Otter Creek Don't know why you rescued me

Restlessness whispered in her ear and Saena heeded its sultry call. The sun was high in the sky, the whole of the Wilds was clear and (relatively) warm, and she was in high spirits. She ranked above her large and imposing brother, as well as the newcomers... and now, unlike weeks previous, they couldn't use her age to dispute her place in the pack. Her contribution was noted, and she wore it proudly.

Blue Willow's pups would soon be old enough to open their eyes, if talk around the pack was anything to go on. She wanted to bring them something cool from outside the pack for when that happened—this desire soon drove her to Otter Creek in search of its namesake animal. If she could bring an otter's pelt or even a piece of it... well, she thought that might suffice.

Bleeding and deformed, Dauntless put as much distance between herself, the lake and that dastardly cannibal as she could manage. She ran until exhaustion and blood loss caused her to slow, then stop. She dropped to her haunches beside a frozen creek, breathing hard. "You have to keep going," she muttered to herself but instead of rising back onto all fours, she slumped forward and promptly passed out.

When she woke, she was incredibly groggy. How much time had passed? Dauntless slowly pushed herself into a seated position, then hissed sharply when she felt a twinge of pain reminding her of her injuries. She was just about to survey the damage—she glimpsed a pool of blood around her hindquarters—when she heard the snap of a twig. Immediately alert, Dauntless's neck straightened and stiffened. Had he tracked her down to finish the job...?

Her electric yellow eyes settled on a petite white she-wolf with red ears. Dauntless felt suddenly weak with relief. Yet she did not move or take her eyes off the stranger. Her ears flicked, noting absently that the creek had thawed and was burbling merrily beside her. It was probably still ice cold and she decided she would dip her tail (what was left of it) in there as soon as she was sure the other she-wolf wasn't about to try to eat her too.

The fae had continued to wander the wilds, her wanderlust being satisfied. The area she was in now was nice, but nothing special. Something dark red on the ground caught her gaze, and she frowned. As she leaned in for a closer look, the enticing scent hit her. Blood. And fresh, too. Soundlessly, the girl followed the crimson trail, and gasped when it found it's end at the deformed and bloody young fae. Not noticing the other wolf, she rushed forward until she was in front of the extremely bloody fae. "Are you alright?" she gasped, whining softly. "Sorry, stupid question. Can I help you? Please?"

The creek babbled happily as it tumbled past. Saena didn't really take note of this, but if she'd been more experienced with winters then she might've seen the signs of an early spring in that gurgling water. She was too focused on her task, too intent on bringing something truly special to the pups and endearing herself to both them and their parents, to notice happy little signs like that. Her work was far too important, she reasoned... or at least, she did until she, too, noticed the sharp scent of blood.

She didn't have to look long for the source of it. The heap of black-and-white fur was unmistakable, and yet... that's a fucking huge badger, Saena thought with a mixture of fear and disgust. What the hell kind of mutation was that? It was pretty much her size!

But then the badger stirred and Saena, who had leapt back on her toes in the most tactless display of avoidance ever, realized it wasn't a badger at all. It was a wolf who looked very strangely like a badger. It didn't even have a wolf tail... but then Saena realized its ass was bleeding rather profusely, and it wasn't hard to put aside the suspect colon cancer in favour of the theory that the tail was actually ripped right off.

"What the hell happened to you?" she queried, but before she could say anything else, like I know a really good healer, a silvery-white lone wolf flew onto the scene. Saena didn't know if Silverfeather was blind or rude, but she wasn't even acknowledged by the lone wolf, a fact that made her hackles rise indignantly. She was a pack wolf and therefore better equipped to help a hurt loner than another loner, unless this loner was some kind of miracle healer. For the moment, however, she stayed quiet, if not clearly offended.

Before the two mismatched wolves could react to one another, a third wolf appeared on the scene, leaping right in between Dauntless and the pretty stranger. The injured yearling instinctively leaned backward, her lip curling in distaste. Despite the circumstances, she wasn't likely to accept help from a perfect stranger, much less one that behaved like this.

"Get the fuck out of my face," Dauntless snapped. Even as the words left her mouth, she lifted a foreleg and made to shove the silver stranger away from her. "I don't need your—" she began to say when the original stranger piped up behind the one currently crowding her, wanting to know what on earth had happened to Dauntless's tail.

Leaping to her feet and ignoring the slight dizziness that accompanied the hasty movement, Dauntless took several backward steps. At the same time, she shot the closer of the two a warning look and then blinked her bright yellow eyes at the female over her shoulder. "It just fell off," she said in a dry tone. She took a breath, then revealed, "Some demented random literally just ripped it off. Then I watched him eat it." She suppressed a shudder.

