Greatwater Lake Basic components of life

@Andraste 

When looking back at the events week ago, Sarah often wondered, whether fleeing rather than fighting could have been a better option right from the beginning. The actual interaction with the two wolves was in a blur in her memory. It was a chaos of growls and yelps, splashing of dirty water and trickling blood, bites and tearing flesh. Adrenalin had numbed the pain, but it had hit her with the full force later, when she had escaped the turmoil and found a safe spot to lie down and sleep.

It was not Sarah's first fight, therefore the fact that she awoke feeling as if someone had beaten every part of her body, was not totally unfamiliar. She had tended for the wounds as best she could and then moved on, waiting for them to heal. A week was usually enough, except in this case. The inflammation and itchiness was followed by numbness and awful smell.

One afternoon a lump that had formed on her left side burst open and greenish-yellow puss streamed down. Sarah was so disgusted that she did not even attempt to touch it herself. Patches of blackened skin around the puncture wounds appeared on her legs, chest and scruff, and by constant grazing with her teeth, they were gone revealing raw flesh underneath. By the time Sarah had admitted to herself that this was neither normal, nor promissed recovery, she had become feverish. 

The good side of this was that she no longer felt hunger, but her thirst was almost unquenchable. So she found a shelter nearby a large lake and this was, where any passerby would meet her. Lying in the shallows of the ice-cold water with a far-off look in her eyes.

staying vague on BSL things

She had returned herself to the Deepwood, from the Bramblewood twice now;
so, how many moons had it been since she's been to the Kintlas? Seasons upon seasons upon seasons—

Icemelt of the northern spires froze the marrow within her fangs; gave her a prompt shiver as the stricken rose from water's edge. When-ever she must return to her Weald and her wolves, again must they decide, debate; detail to them her affirmation and allegiance to the hydra's many heads. And yet the Wilderness now felt off-kilter, with demons returned from their depths. And yet—

And yet there lies another shade upon lakeshore;
the rise of greyed ribs the tell that she still yet breathed. Hovering as a swan might over cynet, Andraste's mem'ry could not clear enough  (yet)  to place a name to this worn face that tugged and tugged and tugged; vagued;
so she merely whispers a consolation to the fevered rogue, and turns from her to seek what she might gather about Greatwater.

I am back - I can spree for the next few hours.

Perhaps, being in the water was not that good idea after all. A while passed and Sarah was overcome by a coughing spell, those too had appeared after few days of soar throat and difficulty swallowing anything. It seemed that it had got worse and travelled down to the lower airways. 

She raised to her feet, turned around and saw a white she-wolf pass by (she had missed being addressed by her). In no mood to have company, even less to be a victim of another murder case, Sarah sent a threatening growl in Andraste's direction. However, soon wheezing took over again and she had to focus on not coughing her lungs out.

gonna be in classes for a few hours but i'll try to get some replies in!

And that very snarl was answered with a quiet, golemish quip of  “Get to ze shores,” before—
that wisping wheeze was what made the stricken overlook her foraging for moss and leap upon a clutch of bogged oregano instead; there was naught a shred of tell-tale poppyglint to be found, nor burdock root along the lakeshore to be scrounged. And so it was that the sibyl toted back to the ailing Sarah  (who had made for drier land, she hopes)  yarrow, ginger, slippery elm, and only when she hovered close once more did she speak: 

"Breathe, deeply,”
tucking the tattered greens of oregano beneath the ashen snout, praying that the strider’s lungs would fill with air and easement once more. In the meantime, the druid began to tuck into her tenant with moss, pressing over darkened-and-raw flesh; cleaning the less wily sediment of infection out where she could.

And, if anything, grasping at what wens of memory did not elude her; to at least distract the other from discomfort—
“You are quite some way from your Hollow.”

Either Andraste was lightening fast or Sarah had a different perception of time in her feverish state. One moment she saw the white elf-like she-wolf go away, the next there was a bundle of awful (sense of smell is subjective) smelling plants showed under her nose and someone was touching the raw areas of her skin, which felt to her as if salt was poured in.

Once she realized that something should be done about this, Sarah recoiled from the stranger and took a defensive position, staring at her with distrustful eyes and snarling. "What the hell do you think you are doing?" she asked, fighting an urge to cough again.

