her in silent proximity to her bruised form, ears cupping forward as she spoke. "Yes. The great mountains; behind them they guard the sea." He could sense her restless air, and pitied Dawa for whatever the Vale wolves had done to bring down the wrath of the earth Loa upon them.

At length, he moved back, and plucked a leaf wet with dew from the pile. Placing it and the bolus of wild geranium before Dawa, he indicated with a brief press of his muzzle against her jaw that she should eat the plant and lick up the droplets still clinging to the leaf.

Something cold and wet flicked against her lips. At first Dawa did not know what to make of it, and assumed it was just a piece of debris that had come too close; but it did not smell as clean and crisp as it should have. The doctor prompted her with a nudge, and she obeyed. Seeking with her nose at first, and then carefully grasping the object which was so near. She chewed relentlessly and swallowed quickly, hoping to avoid the vile taste that plants often provided. The mixture slid down her throat and became lost in the pit of her stomach.

Dawa sat in silence for a moment, as if affected by the herbal remedies that had been prescribed to her. She sank low, her head drifting to rest upon the wolf-wide root that had become her perch. As the herbs started to take true effect, the drift that the girl experienced grew; the sensation was minimal at best, but would grow strong with time. Her breathing did slow considerably though, which was an odd effect - perhaps one that was unwanted - and she began to mindlessly lick her lips, to move her mouth as if to speak when not a word came forth.

When she did finally make a noise, it was in the form of a deep gasp for air. The girl's nose whistled as she exhaled it, trilling high and long, before her breathing returned to normal. There was nothing to fear - granted, Dawa doubted the apparition that minded her would be too worried. He had given her the drug, after all. Surely he knew the potency and the effects.

Geranium was to still the aching of the joints, but as Dawa ingested the plant, it seemed to affect her breathing. Lecter was silent, was still. The healer's breath grew laboured; she struggled, and still he did not move to help her. Stretching himself along the ground beside Dawa, he leant the warmth of his closeness to her frame as her breathing normalized.

He had guarded Njal and Tenzin in such a manner, and would do the same for her. But if the gods Dawa worshipped chose to let her succumb to the mild opiate properties of the plant, if she drew her last breaths upon its secret, then so be it. The shaman would not interfere.

Beneath the boughs of Chenrezig, Dawa would have expected the gods of her family to be protecting her. At the very least, Tenzin's will would be there, always present among the roots. She did not know that the tree's trunk had been anointed with his blood and Raheerah's fury. It was the protection of the doctor that was granting her rest now, though. Not the stories from her childhood or the will of her comrades. A stranger who, as far as she knew, held the heart of a true Monk; someone she would hastily welcome in to the fold of the Vale if he so wished it.

In her current state Dawa could barely stay conscious, let alone think about her sanctuary.

She drifted deeper in to a stagnant state, but her breath remained relatively normal. The press of the doctor - the heat he provided, the odd scent that he carried - cushioned her mental fall from awake in to sleep. The pearls of her gaze went from being half-lidded and misted to fully closed as she drifted away from the Vale. Her sleep became autonomic. Breathing continued at a slow pace, but there was nothing else to display a sense of life within her.

Dawa is asleep so I'll fade here! :D

<333

Into slumber she fell, and the shaman remained near her until he was assured that she would not succumb to what he had given her. Only then did he gather his herbs and leave Dawa, casting one last glance behind himself before he departed, and he wondered as he removed himself from the Vale lands at her fortitude.