Herbalists' Cache touch

As the moments ticked by and the spindly little spirit continued to pose no overt threat, Coelacanth began to settle; her breathing evened out and her heartbeat ceased its skipping. Feathery fur relinquished its quill-like prickling and lay flush against her skin, revealing the skeletal curves of hip, spine, and rib, and the wrinkling of her muzzle smoothed. Lingering unease was betrayed in the soft whuff that billowed up through the column of her throat and swelled her cheeks like a chipmunk’s before it burst from her lips in a pocket of fog. “Boof,” is what it sounded like, and her swift inhale following it was spent immediately on a second puff-cheeked, “boof.” Then, eager to put the uncomfortable moment behind her, she shook out her downy pelage and sneezed delicately, her tufted ears sweeping attentively forward as her Neptune eyes shyly rose.

They focused first on what he displayed to her outright: a healed over, wriggling stump where a tongue ought to have been. Nose quivering, she braved a single step toward him, finely-crafted head tilting to get a better look, but she was swift to place the distance back between them as she drew away to look more calmly upon his face. His gentle, anxious expression was not unlike Thexxan’s or Amoxtli’s, and she took comfort in this and offered the best apology she could for her own skittish behavior. Dropping her carriage so that her spine sloped and her hindquarters tucked slightly beneath her body to form an elongated curve, she lifted one dainty forepaw entreatingly and offered an airy, toneless whine of her own. Her reason for being mute was different from his, but she knew all too well what it was like to “speak” — to scream — and have it go unheard. Rook-feathered tail quivered appealingly before its tapered tip coiled around one slim hock, and her uniquely tufted ears folded demurely to nestle sheepishly against her endearingly tilted skull.

I am sorry, said the trembling of her waiflike musculature and the pert pink tongue that darted out to flick nervously at her nose, the angled cant of her head and the guilty expression in her seablue eyes.