Redhawk Caldera towers

The physician washed himself thoroughly once he'd left Leto and Delos behind. There was no reason to flaunt his connection when visiting their erstwhile pack. He showed up at the borders smelling strongly of herbs, partially as cover but mostly to advertise his status as a healer.

His black nose twitched, and his heavy-lidded eyes surveyed the packlands stretched out before him. It seemed a safe and vital enough place for wolves to reside, even if the presence of water so close was not strictly (according to his guild) recommended.

Satisfied, Aureli lifted his head and howled to announce himself. He would be wary, accordingly with Leto's warning, but he still had a duty to see if there was anyone here that might benefit from his skills.

It was Cinar who came to answer the call of the stranger today. He aimed to be involved in the caldera, more than he already had been, and that meant taking the risk of a bite or two.

However, he didn't feel that this wolf was one to be worried about. They were not so different in size, and he smelled strongly of herbs which Cinar could recognise from use by healers.

Approaching with a confident yet friendly posture, he hoped to investigate further.. but he could not catch anything over the strong herbal scent. Aureli was lucky that his nose was so weak. What brings you to Redhawk Caldera, my friend? He called, tail waving at a medium height behind him.

It was always a little different presenting himself at the borders of a pack than it was meeting strangers in the wilderness. Here, he was a representative of his sacred order, and he must hold himself as such.

Delos would need to be taught diplomacy, he thought to himself, but am I the right one to teach it to him?

The arrival of a pack wolf kept him from worrying about that for too long. Aureli allowed his tail a few gentle whisks at his hocks, but he could not seem to force himself to look pleasant. Strangers had always set him on edge, and he was too proud a creature to properly submit — even if he had never been quite proud or confident enough to posture in return.

"I am a traveling physician of the Healer's Guild," he replied, his tone perhaps gratingly polite. "I have come to make myself known to you, and to offer my services free of charge. Healers of the Guild accept no payment."

Though Aureli had come to appreciate some form of gratuity, if the hours were long and the work was daunting.

Diplomacy had always come naturally to Cinar. He could talk a wolf's ear off, yet reveal nothing of himself but everything about his conversation partner. Maybe he just had one of those trustworthy faces.

He considered Aureli's offer with a neutral, yet interested, expression. I see. I'm afraid we already have a healer within our borders. Alivia seemed to doing quite a good job too, the caldera wolves were all healthy besides aging bones and old injuries. I do appreciate the kind offer. Are you in need of shelter? In need of your services or not, I can't imagine our leadership turning you away.

Cinar wasn't sure he had seen them turn anybody away, really. Redhawk Caldera had certainly grown large enough that they could if they so wished.

He warmed quickly enough to the other wolf, who did not seem to be one for posturing, either. Neither did he force any chitchat — likely a kindness to them both.

"I am glad to hear you have a dedicated healer among you," he said, hiding his surprise at the notion. He immediately doubted their capabilities, since Leto had not given Delos into their care.

"I do not seek shelter, but I would like to meet with your healer," he replied, his tail swishing neatly at his hocks. "Perhaps we have things to learn from one another."

Every healer, no matter how poorly talented, had experiences worth hearing.

Cinar raised a brow at the ask, but his face soon settled back into itself. I can call for her, then. If she isn't too busy I'm sure she'd like to meet you too. He would be staying with them, of course. Cinar wasn't keen on leaving his friend with a stranger, healer or not.

Tossing his head back, he called for @Alivia to come to the borders. It wouldn't hurt to see her today.

He wondered if she was mucking around the old garden again today. Had the withered plants been taken care of yet?

Is it okay if Alivia is familiar with the Healer's Guild?

Cinar's call piqued Alivia's curiosity. She was used to him popping up around her usual haunts, but a formal summons was unusual. Was someone hurt? Stars, she hoped not-- she was barely competent as a medic, but unfortunately she was the best the Caldera had to offer. 

She grabbed a small roll of supplies just in case, and she headed toward the call. 

Cinar stood at the border with a stranger. No one looked hurt, thankfully. Alivia approached with her usual friendly demeanor, since both of them looked reasonably at-ease. She set her bundle down so she could speak, and when she lifted her head back up, she was met by the strong scent of herbs rolling off the stranger. She suppressed the urge to wrinkle her nose.

