Larksong Grotto il en était fier, mais pourquoi vous riez ?

this is a time-sensitive thread. lestan is advanced enough in fever and delusion to die soon without medical care. that means no replies by the 7th <3

how many days?
how many days?

how 
many
days?

where was she? lestan was too weak to fish the bone from beneath his sundered body. it lay wedged uncomfortably behind one elbow.

where
was
she?

the deer had come it had come she had come
a sign from those who once tormented him at the lake; not torment. warning. beckoning.

the scent of reverie's blood in his senses.

Hoooope you don't mind me, I needed to save Kel from the checker anyway LOL

Kelsier was searching for more herbs for @Faun. He'd learned quite a bit in the time he'd spent with her; enough that he felt confident in trying to find something a little more exotic. What that was, exactly, he wasn't sure. But he knew he'd have to look somewhere special to find it.
What he didn't expect, upon entering the grotto, was to find an injured wolf. He grimaced at the sight and crept forward, uncertain how to approach the situation. From this distance he couldn't quite tell how bad it was. Hello? Kel called out, still slowly closing the distance between them.

in this place there was no scent of the sea.
it had been terrible to leave it behind; she had wept over crossing the edge of the mountain and finding only the minutely familiar taiga, spreading wide before her.
but the obsidian had pushed herself onward. she did this for her family, for the legacy of her mother and sisters. she did this for herself, establishing motherhood upon the piece of oceanic heaven carved by warrior women before her.
with this in her heart, mireille moved on.
now she heard a man's voice, and her stomach lurched with dread and anticipation. she did not feel so out of control now, only that remembered twilight glittering at the base of her spine. but she scented also sickness, and rushed ahead near automatically. one man stood over another. mireille did not wait; she stepped closer. "he be reekin' of fever," she mumbled, moving to smell the breath upon the downed wolf's lips.

mwahaha not at all, les miserables is now skippable <3

the word wavered in the mayfair's eardrums, but lestan did not recognize it as a greeting.
he did not know when the scarlet woman sank down; he saw first her eyes, then the face of the other.
"reverie," he mumbled in a voice that only scratched incoherently at the listener's ear.
bleakness; the blackness of a closing tombstone, body stretching limp against the floor of the grotto.
the bone still lay beneath his withering form.

That's never going to leave my brain now thanks LMFAO
frantically edits as I realize Mireille is in heat

Kel was admittedly quite relieved when a woman appeared, all dressed in red and an air of authority. Immediately he was struck with a sense of home, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that, but now wasn't the time. What was less relieving was the realization that she was in heat. Kelsier kept a healthy distance from her even as he approached the wounded wolf. Looks pretty bad, He commented, bringing as much wit to the situation as any rock that might have tumbled down the grotto's steps.
Been learning herbs, but you look like you know what you're doing, Or at least, it was easy for Kel to assume that. He was only a man, and would never be quite as qualified for responsibilities as large as saving a life. It pained him to recognize that train of thought resurfacing in himself, again, but Kel did not fight it. He only worried at his tongue with his teeth, unsettled by the scent of the woman and the urgency of impending death. I'll follow your lead?

not till the 3rd, but im totally fine w everything as it is written! this would be pre estrus ig & he would def sense it even if she wasnt receptive i think!

the scar lent the man's face a hint of worldliness, superimposed against the soft coloration of his eyes.
it was like she had never seen a man before. and ironically, mireille had roughly only ever been around men of her own family's relation.
his shoulders were muscular. he was of good height.
she tore her eyes away a second time, and this time the obsidian burned beneath her red fur. "i need water," she demanded, not considering his words. "an' moss, as much of it as you can find."

Oops I'm dumb, sorry!!! At least it works because Kel is dumb too

Water. Moss. Now. Yes, this woman would have fit in well at The Evergarden. Kel ducked his head once in acknowledgement and hurried to retrieve the things she needed. There was an ugly feeling coiling in his chest, but he didn't think about that now. He gathered moss. He collected water.
And he returned in short order. Kelsier was aware of the woman's eyes on him, but they felt scrutinizing and demeaning, as if she could see every flaw in him. What else? He asked, daring to sniff around the man's wounds. Cat. His hackles rose, but otherwise Kelsier showed no sign of the alarm that was rippling through him. What if the man had been followed? He looked up on impulse, watching briefly for movement along the steps of the grotto.

not dumb at all!

the man was silent, prompt. quick. mireille's estimation grew. 
the ailing stranger beneath her paws was pretty. what sort of place drew these soft-edged men?
she bathed his brow, packed the lacerations along his flank with moss. "where are you from?" she asked the other wolf. "do you have a pack nearby?"
the scents on each of them were nothing she had known before. "i know a little. i can stabilize him for now. but he is going to die wit'out a healer."

Riverclan. Not so close, Kel was still watching the edges of the grotto, but eventually he looked back to her. There was a cold sort of dread in him to realize that she did not know more than he did. He would have to speak up. Would she even believe that he could help? I can help with infection. Been learning from an herbalist.
Should still get a proper healer. One of us should go, But it wasn't his decision to make, so he looked to her for the final say. Kelsier wasn't sure how many packs might be nearby and willing to help, but he would try all of them before he would let some stranger die on his watch. He didn't need that on his conscience.

mireille realized she did not want it to be her, that she was quailing inside at the idea of being alone once more. even though it was what she had come to do, there was still no small amount of regret.
"if we can keep him hydrated an' his woun's from infectin', we can go in de mornin'. you can," she decided, cutting her emerald stare at the man as if daring him to disagree.

