Lion Head Mesa Doves and the boy

After the Pharaoh, Crowfeather had been instructed to find the wolf called @Maggie. It was said that she had suffered the greatest of the injuries.

This worried the dark wolf, but he took stock of the blue-eyed leader’s worst marks and then made promise that he would return with the proper herbs to treat the Pharoah properly.

Sullen and tired, Crowfeather set his snout to the earth and began to sniff out the injured woman so that he might take stock of the damage that she had suffered, as well.

maggie had been brought home presumably by the guard and satsu, and laid upon a small flat outcropping of stone low to the floor of a single room. it was an austere place, but clusters of half-dried flowers here and there, little stones, pillows of rabbit-fur — these things were hers.
she cracked one eye open as the woeful yearling boy came upon her. he reeked of green things, and satsu, and somehow blood. the cuts in her forehead had begun to burn. crowfeather blurred together.
"weren't yew entertained last night!" she exclaimed weakly. "tell me: did jawa'ir make yew a man after the dark fell? oi was takin' a bet wive meself, oi was."
maggie faded quickly after that, sagging limply against her cot. "oi sees such devils swirling above me, sir. they've come to take me, they 'ave."

The lavish little items that Maggie had in her home did not go unchecked by the curious little shadow. When his gaze fell on the woman, he realized that it was the very same wolf who had pressed herself to Germanicus with such familiarity. He clenched his teeth and seethed for several breaths, trying to steady himself, to convince himself that he must tend to her wounds.

Crowfeather began to approach and press his nose to her figure, searching for the wounds that would be hidden, the bruises that would have caused internal damage. Maggie spoke to him in words that he scarcely understood.

No, I- was not entertained, I was not taken by Jawa’ir, I was not made into a man.

I am just a boy.

Damn these tears, Crowfeather cursed as his throat grew thick and his eyes stung madly.

Now can you tell me where you hurt the most?

her jest met no mark. maggie stared up at the vaulted rockglass of her room's walls. "forgive me, cully. yew'll forgiva bit o' sport from a girl afore she dies." this last bit was sounded out with valiant effort. a dehydrated tear traced its way backward toward her tepid ear.
"in me 'ead, sir, somefin' fearful," maggie answered with a sniff. "an' me back, as if someone was pushing a foot through me back, so it were." her eyes were dark-rimmed, accentuating her already pallid nature into something bright-white and fevered.
"yer a doctor then, sir?" the stark gaze rested on the boy.

The boy could not help but choke on the lump in his throat. He hated Maggie and he still felt his chest twist painfully at her words. She expected she would die. Something foul inside of him wished that to be true. Crowfeather all but gagged at this realization.

Let’s see if we can f-fix some of that pain, alright M-Maggie?

Crowfeather knew poppy seeds would ease pain and help with shock. He imagined that after the battle she had experienced, Maggie was likely in a good deal of shock.

I learned a few things from a very good medicine wolf. I’m hoping we can use the things I learned to save you.

The seer turned to her with a mouth full of mush, a mixture of poppy seeds, thyme, and burnet. It tasted vile and he spat it in front of her snout with a sour expression. Swallow that. It’ll be awful, but I’ll fetch you some food if you can get it down.

if maggie had known the scope of her crime against crowfeather, she might have brimmed with apology. or mockery. she fell inelegantly upon the paste he provided, seeking only the relief from pain he offered in the horrid mash.
it filled her mouth like the taste of bittered flesh, but maggie forced it all down.
her lips were flecked in the mess she had made of his medicine.
"oi don't 'ave no taste for food, doctor," maggie breathed. agony radiated through the crown of her head. the blood began to pulse in rivulets down into her eyes once more. the fever rose to encircle her throat. "just stop me from cryin' out too much when it comes time, won't you? won't do for me to be howlin' an' carryin' on."

Maggie was almost pitiful were it not for the disgust and fear that had surfaced at the sight of her blood spilling down her skull. Crowfeather did not know how anyone could treat wounds so severe. His mind felt like it was spinning, like he was watching a woman die when all he had to do was make her well again.

I- I’m going- I’m going to try to- try to stop your bleeding, he gasped out, searching the items that Satsu had provided for him to use on Pharaoh and Maggie. There were no cobwebs, and he felt his stomach lurch with fear.

Maggie, those nasty green leaves should start feeling good s-soon. Have you seen any nasty spider webs in the catacombs?

"oi'm so thirsty, doctor."
cobwebs. "feels like me 'ead is full up of 'em," she said of the spider's workings. her tongue burnt to char in her mouth. it felt that her teeth began to sweat, and maggie was suddenly propelled upward, directly toward the yawning mouth of a demon.
she gasped but could not cry out; she shut her eyes and curled slowly in onto herself as the magma sensation started to work through every vein. "spiders in the dead trees outside," maggie mumbled, then shut her mouth.

The seer whimpered at the sound of Maggie’s gasp for air. Crowfeather wished he could run away. His mind played tricks at him, willing him to flee from the injured woman and all the hurt she caused inside of him.

Dead trees, he whispered and raced from the mouth of the den to the catacomb entrance. Crowfeather’s breathing was quick, panicked in a way that he had never felt before, but all that he could see in his mind’s eye was the image of Maggie’s blood spilling into her eyes.

Crowfeather all but dragged the dead tree back with him. He was so tangled with webs and spiders when he arrived again at Maggie’s resting place that he thought they might begin to burrow into his ears.

The boy struggled for a moment, working to wad the webs into something thick, something he could stuff over her head like a cap. The first few layers were quick to bleed through, soaking red almost as soon as Crowfeather had placed them on her skull. It was not until the third and fourth that the webs began to hold.

When Crowfeather had finished with all the webs on the tree branch, Maggie’s skull looked like a snout with a hive of spiderwebs on top of it. One of her eyes was covered up entirely, but it seemed like the bleeding might have stopped.

The dark wolf stepped near to her and bent his head, his whiskers twitching to see if they would catch her breath or if he had failed entirely.

"ma."
maggie's voice was muffled, cracked, insensate. far beyond the coverings of cobweb, she burned like a conflagration.
the beauty — if she would be that when this was all over — remembered nothing of the whore who had born her. 
and yet it was for this woman she called now, once, struggling;
maggie continued to breathe after she fell silent, caught in the velvet dream of the poppy that crowfeather had given her.

The dark wolf stirred at the sound of the pale woman’s voice. She seemed to be calling out for her mother. A pang struck Crowfeather’s heart. He turned his head away from her, as though he had been intruding on the woman’s private moment. Of course, it was likely the drugs that had carried her away into sleep. The shadow could not help but to watch her closely, fearfully.

As Maggie rested, Crowfeather slipped from her den and searched for lavender. He spent nearly two hours searching for the white-flower feverfew. Just before giving up, he found a small patch and plucked as many as he could carry back to the injured woman.

When Crowfeather arrived back at her resting site, he stepped in quietly and arranged the flowers near Maggie. The dark shape then took a spot in the corner where his lantern eyes remained trained on the slow rise and fall of Maggie’s chest.