Dawnlark Plains and her answers were all crooked little truths

[maybe @Sebastian or @Aviana?]
she ought to be able to walk. her limbs are whole, unbroken and unwounded, yet the deep and jagged rip across her rear haunch burns and throbs with every step. today, it is hot and angry and inflamed. her limping gait takes her to one of the streams that run through the territory, remembering easier now to keep her ears still atop her crown, each flicker of them causing shooting pain down the side of her skull where one is severed. 

she hadn't called for or sought out Aditya since he left her to deal with Loir, nor has she sought the company of her brother, who too seems unwell but for different reasons than she. 

finding one of the crooked little streams she sought, she splashed down into the barely-there current, maneuvering carefully so that her torn haunch rests in the current. her jaw is lined with tension at the initial hurt of the water, but the coolness does its job and the wound becomes numb, the water flushing dried blood and the beginnings of infection from the wound; sickness her careful cleaning has been unable to keep away entirely.