"Would you like to die, here?"  Frustration!
voice low, brusque; argent gaze quivering with it.  "You are in no condition to travel great stretches, fevered as you are,"  the stricken soon amended, letting her slim shoulders sigh,  "but, please, forgive me. I should have asked for your consent beforehand."  Sights alit upon what she had gathered, before returning to assessing the strider's coiled figure; studious.  "Your infections will continue to wear away at your health if left untended. If you will allow me to see to them ..."  thin ears flickering,  "I will do what I can."

She willed patience into the frustrated furrow of shorn brow; essayed instead to the properties she had managed to gather.  "Either way, I wonder if I have seen your face before, somewhere. Am I wrong?"

"I am not gonna bloody die here!" Sarah argued - she felt like shit, that was true, but she had no plans of kicking the bucket yet. She was that unlucky sort of people, who believe themselves invincible, until they wake up one morning to find themselves cold and dead.

"Why do you even care?" she asked after hearing out the lengthy explanation of, why should she allow the white wolf help her. "Have you?" Sarah asked, but before she could reply with - I don't think so - another violent coughing fit overcame her. This time she really believed that in the yellowish green mucus that came up, there were bits and pieces of her lungs as well.

"Crap," Sarah told to herself and slid to her haunches, no longer having strength in her to keep the "I can take care of myself, thank you very much" mask.

yES HELLO im sorry!!

The retort was a welcome thing, if only because it managed to prove that the shrouded she-wolf's inner flame still flickered, strong. So as the Hollow roamer began to set in with what she thought  (hoped!)  would be emberous digs, Andraste's countenance remained void, guarded ... until a violent fit overcame the watery-eyed female, and the silver took an involuntary step forth. And when she finally settled upon her haunches, the words of self-embitteemt were upon her tongue: 

"I have not been able to forage something for this cough. However, if you will let me,"  she mused, a tentative approach,  "I will make a mixture of poultice for your wounds."  There had been the oregano, to ease the breath within Sarah's lungs — but it had been bogged by the waters, and there was next to no remedy that could be salvaged of it. Neither had she found webs, to keep the mix set into place ...

Andraste's irritation was her own, but becoming more miscontent would not help her ward's status.

The white she-wolf did not seem to be put off by Sarah's attitude at all. She did not reply to her questions and still insisted on helping her. It occurred to her briefly that she was trying to poison her, but then again - why give so much effort and talk smart? Leave her be and watch her waste away gradually. 

"Will it be just as foul-smelling as this stuff?" she asked, looking down at the herbs that were supposed to help her inflamed airways. "What exactly do you intend to do?" Sarah asked distrustfully, because she had no idea, what a poultice was. She was the "pain-in-the-ass" kind of patient.

A riddled brow quirked; 
"I intend to stop ze bleeding by applying yarrow to your wounds. I intend to lie a poultice of garlic and elm over-top of them. I intend, Sarah,"  she continued,  "to tend to your hurts. Ze oregano is meant to clear your throat, your lungs; allow you to breathe,"  for only now did the stricken recall the strider's name, in the glade with its foxes when she had been seeking a lost brother.  "However, if you would prefer me to not administer it, then I will not breach your ... ah, limits."  She wasn't sure if that was the right word. Still—

—she waited. Willing a patience into marrow that wished to overwhelm her very bones; have her surge into action to bring about some sort of soothing to her current tenant.

Now the white ethereal being had fished Sarah's name out of somewhere, which made her even more suspicious. The list of all the healing plants sounded professional, but she did not know any one of them. Which meant that she had no control on, what the stranger was actually going to do to her, which in turn gave place to reluctance to accept any help at all. 

"I have healed without this in the past, I will heal now," she told the other bluntly the limits. "Besides - it is winter, where the hell are you going to get all of this stuff?" as far as Sarah was concerned most of the green plant-life was dead or dormant in this season.

wrapping this up!

When all was said and only half-done, the stricken was nothing but respectful of a tenant's set boundaries — whether they needed medical attentions or no. Wishing the ashen strider well, the fae gathered up the unused findings for those of her Weald, instead; left the paltry orgeno behind, though, in the hopes that Sarah might yet breathe from them still.