Now that nobody was in her face, Dauntless said, "What exactly is it you think you could do for me, anyway? It's not like you could reattach it if you had it. It's currently digesting," she said sardonically. "And," she added, glancing over her own shoulder, "I'm pretty sure it's already clotted." She faced forward again, giving the silver stranger in particular a challenging look.

Silverfeather whipped her head around as she noticed the other fae. She dipped her head in acknowledgement, looking at the girl's strange coloring. She questioned the bloody thing what had happened to her tail, who replied rather bluntly that someone had quite literally eaten it. Silverfeather smirked. "Well, it's your fucking fault for wandering up to a cannibal then, isn't it?" If this wolf didn't want her help, then that was her fucking problem. Silverfeather was about to take her leave when the fae...well, at least she thought is was a fae, but it was a little hard to tell under all the blood-spoke again. Bloody glared at Silver with a challenge evident in her eyes. "Herbs. You'd probably need marigold, horsetail, cobwebs or seaweed, goldenrod, and dock. Applied and eaten, they will help." She looked at the other fae. "What are your names, anyway? I don't want to have to keep calling you 'you' and 'bloody'"

The exchange went sour instantly. Honey Badger pulled away from the silver stranger, who responded in a way that completely disgusted Saena. She made this relatively clear by wrinkling back her lips and stepping away from the silver loner. Whatever aid she'd meant to offer was pointless in the face of such a heartless comment.

"What is wrong with you, you sick fuck?" she growled at Silverfeather, everything else pretty much forgotten. "Why would you smirk or even make shitty comments about that?" Her eyes went sideways to Honey Badger, but snapped back onto the lone wolf when she asked for their names. On that, Saena was tight-lipped. As far as she could tell, Silverfeather was a psychopath, and she wasn't about to reveal anything to such a wolf.

When the silver she-wolf replied in kind, one of Honey Badger's yellow eyes twitched. If she had not been injured and weak, she would have ripped off the bitch's face. All she could do right now was reply sarcastically, "While your bedside manner is deeply impressive, I'm going to have to ask you to kindly fuck off, you dumb bitch." It helped that the white wolf corroborated her with her own disgusted reaction. Dauntless was definitely not prone to bonding with others, yet she rather appreciated the red-eared stranger in that moment. It was easy to bond over mutual hatred.

Whether or not the gray wolf got lost, Dauntless promptly ignored her and focused her attention upon the first wolf. She did not say anything for a moment, instead climbing to her feet with a slight wince and padding over to the water. She dipped in a black toe. It was still quite frigid. Perfect, the yearling thought wryly as she waded into the water, then spun around and sat. Despite herself, she gasped as the frigid water lapped midway up her saddled back.

"I'm Honey Badger," she said in a rather toneless voice, then promptly blinked. "Holy shit, I'm Honey Badger." She stared somewhat blankly at the petite wolf's face, wondering if her other memories would suddenly resurface too. "I got nothin'," she muttered to herself in the next breath, momentarily oblivious to how crazy she must seem.

Silverfeather narrowed her eyes. "Sure, go ahead and die for all I care, fucking bitch." she stalked off, fuming. Later, she would reflect that she had been bitchy for the past few days. It had not been the same her that had rescued the fox from the frozen lake, nor the one that was amiable and friendly. As she stormed off, her anger faded slightly, replaced by uncertainty. Had it been right to leave the bleeding bitch lying there? She paused, glancing back. Well, there was nothing she could do now.

Again, Silverfeather had attention for only Honey Badger, and stalked off in a scorned fashion. Saena was briefly reminded of the way Tytonidae had stormed away from Blacktail Deer Plateau, but then remembered that her sister hadn't sworn at them in the same way. The memory made her twist one of her thin ears back and almost lose herself in her thoughts, but the giant badgerwolf was on the move now and her vision snapped to the dark female.

"Hi H—" Before Saena could get any further than that, the battered female, now with her ass in water that must have been freezing cold, repeated her introduction. She supposed that was what a fan girl would sound like if they'd met their idol: O.M.G. You're THE Elvis Pawsley!

"Is... that a surprise or something...?" she cautiously ventured, hoping not to invite the badgerwolf's wrath with her question (and preemptively wincing in case she already had).

Her yellow eyes lifted to the stranger's pale face, the words bringing her attention to the reality of the situation: she sounded nuts. Honey Badger didn't answer right away. She rose and clambered back onto the bank, then gave herself a shake without thinking about it. The motion sent a shock of pain through her severed tail and she gritted her teeth before gently sitting and painfully wrapping the bedraggled, mutilated remains of her tail around her haunch.

"I'm not sure what happened, exactly, but I lost my memories for a minute there," she explained at length, sitting up straight and trying to leave her tail alone. It hadn't literally been one minute, though she didn't think to clarify that. "I've been going by Dauntless but Honey Badger is my real name. And I'm from... somewhere in Alaska. I know that. But the details are really fuzzy." She made a hmmm noise.

