Witch's Marsh broken arrows

The thread where she gets injured hasn't played out entirely, so consider this a sneak peek?! It's set directly east of the marsh, just outside JFG's borders. ATTN: @Swift. :)

Her eyelids cracked open slowly but Reggie didn't have the strength to lift her head from its dewy bed on the grass. She could see a sliver of the pink dawn sky and she certainly felt the chill of the cold October morning. More than anything, though, she felt the pain in her maimed foreleg. It throbbed and burned and ached all at once. For the first time in her short life, little Regipre cried, albeit silently. Tears welled in her eyes and dripped into a pool beside her head.

Shortly after daybreak, she found the strength to roll onto her side and sit up partially. She looked at her leg and felt like she was doomed. The bones were broken, the flesh ravaged. It was definitely beyond repair. The young coyote would be disfigured for life... if she even survived. She had stopped bleeding sometime during the prior night, though there was no way to tell whether the wounds would knit neatly or if infection would ravage her.

Reggie lay there a long time, not sure what to do next. As the hours stretched on, she lapsed into a sort of trance-like state. During this catatonia of sorts, she did something she would not have done while fully conscious. She began to teeth the spot where her mutilated foreleg met her chest. Her fangs broke through the skin but she did not so much as blink. Reggie carved through her own flesh, blood and bone, snapping her humerus and then snipping apart the last few sinews that connected her leg to her body.

It eventually dropped like dead weight, which was all it was now. Her pale eyes stared at it uncomprehendingly for a long time, as blood began to pool around her chest. Absently, the young coyote began to lick at the fresh wound. She didn't cease until the flow began to slow. She meant to keep licking it until the bleeding stopped altogether but she swooned before that could happen, slumping gently into the slick grass.

The sharp scent of urine greeted his nostrils. He had not come so far since the attack, and he was intent to turn back on the trail he had laid to reach the borders, if not for the drift of wind that smelled so rich with blood. He halted, feeling the fur lift on his spine, and he clenched his jaw as he forced back to the torrent of memories that threatened to break through the dam he had so carefully laid in his mind. He had no business on the borders; it was not his place. He could not see. He could not defend. He could mark, but the borders were not in need of his contribution.

He turned his head over his shoulder, his body arcing to go back from where he came, to retreat to the relative safety of his home, but he paused mid-step. The smell of blood triggered two responses within his breast: fear, but also a sense of duty. What if it was a packmate, his family, that bled and needed his aid? He expelled all his breath in a huff mixed of frustration and uncertainty. He turned into the wind, and followed it along the edge of the grove, until he had gone so far west as he could without crossing the marks. He was close, the scent now recognizable as coyote, was just out there.

His steps were tentative. He was alert, flinching at every noise. He should not be here, but he was compelled. Soon, he reached her. His ears flicked forward. He knew by scent he was mere steps from the coyote, but he heard nothing. Blood was thick in the air. He chuffed, and there was no response. The boy growled. Once more, he tried to turn and head back, but as if controlled by a puppeteer, he next was at the coyote's side. His neck stretched out until his nose poked a limp form. He drew back quickly, fearful of retaliation, scrabbling back several feet. His muscles were tense, his fur bristled.

He waited.

The low growl caused her to stir restlessly. She sensed danger and some part of her subconscious prodded her to wake, warning her that Saena and her minions had found her. It wasn't until something touched her that Reggie woke properly. She bolted upright, only to tip forward when she went to place weight on her missing leg. She yelped as her raw wound impacted with the ground. She almost passed out from the pain of it. But the sight of her amputated leg lying nearby had the same effect as a shot of espresso. She froze, staring at it in disbelief and horror.

Perhaps twenty seconds passed, then Reggie flinched as pain seared up her leg, even though it was no longer attached to her body. She made a hissing noise under her breath as pain wracked her phantom limb. She clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. When it finally ebbed somewhat, they popped open with a ragged gasp. That was when she finally noticed the wolf and she sucked in a rapid breath, instinctively flinching away.

But then she grew still, her pale eyes widening when she saw his face. His eyes were missing and there were deep, angry scars across his cheeks. Regipre swallowed and continued staring for a long moment before saying in a weak, raspy voice, "Your eyes." Right then, another agonizing bolt of pain seared through her missing leg and she added miserably, "My leg."

The sudden commotion of the coyote jumping up and her sharp yelp of pain sent Swift fleeing, but in his blind haste he stumbled over a boulder not two feet from where he had been standing. He lay cowering, his nails driven into the ground, his tail curled about him, and his fur like quills along his spine. He expected pain, an attack, something, but there was nothing, and then she spoke. He relaxed, but only just — his muscles remained tense and his heart continued to beat wild.

