Jade Fern Grove well, i might just replace you with a match stick and gasoline

in the weeks following caiaphas' attack on easthollow, she had spent most of them incapacitated and reeling. the fever that had ransacked her frame had stolen with it most of her fur -- her ears were half-rotted with flystrike, and her muzzle bespotted with caked and dried blood. she had been too sick to even shake her face, fend from the predation of deer fly and their ilk -- they had chewed up her features and ears, and worked in a ceaseless black swarm about her pocked and ugly face.

even her lamplight eyes -- once so full of fierce cunning -- were a dulled and sickly yellow.

caiaphas' recovery came at a glacial pace. she marveled at how a body she had occupied her entire life (and knew so intimately) could suddenly seem so old,  so invalid. gone were the days where she could bounce back from a cut, or dance easily out of death's reach. at one point, she had wondered if this swollen infection would be her finisher -- in the height of her unrivaled delirium, it had certainly seemed so.

she willed her body, aged and frail and lagging, to keep going. she willed her limbs, stiff now with fever and arthritis, to keep churning. she willed her eyes, sorrowed and blurred by perpetual discharge, to keep seeing. to keep eating. to keep breathing. and day by day she had gotten better with @Svalinn's care -- had he not been here to guard her, she like as not would have succumbed to her wounds or the teeth of another.

settling miserably at the brink of a stream, caiaphas hung her paws in the riffling water and reflected at how cruel it was that her mind could be sharp as ever, while her body gradually failed her.

Your post will be infinitely more poetic and meaningful than this blundering mess

There was a certain thrill to playing hookie. It was almost as if Amun had found a sort of purpose to his life where the meagerness of meaning lie. Like a loner he wandered, without rule or goal. Earlier he had caught a marmot and, as was usual for him, was carrying a femur bone proudly as he walked. It was a pup habit he had never grown out of.

He had been heading toward the scent of running water to get a drink, dehydrated from the earlier hunt. An overcast sky shone a grey light upon him as he jogged. Saliva ran down the bone he carried along his chin, dripping in occasional spits ahead of him. Everything about the summer air that day felt like love. He wished only that his sisters could be there with him to enjoy it, though he knew they would only poo-poo on his enthusiasm.

When Amun reached the stream, he was surprised but pleased to find another there. She was looking low and terrible, letting her paws into the running water to calm herself, he figured. As he drew closer, more details came into focus of this strange she-beast.

Her ears were ruined. Her fur depleted. She was but a sad form of wolf that he could barely recognize.
In him, she stole a will to help, a desire to be present if only for a moment. So he announced his presence with a friendly chuff and moved slowly toward her, keeping his distance so as not to push her to her feet or to leave.
"Hi," he said simply, the bone falling from his grip as he said it. "Uh," Amun looked around, hoping to find a topic, "is the water nice?" The question was meant honestly. He cocked his head to the side to listen to the answer the way a pup might hear a funny noise.

not true!! thank you for joining <3

despite the sorry state of her ears, caiaphas' auditory prowess was still somehow functional; she had heard the careless step of a rogue before she saw him. so, her sullen gaze turned to a glare as a wolf appeared, bone tumbling from his strong jaws.

she watched almost complacently as amun assessed her. caiaphas had lived long enough to have a certain grace when it came to enduring stares (after all, she collected many of them) -- yet she could not imagine in this moment how she looked (and dared not answer that question by glancing at her reflection at the water's edge). drawing herself stiffly, her elbows propping the rest of her thin frame upwards, caiaphas glanced from the bone to the wolf in a dry gesture.

something about the male did not seem abundantly wolfish -- she could not put it out of her mind as she studied him, noticing the feral hue of his yellow gaze. "water's fine." she answered, her tone short as her paws trailed in lazy circles about the surface of the river. "where'd the bone come from?"

As the she-wolf rose, he noticed a slowness that made her seem in pain. Amun wished there was something he could do; short of waiting for the sunlight to return and bathing her in its warmth, he knew of no medicine for such discomfort. He moved closer to the water's edge to take a drink as she twirled it.

Water slopped off his chin as he spoke, shaking himself. "Oh, I caught a big ground squirrel thing. It was big!" Amun had never seen a marmot before, and didn't realize they were actually smaller typically than groundhogs. The bone he had dropped behind him still retained a cream and pink colour to it, an advertisement of its pleasant flavour.

"There might still be marrow in it - you should have it," he offered, stepping backward awkwardly to punch it toward her with his nose.

wrapping up, slight pp <3 please pm me if you would like to thread again!

the siren remained motionless as the male approached, supping from the crystalline pool. water trickled from his chin, dribbling in bright droplets back into the fount in which it had come. each drop seemed to awaken a small trembling in the pool's surface, incandescent rings which spread out in diminutive concentric ripples.

caiaphas' gaze lifted from the water to the proffered bone; she was in no condition to deny handouts, yet all the same a ripple similar to the disturbance on the water's surface drifted across her heart. how small and reduced the siren queen had become, rendered to a class even lower than supplicants and miserly mendicants.. she was sure, to amun, she appeared little more than a brittle bird, holding fast to golden years that had long since descended to twilight..

"a kind offer." caiaphas intoned, rising stiffly to claim the bone. proud as she was, she was not stupid -- and would not cut off her nose to spite her face. chewing on the bone reflectively, caiaphas noted the flood of saliva that warmed her gums -- oh, how hungry she had been!

chewing a few moments longer, caiaphas set the edge of the bone between her paws and looked at amun slyly. "what is your name, traveler?"

some niceties were shared, but once the food was done caiaphas fell into a lapse of silence. with no more to offer amun, the siren rose from the water-studded grove, and made for more secluded climes.