The yearling caught herself and blinked slowly. Why was she engaging with this she-wolf? Honey Badger stiffened, preparing to shut down this strange camaraderie. Then she remembered how the stranger had addressed her would-be helper and she couldn't help but acknowledge a begrudging respect for her quick reaction and foul mouth. That latter part almost made her lips twitch, yet she managed to maintain a stoic expression.

"Do you think that little twit is trying to become a medic or something? Can you say 'bipolar'?" Honey Badger scoffed, seizing upon their one mutual interest so far. "So," she added, "your name would be...?" She tried not to sound too interested, though in truth, Honey Badger felt like she'd finally met someone worth a second of her time.

I lost my memories was probably the scariest sentence Saena'd ever heard. The thought of losing memories was chilling, and suddenly she felt her heart going out to Honey Badger, as if it wasn't already. She previously thought that a wolf without memories had only a tenuous hold on their sanity, with little resemblance to other wolves, but Honey Badger was living, breathing proof that that wasn't true. She was, aside from being extremely injured, a completely normal wolf as far as Saena could tell, with whole mental faculties. She almost asked how Honey Badger had lost them.

Duh, she wouldn't remember, you idiot.

Feeling a little lost for what to say meant Saena was glad to move on from the topic. She latched eagerly on to the subject of the lone wolf. "She's a freak," Saena said angrily, shooting a glare the way the female in question had gone. "Who says shit like that?" Then with a shrug, she added, "oh well, bitch'll probably freeze to death anyway. Like any pack would take her sorry sicko ass."

It seemed her cohort wasn't quite finished with the topic at hand. Honey Badger smirked in appreciation as she continued to smear the gray she-wolf behind her back. Truth be told, Honey Badger was no stranger to antagonizing others and behaving with needless aggression. But she didn't pretend to be nice first and that was what she found so ludicrous and bothersome about the seemingly bipolar stranger.

"Yeah, fuck her," Honey Badger said dismissively. Had it been any other wolf, she would have gotten aggravated by the evasion, purposeful or not, regarding the white female's name. Not one to feel awkward easily, she said straightforwardly, "Seriously, do you have a name or what?" She punctuated the question with a bemused smirk, at least. "And what about you—you in a pack?" she added for good measure.

"Oh, sorry," Saena responded quickly, ashamed she'd forgotten even her basic manners in favour of slamming the strange lone wolf. "I'm Saena, I'm from the Blacktail Deer Plateau pack." She was a long way from home, but that was part of being an Outrider, wasn't it? Travelling was never one of Saena's favourite things to do, but it had its perks, like meeting amnesiacs at a stream and bonding over mutual disgust. She never thought she'd be the type of wolf for that, but there were many things she learned about herself over time that were surprising.

"We actually have a pretty good healer there," Saena piped up suddenly. She knew Blue Willow was really busy with her litter, but there was no harm in suggesting it, and she knew her aunt was a bleeding heart. She hated to take advantage of that fact, but somewhere inside her, Saena just knew Blue Willow wouldn't turn Honey Badger away if she appeared. "You could come see her, she might be able to help with your tail."

Would you care to fade this one way or another? I'm trying to make sure I have all HB's threads wrapped. :D

A friendlier wolf might have responded by saying something like, Nice to meet you, Saena! Although Dauntless/Honey Badger did feel sort of happy to make her acquaintance, she wasn't about to be overly expressive about it. She bobbed her head to acknowledge the eventual introduction and that was it.

Saena mentioned her pack's Healer. Honey Badger shook her head before she even had time to properly consider the offer. I don't need anybody's help! she thought stubbornly. Yep, I'm back, her inner voice said dryly. Then she caught herself and stilled, her head tilting slightly to the left.

"Let me think about it. I appreciate the offer of actual medical intervention," the uniquely-colored yearling said in a wry tone. "If I'm still in a bad way in a few days, I'll come find you and your Healer at... Blacktail Deer Plateau, did you say? Mind giving me directions, just in case?"

Honey Badger's vehement head shake was met at first with Saena's stubborn, disapproving frown, but that softened when the lone wolf agreed to stop by in a few days if it was still bad. It was an agreeable compromise. A part of her heart went out to such wolves in need, no doubt influenced by Blue Willow's kindness, so it was a shame to be unconvincing... but she supposed she understood and didn't want to be pushy about it.

"You just need to follow the river north," Saena said, describing the way the plateau jutted out from the Sunspire range and explaining where the towpath was. When finished, she said, "I need to get back to Outriding, but I hope you'll stop by and see us," before parting ways with the badger-like woman.