"Your leg?" he straightened up until he was sitting, facing in her direction. His ears were pricked forward. He swallowed. "It's hurt? I—I can help," he stammered, though his scar-torn face scrunched as he contemplated his own offer. He leaned forward, prepared to move toward her to inspect her injury, if she would let him near. Yet still there remained a part of him that wished to turn tail and run home.

For a moment, she thought he might flee. She wondered how on earth he managed to get around without eyes. Before she could think too long on it, he questioned her about her leg, asking if it was hurt. Swallowing, she glanced at the disembodied limb again. It wasn't just hurt, it was dead. It even looked the part; it was a sallow gray color, the blood on the end black and sticky, which suddenly made her stomach turn.

"It's gone," she choked in a quiet voice. It was slowly coming back to her: she had removed it herself. A shudder passed through her. "I chewed it off," she added almost too quietly to hear, a strange sensation welling up in her chest. She hadn't cried much in her young life, though, and she didn't intend to start now. She swallowed again, trying to take deep, steadying breaths.

Whatever instinct was compelling him not to come to the coyote's aid was overtaken by empathy when she told him she chewed her own leg off. It struck to close to home for the recently blinded boy, who had to remove his own eye to spare his blood from an infection that would have killed him. Gingerly, he nosed around her leg until he could see in his mind's eye what was left for him to treat.

"I can help. Wait here," he said softly. He turned and with his nose to the ground scenting his own pawprints, he traced his path back to the grove. He was deliberate in his quest, and soon gathered a thick supply of cobweb and a few choice plants whose locations he had remembered from his scouting.

When he returned, he crouched beside her and set to work. "This might sting a bit, but bear..." he paused abruptly, swallowing thickly. "Bear with me." His tongue gently removed bits of debris and earth that had become lodged in her wound, before he gathered two plants between his teeth - one for pain, and one to promote healing and prevent infection - and chewed them into a mash which he applied thereafter. He pulled large swaths of cobweb from the stick he used to gather it, and binded her leg until, when he touched around with his nose he could feel no more raw, open wound. Just fur and cobweb.

"That should help," he murmured. "Your leg's not going to grow back but I mean, it could heal over and you'll be able to get around well enough with three."

Reggie recoiled inwardly when the eyeless wolf nosed around her amputated leg. She felt bile rising in her throat, though his sudden departure distracted her. Her pale eyes followed him, watching with trepidation as he navigated elsewhere. She was impressed despite herself. If he could learn to get around without eyes, surely she would be able to adapt to life with only three legs.

But would she even survive the trauma? The young coyote waited (it wasn't like she had much choice) and realized she had never felt weaker. By the time the blind wolf returned, her head had sunk down to the ground. Regipre didn't lift it when he came closer; she couldn't. Her ears twitched slightly when he spoke to her. She was curious about the plants but found she was having trouble even keeping her eyes open.

Scared she was dying, Reggie fought to stay awake. Fortunately (or unfortunately), he began to tend to the open wound and it shocked her awake. A breath hissed through her teeth and Regipe felt like she might pass out from the pain. As a matter of fact, she blacked out twice while the other youth wrapped the raw flesh with a makeshift poultice.

He seemed quite optimistic about her prognosis when all was said and done. Reggie could barely think for the pain wracking her body. She grit her teeth together, helpless as tears streamed silently down her cheeks. She was just grateful he couldn't see her cry.

He had been well aware of the pain his ministrations caused, of how she blacked out while he tended her, of the weakness that had entered her. It was all expected; it was shock, it was blood loss. She needed time to recover. He could not see her cry, but he sensed the somberness in the quiet between them; or perhaps he was simply reliving his own emotions, thrust back to the time when he was in a situation not so different from hers. It was several minutes before he broke the silence as he sat with her. "A bear took my eye," he murmured. "I had to take the other one out. It was going to kill me. It was sick."

She blinked when he told her the circumstances behind his missing eyes. Like her leg, he had been forced to remove one of his own body parts. She wondered how tearing out an eyeball compared to chewing off a leg. Reggie's mouth drew into a grim line. But his story gave her a little bit of hope. Again, if he could survive without eyes... then surely she could make it too.

"You're a healer," she observed in a quiet croak. It wasn't a question. He was young but he had treated her wounds with expertise. "Tell me what to do to survive," Regipre requested almost too quietly to hear, cheeks still wet. She was so exhausted in every way. Her eyes closed but her ears stayed open.

"Mmhmm," he hummed without offering any details; he did not care to explain to her the nature of his know-how. Fortunately, she did not ask, inquiring instead about what she could do to survive. Feeling a kinship with the stricken coyote, he shared with her enough that she could keep her leg cleaned and tended: cobweb for binding the wound, broadleaf plantain to heal and prevent infection, black sage for pain relief. The rest was up to her, to learn to adapt, and to look out for herself; comments that were also spoken before he left her to rest and returned home.