Blackfeather Woods There is a first for everything.

All welcome.

She noticed that she was changing. She thought differently than before. The girl knew that she had always been different from the others but now she realized that her thoughts were slowly turning away from the innocent botanist. Why did she always need to hurt? Why didn't others hurt?

She realized that she could give others pain, maybe they would understand what she was feeling. Her pale eyes looked the lifeless and rather maimed body. She didn't know this loner, one that had been starving. Kendra wanted it to feel the pain she felt but somehow she didn't have the feeling that this male felt the way she felt. Her gave was thoughtful, almost like she was studying the maimed body.

Before she had the idea that this loner felt what she went through it already died. Kendra never had a knack for hunting, not even fishing remotely interested her, yet she was dutiful to her pack. It was the reason why she dragged the broken wolf body to one of their caches. She knew that there was not a lot of meat on the beast before her. In a way she was lucky. The girl found that she might be more productive if she knew where a wolf could die easily from.

With the herds and plants returning to Teekon Wilds, she was finally ready to summon her mother's spirit. Her mind raced with ingredients and procedures, reviewing what other herbs they needed not only for the ceremony, but the herb store.

Her mind slowed to a halt as the smell of blood filled her nose. A lot of blood. A worrying amount of blood. Curious and nervous at the same time, the witch followed the scent and found a startling sight.

Kendra? She asked rhetorically, her single eye absorbing the scene: Kendra, blood on her mouth, standing over a mangled body. Had this been any other wolf from the Brotherhood, she would have passed it off. But this was Kendra. The quiet girl who studied the world around her with wide-eyed curiosity, who was reluctant to hunt and fight... Did they hurt you? She approached the carcass, wondering if she had done this out of self-defense, or...something else.

She had a few scrapes and bruises. After all she had not been skilled with killing, it was clear how mangled the body was, yet that was probably also because she wanted the other to feel pain. She had tortured the other wolf, and did not go for a direct kill because she didn't want to and because she had a few faint idea's where you could kill a wolf quickly, but not be very willing to try it.

The girl noticed that the scrapes she had might be more like cuts. Though they were shallow, the bite wound on the side of her neck did look painful. Yet she didn't show any sense of pain, it didn't hurt compared to the pain she felt before. She ignored it. Same for her sister that acted all worried. Her pale gaze turned to her sister. "Hurt is just relative aspect," she deadpanned. For another this might hurt but for her, numbed of her feelings, she managed to ignore it.

Potema frowned; another one of her siblings was recklessly letting themselves be hurt. But unlike Cicero, she didn't trust Kendra to know her limits. She was too young, too precious (not that Cicero wasn't, mind you, but Kendra wasn't an adult yet), to let this wantonly continue without some kind of supervision. That may be true, but I'd rather you not die of infection just because you ignore a wound. Potema nosed over the marks she could clearly see, noting how deep they were; any other wolf would find them painful. What was wrong with Kendra?

Were they trespassing, then? She murmured casually, still evaluating the extent of Kendra's wounds. She wasn't surprised, given what she could see of the loner's frame, that it had trespassed in search of food. The famine was hardest on the loners, whose choice to live alone rather than in a pack was their downfall. The treatment of the wolf wasn't surprising either, given the nture of their pack. But the one who dealt out the punishment...that still confused and racked her brain.

She watched her older sister with cautious eyes. She didn't think that her wound would give her any danger, but it seemed her white sister was deeming it quite dangerous. The pale eyed girl lifted her muzzle a bit, ears held back. "So are you going to treat the wound then?," she wondered, because after all she didn't know how to keep a wound from being infected.

Her sister wanted to know what happened, why the loner died. The girl slowly shook her head. It had not been trespassing, the marks on the ground showed she had been dragging it. Those marks crossed their border. The loner was close but it had not been the reason for her to kill it. She was very cryptic about what happened. She was not entirely sure if she wanted to share her reasoning with her sister.

Potema hadn't noticed the skid marks in the ground until she pulled her head away from Kendra's form, seeing the upturned dirt nearby. She made no more mention of the loner, her attention focused completely on Kendra's wounds. You're weaker now with the lack of food; any wound is dangerous. She was no therapist like...him. She took care of a wolf's mortal body and immortal soul, but never their minds. She had no cure for whatever was going on in Kendra's head, no ritual or blessing she could bestow. The mind was far past any witch's reach.

I'll come back and put this loner in the cache. Come with me to the Keep and I'll treat you. Whether any wolf would touch it was beyond her, but desperate times came desperate measures, even if the herds were starting to come back. She had some food there as well as herbs; a good meal was best to help heal a person's body. Whether it would help Kendra keep her mind off of whatever was going on...well...

She didn't agree with the other, after all she felt stronger, more closed off and away from others. The girl just let the woman across from her talk. Her pale eyes lost her innocence. It was gone now. The quirky girl that would be so happy about plants was far away, she was different. She was alone. Her eyes were glazed over, which was all pure mentally. The pain of losing all that was dear was so much that the wound didn't hurt.

It did limit her movement she realized as she followed Potema. Her adrenaline of the fight was gone. She followed but she didn't want to go to the keep, it reminded her of her mother she never knew. Of her brother when she gave him a purple paw print, and of her father who was not pleased she played with the Dark Brotherhood ink. Potema was going to treat her now. Like that was going to heal her, not.

Potema felt awkward at her sister's blank eyes and uneasy silence, but she pushed the feeling aside as she did her duty. The witch entered the tunnels, swiftly, by practice alone, taking what she needed and turning to her sister, tending to her wounds. She had no words (especially with her mouth stuffed by cobwebs and marigold), only pressing the golden leaves against her wounds and binding them with sticky cobweb. There, She declared as she finished, stepping back from the silent husk that was now her sister.

Kendra followed her sister through the tunnels she knew herself really well. She was starting to limp a bit. Though it didn't take long for them to reach the keep. She sat down and let Potema tend to her wounds. She closed her eyes, taking in the pain that came with the leaves being pressed against her wounds on her shoulder and neck. The cobwebs made sure that they were staying into place.

The girl felt the sting, but it reminded her that it didn't feel as painful as her father leaving them. She opened her pale eyes when the other spoke. Kendra turned to her and nodded shortly in thanks. With that she walked out of the keep with her wounds tended to.

Potema cleaned up the remnants of the herbs, watching as her sister silently slipped away. She huffed, a strange tightness in her chest unwilling to dissipate even though Kendra was long gone. The witch crumpled on the floor, rubbing her head as she snarled in frustration. What was she supposed to do about her? She knew nothing about consoling others, especially after such devastating times. She would have to be as nice as possible to Kendra...she supposed.