Lost Creek Hollow see, your face wasn't quite as I remember

the healer didn't answer her question, and so she remained seated, the cold bleeding into what seemed to be her very bones but almost pleasant against the heat that was gathering against her fur. the healer asked his question and she nodded, shifting slightly against the current. he was silent for a beat and she looked to the woman in charge, hoping he'd say something agreeable and this whole meeting could go well and smoothly. but he didn't, rather, talked about the same infection that Brisbane had mentioned and the fact that it would take time. and then he was talking about fever, and spreading, and fear gripped her for the first time. she couldn't stand to be turned away now, not when she'd have to deal with the shame of it and with the stupid infection taking over. 

she stopped listening then, and twisted fully to better see her tail. her ribs protested and burned, and she'd never tried to hold this kind of pose for long before, but she persisted. her tail, chewed up and nastly-looking, looked more like a piece of carrion that had gotten stuck to her than her own tail, and the way it moved of its own accord in the water have it a ghoulish quality. she swallowed, and inched her muzzle nearer. 

her chest was burning now, barely-healed bruises and cracks singing all their upset at her position. her maw was dry as she stared dully at the appendage that had caused her so much strife, and her muzzle opened a fraction. oh god oh god oh god. she couldn't stand it, it didn't even feel like a part of her anymore - literally and figuratively. oh god oh god oh god and her fangs slid through flesh and hit bone so she bit down harder shit shit shit shit shit shit

and she spat the lump of decaying flesh and fur onto the riverbed and spat again its ugly taste beside it, and the healer was saying that she could get out, now. there was no sensation, no hurt that she'd expected, though the wound bled freely into the stream. "e-easier to treat, right? and it can't sp - it can't spread now, right?" she rose and moved a short distance from the bank, gaze purposely setting on the pair and not the thing that had once been her tail as it lay dead in the dirt.