Certainly! Feel free to make up other members of it or even say that she has ties. Healers of the Guild take specific vows that she may or may not know: do no harm to other wolves, always do their best to help, make healing and learning to heal their top priority until they've trained at least one apprentice of their own (and even then healing is still expected or be their vocation; they are just allowed to marry and start families or join packs after that). It's very Jedi order coded in that masters teain apprentices, and that those lineages are as good as blood. Apprentices last about a year or sometimes two. It's mostly open other than that. They have a few home bases in random places but they are mainly meant to travel. Let me know if you need to know more but that's a looooong primer for an ooc note so I will cut it off here!

The healer was summoned; Aureli quietly thanked the wolf that had first greeted him — and then had little else to say while they waited.

He eyed the healer quite critically when she arrived. She was fully grown, at least, and carried with her some tools of the trade. He was still dubious, but silently approving of her readiness to heal.

"Thank you for coming so promptly," he said to her, in deference to whatever schedule she'd been keeping before his interruption. Aureli himself hated to be interrupted. "I am a traveling physician of the Healer's Guild. Your packmate has kindly informed me that my aid is not needed here — but I hoped to acquaint myself with you, their resident healer, to see if there is anything we can learn from each other. If you are willing."

He was perfectly neutral as he stated these things. As perfectly as he could be, at least. There was always just a hint of superiority about him.

It was little wonder he'd made so few friends in life.

No worries! I was being a slow poke XD

He can't help his smile as Alivia joins them, tail quietly swishing behind him. I hope we didn't interrupt you. He manages to whisper before Aureli speaks.

His nose twitches as Aureli gives his greeting, as though he is searching for any missed risks. Taking those risks himself is one thing, but he would feel pretty crappy if he exposed his friend to them.

He is curious to see what Alivia will make of the herbalist, given she herself wasn't interested in working with herbs. Will today be the day he puts he mediating skills to use?

Alivia returned Cinar's smile and shook her head slightly, indicating that she had not been disturbed. She welcomed just about any interruption to the daily monotony. 

"It's no trouble," she assured the aromatic stranger with a wag of her tail. She glanced at Cinar, wondering if he was noticing the man's critical gaze boring into her. Alivia's mother had always been anxious about any male attention she received, so perhaps she was trained to notice such things more so than the average wolf. 

He identified himself as a member of the Healer's Guild, and Alivia instantly relaxed. A Guild member was sworn to do no harm to others. She dismissed his superior demeanor as simply a product of his upbringing. Most Guild healers wore a similar air of prestige.  

She nodded when he made his proposal. "Of course, let me show you my clinic." She waved him into the territory. "Cinar, you're welcome to join us." She tucked her supply bundle into a space behind a nearby boulder, making a mental note to retrieve it later. Or maybe she wouldn't; it could be useful to have supplies stashed at the border. 

She would then lead the way, and she spoke as they walked. "My name is Alivia. Truthfully, I'm no healer." She knew it was a title the Guild members took seriously. "I'm just the resident medic. I trained with a Vitale for a little while." She gave a sideways glance to check if the man recognized the surname. The Vitale line of physicians began as members of the Guild originally, but they were now considered more of an offshoot. The main ideological difference seemed to be that all of the Vitales rejected the title "healer," preferring to use other words to describe their specialties.

"May I ask who you apprenticed with?" Alivia was well-travelled herself, and it was not unreasonable to think she may have encountered this man's master.

The physician followed willingly, though he was still a little on-edge. Leto hadn't given the best impression of this pack, but then again, Aureli did not have the best impression of her. Perhaps there was something to that.

"Aureli," he spoke his name in turn, simply and succinctly. At the woman's declaration, he shifted a pointed glance back toward the male, who had insisted they had a healer among them. Though his own title was physician, he used it interchangeably with words like healer and medic and medicine man, generally sticking with whatever title made his patients most comfortable. The healing arts were many, varied, and widely practiced — he would correct misinformation, but he well knew that there were other right ways to go about things. That there were practices that he did not yet know, but that he would do well to employ.

He had hoped he might learn more from Alivia, but he was becoming more and more skeptical.

Then again — the name of Vitale did recapture his interest. He recognized it easily enough, but hearing it aloud again? It brought Aureli back to the earliest days of his apprenticeship. One of the first stops he and Ulysses had made had been at a pack with a practitioner of that particular branch. Perhaps a wolf who had studied under them, or perhaps just an admirer of that school of thought. Aureli hadn't know enough to pay attention.

He had been so terribly young.

