Haunted Wood no one hurts this pretty girl but her

Optional for @Swift @Allure II

Black sage. Horsetails. Cobwebs. Bazi recognized exactly one thing on the list of ingredients Swift had given her, and several days into their involuntary stay in the Haunted Wood, she had gathered a vast excess of it. Hunting down spider silk became obsession, and the fretting mother returned each hour to the temporary den of black twigs and shadow to deposit her findings. There was enough to pad the entire cell, but it wouldn't make a difference - the smell alone told Bazi that Swift was getting worse, and she hardly dared look him in the face during daylight hours.

There was nothing for them to do but wait. Bazi had expected the bears to disperse, but Morran and her crew had set up camp around the forest's perimeter, stalking the edge of the dark wood in shifts. Bazi spotted them on her way to fetch help mere hours after their initial incarceration, and again when she ventured south in hopes of escaping undetected. Each time and every time, she was rumbled, forced to slink back into the darkness to hide.

It was dark when she returned from foraging. The powers that be had been kind, and she clutched a scrawny meal between her teeth - it went to Allure, with a look that told her to share. Swift would need his food pre-chewed, and giving her daughter something to do might go some way to alleviate the terrible boredom of guarding her brother.

Each deposit his mother made he inspected with the little energy he had. He separated out any dead, wilted or otherwise unusable plants, and tidied them into their own species-specific piles, discarding any grasses or other junk that had been gathered up with them. It took him a long time to do this, for he was weak and exhausted from the trauma. He was grateful to his mother and sister both, neither of whom ever once questioned what he asked of them and made an effort to assist in any way they could.

Between the three of them, his wounds had been kept packed in fresh cobweb and covered in a paste of healing herbs; but like his mother, he could smell the sickness on him, and he knew more than even she of what was to come. He swallowed thickly, and did his best to ignore the inevitable for as long as he could. He was still but a child, and he was terrified to think of what was coming.

His mother returned from another foraging trip with a bit of food, which she passed to Allure. He could not discern the look she gave to his sister, to implore her to share, but despite the hunger in his belly, he scarcely had an appetite. And so, he did not look at nor even sniff what Bazi had brought them. He laid his head on his paws and stared with one, squinted eye into the distance.

He must have been hungry, but Swift barely noticed the scrap of meat his mother had procured. Instead, he dropped his head to his feet and pointed the empty socket and its festering sibling at the farthest point he could find. The wood was dense, and you couldn't see much further than a few meters before some vine or shrub obscured the view. A good thing when you were being stalked by bears.

Bazi sat down and watched her son watch nothing. She had a distant feeling that Something Terrible Take 2 was going to happen, but repressed it like a champ. Swift, to whom it was happening, did not have that luxury. 

Bazi cleared her throat. "Does it.. does the .." Does the one that's gone still hurt? Christ. The wolf's ears sagged on either side of her head, opening the injured ear and making its owner wince. "Can I bring something more?" she attempted lamely, wrinkling her nose when the sharp smell of decay wafted over.

He did not respond to his mother's stammering. He had an idea of what she was getting at, but he did not care to comment. He did not want to talk about it. He did not want to talk about what was coming. He did not want to talk at all. He did not even shift his gaze away from the distant point he had locked his eye to. When he spoke, his voice was as distant as his stare, and characterized by a defeated hollowness.

"No," he said. He glanced at her then, his squinted eye tracing the path the bear's claw took through his mother's ear and across her lip. Without any intervention besides cleaning, her injuries would heal on their own, but they would not close, he knew. She would carry her own reminder of the bear's attack. "You could put some horsetail on yours," he commented. "You'll be fine either way." His muzzle twitched into a sneer for all of a second, and he looked away. He did not fault his mother for anything, but he was hit with a stab of jealously that she was relatively unscathed, and his sister entirely so. He sighed deeply, casting out that resentment. It was not their fault the world hated him.

Swift did not seem particularly keen on engaging his mother's stammering, and she fell silent after his advice that she tend to her own wounds. She hadn't thought much about them - her lip occasionally split open and wept, but a crusty scab formed quickly over it each time and the torn edges were healing. There was no smell, and she wasn't tired - ergo, no infection. So much could not be said for Swift.

"We'll get out of here." It was a stupid thing to say, because it wasn't definite. Certainly not for Swift. He wasn't eating, and the two girls were barley partway nourished by the squirrels and rats that Bazi managed to catch. For one horrifying second she considered cutting her losses - the sort of thought her own mother might have had in this situation. The notion's brief presence in her head gave a boost to the almost ever-present nausea, and the Grove queen sank down to her belly in an effort to stifle it. "If you're better tomorrow, I'll lead them away. You and your sister will have to go north and skirt back around." Her voice was thick and slow, like a sauce. As if planning would make it happen. "They must be getting tired by now, waiting for us like this." And where was the pack? Where was Scimitar? Had she pushed her mate too far this time?

He exhaled audibly, not quite in a snort, but disbelief was evident in his breath. She sounded sure, but he was anything but. While she considered cutting her losses, he considered a sacrifice. He knew that the odds were not in his favor now, and would be even less so the following morning. In fact, the odds would never be in his favor again. The path which was destined to be laid before him the moment that bear dragged her malicious claws through his face was rife with challenge. He swallowed thickly, and just as the words started to rise on his tongue, his mother spoke again.

"I should be the one to go." He said, after several moments of silence. "I am holding you both back." A tear welled in the corner of his remaining eye, and he squeezed his eye shut, sending the droplet down his cheek.

"Don't be absurd." It was plainly spoken, and the 's' was hard. A flash of anger straightened out the stammer in a flash "If we can't make a run for it, together, dad and Kaskara will find us." She had to believe that the pack would come for them - Scimitar was not the sort of wolf that abandoned his family to die, even if he wasn't getting on with his mate particularly well. He was the type to agonize over the past, however, and Bazi was not looking forward to the ten years of moodiness that would no doubt follow when he saw what the bear had done to his child's face. The thought made her sigh. "Have you had enough water?" she grumbled, eyeing Swift for any signs of dehydration.

He sniffed hard, reaching for composure, willing that no more tears slide down his cheek. His sour personality and pessimism on the best of days made it all the more difficult for him now, to believe that they would get out, that if they could not run they would be found. But he said nothing more, and in silence he chewed his cheek.

"Have you had enough water?" she asked, and he shifted his mouth. He had to think on this, for his mind had been so consumed with fear that he scarcely noticed his own thirst. "I could use a drink," he murmured, realizing that his tongue felt pasty and seemed to stick to his mouth. His mother and sister had brought him water and food before now, but he had consumed little of either.