Jade Fern Grove see how they run. see how they run

anyone!

His father's concerns about what he could and could not do anymore were echoed in the boy's chest. Anxiety gripped his heart like the cruel talons of a hawk clutching its prey, and ice cold dread was a constant presence in his spine. His father did not think he would even be able to work with his plants any more. His mother thought he would be fine. Swift did not know. His body was still, his head between his paws on the den floor, but his mind did not stop and his breathing on occasion would quicken with the burden of his emotions. His inner turmoil was ever bit as ugly as the trenches in his face and the gaping sockets where his eyes once were.

He sniffed loudly and tucked himself in a ball, drawing his legs tight against him and curling his tail around him. He became as small as he could as he fought with the dark thoughts that so freely invaded his mind. The darkest of them all was the worry that he would be exiled, for he could no longer train as a warden or a warrior as the pack had decided not so long ago would be required. He could not even hunt. All he had were his plants, if he even had them.

With his ears slicked to his skull, he laid there and fretted.

Swift had retreated upon their return - both physically and figuratively. It was understandable, but not doing him any good at all - if he was anything like his father, Bazi imagined he must be feeling the crushing weight of his own feelings now. And if he was anything like hear, he would feel as she had done when the isolation of the crater had nearly driven her insane.

Bazi crept to the edge of her child's Big Boy den. She paused there, watching the vague shadow of his chest rise and fall in an erratic pattern. What could she say? It'll get better? Because it wouldn't - not unless he distracted himself with hard work, suitable variants of which were in short supply for a wolf with no eyes.

Eventually, she broke the silence with a sharp clearing of her throat. "Swift?" she asked, trying to address him as she might her other children - without that cloak of fuzz and worry. "Can you come out? I stepped in something - it smells kind of sharp.. and it isn't washing off."

It's lemon balm - I picked something that wouldn't happen 'round here naturally so that it would stand out. :D

His flinched when his mother cleared her throat; he had been so consumed by his own thoughts that he had paid no attention to what was around him. He had much to learn about using the senses he had left to perceive the world around him; but adapting was not on the child's defeated mind yet. He slowly uncoiled from his ball and turned his head to face her. Despite her efforts to speak to him as she would his siblings, he knew she was worried. He knew they all were. He also knew that his parents had been fighting.

He had little interest in leaving his den, but he mechanically obliged his mother's request. Perhaps because it was her, who had been there with him, with whom he shared a bond made deeper by shared trauma. He lifted himself into a crouch, and slowly, one paw after another he crept out, bobbing his head from side to side to feel for the walls of the den and any obstacles as he moved forward. He stopped when his nose brushed the plush furs of her chest. He need not even bow his head to catch the scent he referred to.

He wrinkled his nose. It was a strong, cutting odor that dominated his sense of smell. He did not recognize it. He lowered his head. Probing with his snout, he ran his muzzle down the side of her leg as a guide as he leaned in toward her paw. His tongue flicked out, drawing back at the sour taste that greeted it. "I don't know," he said listlessly. He did not even know what she wanted. "Can you not get it off?" he asked as he drew back and sat down.

He didn't ignore her - that was something. Slowly, carefully, her eyeless son unfolded from his tight curl and moved hesitantly in her direction. Even in such a confined space, a familiar slice of the world that he did not need eyes to navigate, he seemed lost.

Bazi spread her toes and angled the paw, settling her rear against the cool floor. "It's persistent," she reported, leg twitching when Swift's whiskers tickled between her paw pads. "I tried washing it, and rubbing it in dirt." The faint shadow of an idea sparked in the back of Bazi's head, but it was too faint to make sense of.

He hummed, as halfhearted as the consideration he afforded this rather trivial thing. It was on the border of his realm of know-how and entirely outside his range of care at this time. He shrugged, offered the only thing he could think of without thinking too hard for a better, more immediate treatment. "Sweet fern can hide the smell until it works itself off." Enough walking would work it into the ground and off her paw.

He did not allow much pause for her to inquire about it further, before he sighed and folded his ears back. "Mom," he said, pausing, "what happens now?" His brows furrowed, his mouth pursed and turned down at the corners. "I can't hunt. I can't be a warden or a warrior..." he sighed again, his voice lowering to a worried whisper. "Will the pack still want me here?" Would his family? His father?

"Sweet fern," Bazi repeated. She didn't know what a sweet fern looked like (as opposed to a regular, bland-tasting variant), but didn't push for more information - she had ulterior motives, and the fresh smell was actually quite pleasant once it had faded to a hum. 

Swift did not give his mother any time to consider other avenues of conversation. Her lame attempts at engaging his medical mind had worked a little too well, and the worries that he had nurtured came tumbling out of the dark and into his unprepared mother's ears. What happens now? Will the pack still want me?

Come on, Bazi. Reassurance! "You'll have to learn. You can accompany Pasha on his rounds and help mark the borders - eventually you'll be able to navigate the forest with your other senses, and we can work on the fighting. And you still have your nose. You will have to know every inch of this place, better than anyone - better than me, or your father." Was she doing it? Bazi wasn't entirely sure, so she went on, speaking gently. "And the pack doesn't have a choice, even if they did mind. Even if you weren't my son, you are our only healer, and there might be other dangers hiding in the dark. We need you. So don't let those skills of yours get rusty."

She said he'd have to learn, as if it were the easiest thing in the world to do. The thought of following his brother on a patrol caused his stomach to flip. He could not see, so how was he to keep watch for danger, let alone walk any distance without stumbling, tripping, or running into something? Just moving from one point to another would be an immense challenge for him, and yet in the same breath she spoke of working on fighting.

He suddenly felt overwhelmed, to the point that he could taste bile at the back of his throat as nausea invaded him. Perhaps he would have hurled, had she not continued talking. "You are our only healer;" "We need you." These words pierced through the haze that started to form in his mind. He was silent, but the creases in his forehead and the twitch of his ears told of how he ruminated on what she said.

"Maybe," he whispered. He was still hopelessly unsure of his future.

Bazi tried a little of everything - assuring him that he had a place, that life would go on, that  being blind was no excuse not to work hard. It was a blanket bombardment of words she hoped might help him, and one or more seemed to take root. Bazi wasn't sure which ones - although she could not deny that Swift was a natural healer in the making, she was still in denial regarding how he had come about those skills.

"Maybe," she echoed, her voice a low hum of agreement. In reality, Swift had no choice. They could not afford to let him rot away in his den, and Bazi did not particularly want that for him, either. Boosted by that thought, Bazi got straight to business. "Speaking of - is there anything we can do for my face? It splits when I move my lips too much" She almost said 'when I smile', but she did that so rarely these days.

His mind was starting to run away into the dark, as it had been doing since the attack, but his mother spoke again and offered yet something else to corral his thoughts. Unfortunately, wolves could not stitch together wounds, and his response was immediate and deadpan. "Stop talking." He followed that with another flat remark that could be mistaken for a commentary on the attractiveness of her countenance, but despite the sour sarcastic humor of his last response, the downtrodden son did not intend it that way. "You're stuck with it." Indeed, short of never moving her mouth again, he was certain there was nothing that could be done for the wound besides helping it to heal.

His tongue across his own mouth, before he offered a more proper explanation and what little treatment was available for a split lip. "It's not going to close. Honey will help to keep it clean and to heal, and to minimize scarring. Bonus: it doesn't taste bad."

A smidgen of attitude. Bazi smiled weakly, nodding to herself in the dark. "I will keep my trap shut, then," she returned, without any malice, and stooped to kiss the top of her son's head. "I'll get you some dinner." With that, Bazi exited the den.