Kelsier thought that he could probably see the wounded wolf through this, given the chance. He just didn't have the confidence to say it. But something in him rebelled at the idea of leaving so soon, and could not bring himself to bend so readily. He had been long enough away from The Evergarden for that much, at least.
As long as he seems like he'll make it a few days without me, He conceded quietly, meeting her gaze only for a moment. Then his eyes dropped, scanning the man again. A gruesome sight, not one he enjoyed, and certainly nothing he had ever engaged with himself. The difference between studying a subject and being trained in it, he supposed. But it couldn't be that hard, right?
So he scoured the grotto for what he could find, and returned with unspecified herbs because Suledin will never remember wolf plants and is so tired of reading up on it. He replaced the moss with what he'd found, and guiltily tried to coax a bit of plant paste mixture into the man's mouth. Gotta do what you gotta do, he told himself, no less than a dozen times. He feared any other method would make the dying wolf choke in the state he was in, but he did need something for the fever the red woman had mentioned. For the pain he had no remedy, or at least none that he could recall. So the wounded man would have to suffer.

the stranger worked.
mireille helped coax their patient to eat the mixture, dosing him liberally with water for each swallow. she pillowed his head on a pile of soft mulch and curled near, to steady him through the chills.
when at last his breathing evened into something much more like sleep, mireille looked back at the man. "he will make it."
riverclan. self-explanatory. "what be your name, den?" she asked in that same commanding tone, not offering hers for collateral.

He wished Faun could see him now! At the thought of her he softened, and turned his thoughts briefly away from the red woman. He wouldn't have to see her again. When all this was done, Kelsier would go home and tell Faun all about his wild adventure and how he'd actually saved someone's life, and she would smile and speak in her soft way, and she would not make him feel so small and useless with nothing but the cut of green eyes and sharp demands.
Kel, He said, and left it at that. His interest was in the dying man. At best he was intimidated by the woman and her changed scent, the perceived threat of it and her arrogance. So he looked away from her and focused on their patient, not coldly but pointedly. Some secret spiteful part of him hoped that it stung her to know he did not want her, even with the scent of her harassing his senses.

mireille noticed nothing, because he was a man and she was almost wholly turned inward. "erzulie," she mumbled, offering her mother's name. and why?
because she was still too close to sapphique, because she had seen a man follow her sister all the way home.
mireille at last lifted up. "if you can fix de infection an' i can keep him comfortable, maybe t'ere be no need to leave. look. whatever you gave him made him sleep, kel." a pause. 'but i can only stay a day, maybe two. so you tell me."

There was a shift in the red woman, from Kelsier's view. She introduced herself as Erzulie, and she seemed to think him... capable. Was he? Kel regarded her for a moment, and then relented in his own mind. They had both done this; he could not have helped the man on his own, because for all the technical knowledge he'd absorbed, he did not know how sickness really worked.
You're right, He said, grasping that seed of growing confidence and holding to it. I'll stay with him. No one would miss his presence in Riverclan for a little while longer. Only Faun might notice, he thought, and she did not have any real need of him.
Besides, it was for the best that it was Kel who stayed, and not Erzulie. Who knew if this man had even passed his trial?

they had an agreement, 'erzulie' and kel. "we need to find a dryer place for him," she decided, straightening, wiping debris from her forearms.
again a meandering look toward the man, simply because that was what he was, and that was how her body was sharpening in this mica-flat glimmer.
she needed to get away from him.
this time she swung her hard green gaze around the grotto itself, alighting upon a pouch of stone uplifted from the ground, shallow enough to support the stranger. 
she did not ask for help, only grabbed the nape and began to gently pull in that direction.

Kelsier moved wordlessly to help. Being so near to Erzulie did nothing to soothe his nerves, but he was quickly distracted nonetheless. His eye caught on the bone as they moved their charge, and he thought about it the whole way. When they'd settled him, he went back for it, and stared with hackles prickling. Tooth marks, scent heavy on it; Kel saw, not for the first time, proof of The Evergarden's rightness.
This man had not passed any trial, he was suddenly certain. But that wasn't any of Kel's business. So he picked up the bone and moved it to sit beside the man, near enough that he could reach out and grasp it when he woke. Kel stubbornly did not allow himself to think of it as an if. He would wake.
Wonder where he came from, Kel said quietly, sniffing him over but unable to identify any pack scent. He smelled of blood and sickness and the wilds and cat. Hope that cat doesn't still want him.

"i have seen ot'ers hold off a bear."
not without dire loss, and in all honesty she had seen nothing. 
but she knew her family had done it. a cat did not scare her more than that terrible broad massive face, looming over her shores.
"we will get him back to his people." she sat back on her haunches for a single tired moment, then propelled herself upward. "you foun' herbs. i will go an' find t'ings to hold him toget'er." her tail lashed, not quite a wave goodbye as mireille turned and trotted off into the foliage.

Okay, so it definitely could have been worse. Kel would pick a cat over a bear any day, but preferred neither. This situation was enough to deal with all on its own. He'd expected to deal with the wounded man from the moment he'd laid eyes on him, but had not signed up for the rest. The reminder of home, and all the old feelings it stirred up in him.
It was a relief when Erzulie volunteered herself to leave. He nodded. Just call if you need me, Kelsier said absently, and went back to studying the sleeping features of their patient. When Erzulie was gone, he leaned in slightly to make a promise of his own: You're gonna be okay. We'll get you home, if there is a home to get you to. If not, I know a guy. Don't even worry about it. Crowfeather would take him in, Kel was certain. If Kelsier himself took responsibility for the wounded man, surely there would be no room for objection.