It was only revisiting the memories now that he found something suspect in the stop. They'd stayed a week, though none had been ill within the pack. Ulysses had spent quiet time with the healer, and with the fresh, blue-eyed babes that his younger self — Rémi, as he'd been known back then — had found so annoying.

It struck Aureli only now that they'd been his master's children.

He blinked and he was back in the present, silent a beat too long after a question had been asked of him.

"His name was Ulysses," he replied, his voice heavy. But his voice was always heavy. "He died three summers back."

It felt like longer ago. It felt like yesterday.

"I do not know much of the Vitale teachings," he informed her, bluntly side-stepping further conversation about his master. "Why do you not call yourself a healer?"

He tried to make this sound like a polite question rather than a demand. They were deep within her territory, after all — but perhaps he only partially succeeded.

The journeyman trailed behind the two as they chatted, ears flicking here and there as he shamelessly listened in on the conversation.

He knew very little of the world of healers - it was a useful skill no doubt, but it had always gone in one ear and out the other. He much preferred being the patient.

In his birth pack, healing was very much women's work. He was sure that his father would have been horrified to see him so much as sniff a flower, then again what Cinar did was considered women's work too. All talk, no claws. An exception had been made for his lack of scent. But for all of his reflection after the shock of just how different the Teekon Wilds were.. it still sparked his curiosity to see a male healer.

Then again, he had the attitude to be of a different kind of persuasion as far as Cinar could tell. That would make a lot of sense.

Cinar chose to accompany them, which surprised Alivia not at all. He seemed to like to keep an eye on all the happenings in the Caldera territory. 

Ulysses. The name wasn't familiar to Alivia, and if he had been gone for three summers, she was unlikely to remember him even if they had crossed paths. 

Aureli zeroed in quickly on Alivia's hesitancy around the word healer.  "Oh, well, actually none of the Vitales use that title. It encourages, um.." How had Miro phrased it exactly..? "It encourages magical thinking. Like, the idea that healing is some mystical force that only special wolves can access. My teacher used to say, 'I'm not a healer. I don't heal the body. The body heals itself.'  He wanted his patients to take responsibility for their own recovery, and not to rely on someone else to heal them." 

Ugh, she had explained that terribly. Truthfully, it all seemed like silly semantics to her. She didn't call herself a healer because she wasn't one, plain and simple. Most of the time when she was at her clinic, she felt like a puppy playing pretend. Her heart leapt into her throat at the thought that anyone might actually show up with a medical issue. 

As they arrived at the clinic, Alivia took them past the entryway to the den, instead leading them around to the herb garden. She gestured toward the shabby, overgrown patch of herbs. At some point in the Caldera's history, some medic had gone to the trouble to plant the garden, but it had clearly been some time since it was tended. 

"Aureli, I was really hoping to get your opinion on this.. garden." That was using the word loosely. "I don't know much about herbs. I don't know if there's anything salvageable. We have a mother giving birth soon, so if there's anything here that could help with that, I'd be grateful if you could show me." 

The request was unlikely to have a positive effect on the healer's somewhat off-putting demeanor, which Alivia was intentionally ignoring. She would endure his attitude happily if there was a possibility she might learn something.

This explanation made good sense to Aureli, even if he felt no call toward such distinctions himself. He'd found that the best way to curtail such expectations came down to his relationship with each individual patient — but the Vitales were respectable practitioners regardless of any differing ideology.

"Technically, the rank and title I have attained is physician," he replied, keeping steady pace alongside the young woman, "but I allow the communities I serve to address me as best makes them comfortable. Sometimes, that is the difference between being allowed to help and being shunned for 'deviant' practices."

He wondered what other differences there might be, and then recalled that Yellowcat, another physician of the Guild, had insisted on being referred to exclusively as The Doctor. Every practitioner was different.

They came to the small garden, which Aureli took an interest in almost before being asked. He'd never had an opportunity to keep a garden himself, but he remembered Nandi's with a peculiar fondness.

"I don't have much of a green thumb," he admitted, nosing through some of the herbs to test their potency. "I can tell you about their usual growing conditions, and I can help prune, if you'd like — and these," he indicated the raspberry that was the main culprit in choking out the garden, "are an herb I always keep on hand during childbirth. Is this the mother's first birth?"

He ignored Cinar. (Sorry Xenon he's got a one track mind)

I keep falling behind on this thread, so you guys can feel free to skip me from here on! Just assume Cinar is creeping and tag if you need me to come in again!