Otatso Wetlands ii. pain and guilt
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All Welcome 
backdated 02.17.18

❝ is it getting better
or do you feel the same?
will it make it easier on you now
if you've got someone to blame? ❞



the mute woman was on the run again.  the devil had sought her out in the form of a man and he had come to her on the cusp of darkness seeking to defile her.  the thought was fresh upon her mind as she surged away from the lakeside.

she scarcely noticed when the snowfall had begun to pick up until it clouded her vision entirely, swirling around her in beautifully dangerous arcs.

it terrified her.

storms always had and this one was not much different;  the wind was howling and the air bit uncomfortably against her wet limbs.. but what frightened her the most was that she could not see.

it caused her to bolt until the faintest tree-line came into view, and lucky enough she was able to reach it and cower in relative safety.

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Because of the storm, pping +/- paging @Stockholm. ♥

The helicopters, while not particularly unfamiliar to the Gampr and his Groenendael, tended to be bothersome. The wild wolves hated them and Coelacanth herself wasn’t terribly fond of them — so, as bombproof as he was, Stockholm sheltered where Seelie sheltered, fled when Seelie fled, and generally didn’t question her judgment. Even now, as the sheepdog pressed eagerly through the snow, he trusted her — though he would have preferred being the one to break the trail so she didn’t die of frostbite or something. When she stopped to pant and gather herself, he nibbled at one feathered hip as though to urge her, “Let me help you,” and at first it seemed she would relent…

…but a flash of dark fur in the distance caught her eye.

The copse of trees they found themselves in provided a badly needed break in the weather. Seelie didn’t have the coat or the tolerance for such conditions — even more reason to return to the island, which remained untouched by the whirling winter storm. Now that they could move a little easier, she attempted to shake the snow from her fur — but it had clotted together in little balls and clumps. She looked more sheep than sheepdog as she began moving cautiously toward the figure in the distance, not actually sure it was a canid she faced, a prey animal, or just part of the scenery.
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sorry she's done being gross

she trembled beneath the wooded sentinels, her narrow limbs quaking beneath her body.  her ears lay flat on either side of her head as soft, nearly inaudible whines ghosted into the vast and blinding swath of white.

she felt dirty.  she smelled like blood and sweat and come, and she sought to move the latter from her body, sweeping across her ventral regions frantically with her tongue.  it was another distraction, though this time it was unwelcome, and she worked until she was satisfied that she was clean, until her skin was wet and irritated from the friction.

but she ran out of distractions and the snow kept falling.  silently, she cried out, fear and shame sweeping off her in waves.

she almost believes the movement in the distance to be an apparition, a hallucination, but as they move closer and become more visible her cries become screams as she begs for someone, oh please i don't want to be alone anymore!  blood pools out of her gaping wounds as she exerts herself, and fearfully her cries become quiet as she begins to lick what she can reach.

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In truth, Coelacanth did not want to be separated from Stockholm in any capacity — but she worried that his hulking frame would frighten the creature whose shrill cries and heady scent trail assailed the Groenendael’s senses with the capricious malice of a winter storm. The female was wounded, which caused the empath to quicken her pace, even as she bestowed upon her beloved guardian a pleading gaze that begged with liquid eloquence, “Stay here, and protect me.”

Coelacanth crept nearer, the set of her carriage more alarmed than guilty. The scent of sex lingered upon Reigi, but fortunately Seelie could not detect the dizzying ambrosia that would signify estrus; if she could have, possessiveness of Stockholm might have driven her toward an entirely different set of behaviors. Maybe the Gampr felt it, too — a strange, spiraling whirlwind the sheepdog was helpless to explain. A growing tension she had no name for. She pushed it aside.

A low, crooning purr, interrupted by inquisitive little chirps, hummed within the column of her throat as she drew nearer to the female. She moved slowly, her keen physician’s eye settling immediately on the lacerations slashed haphazardly across Reigi’s flank. Tufted ears slicked back against her skull as she lowered her body and paused midstep, the tilt of her finely-sculpted head asking quite plainly whether the wild wolf would tolerate her approach. Her Neptune eyes were observant, but very, very careful not to make eye contact with the larger female. “I am nice,” bespoke the curl of her haunches into a seated position, the entreating wave of one catlike paw.

“I am harmless and nice.”
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if it had been any other, perhaps she would have become frightened and met them with the frenzied clacking of her ivories despite her desire for makeshift camaraderie. 

but instead the raven's gaze set first upon the expressive neptune eyes that sat cartoonishly large in her slim skull, then flickered up to her long and tapered ears.  there was something wild about this stranger, too.  she could hear it in the strained vocalizations that she offered, in the sweeping motions of her limbs.

it eased her.  her mismatched gaze bore into coelacanth for a moment before offering a weary and suppliant whine in return, craning her head down to the snow.

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Coelacanth studiously avoided the wolf’s mismatched stare, keeping an ample amount of distance between herself and the bedraggled woman until that dark, swanlike neck craned and a pleading whine slipped from that pain-curled mouth. Perceiving these things as implicit permission to approach, still the sheepdog was infinitely cautious as she crept nearer on nervous paws. For a prolonged moment, she simply allowed the wounded bird to become accustomed to her presence, keeping the carriage of her body low and nonthreatening. There was no telling how a patient might react, particularly if the healer’s ministrations caused pain — and, more often than not, they did.

Cautiously, Coelacanth scooped up mouthfuls of snow and applied them liberally to the worst of the lacerations; she feared that packing the deep furrows too heavily would cause pain and potentially do more harm than good. Still, the cold from the snow would numb the wounds and allow her to tend them with less discomfort to her patient — and with it being the middle of winter, she couldn’t do much more than clean them. She didn’t think the woman would follow her to the seaside, where the saline could do its work. Whuffing softly to catch her patient’s attention, the empath stretched out on her side in the snow, then swept her nose toward Reigi. She repeated these two gestures several times, hoping the woman might catch her drift and lay with her lacerations against the soft snow. Seelie simply wasn’t covering enough ground by trying to apply it mouthful by mouthful — and this way, she could work on the scruff wounds, which seemed less critical.
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this woman was a blondine.

the realization came to her in the careful, clinical way that coelacanth observed her, in the timorous movement of her sweeping limbs.  

reigi watched intently as the fae swept up mouthfuls of white and pressed them against her wounds — the cold burned at first and then it lapsed into blissfull nothing.  she'd have to show blondine.

the woman stopped her packing and began to roll in the snow, and for the first few times reigi did not understand.  but the motions were precise and repetitive, and suddenly it clicked in her brain.

dutifully, she rolled over, and awaited more care; as soon as the woman came close again (should she allow it), reigi's tongue would flit from her mouth and dot the girl's cheek and chin with thank-you kisses.

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The injured female bathed Coelacanth’s cheek and chin in kisses, eliciting a response that could loosely be interpreted as the canid version of scuffing one’s boot and muttering, “aww, shucks.” Tufted ears tipped forward in surprise, then folded shyly; slim muzzle parted on a half-yawn, and Seelie whuffed away the gratitude, tossing the snow from her fur with a brisk shake.

The scruff wounds weren’t terrible but the fur and blood had matted together to form a thick scab. Not many creatures enjoyed having scabs ripped off them, in the Groenendael’s experience. She sluiced the wound with snowmelt and nibbled experimentally at the fur around it, but the bruised flesh quaked and shuddered spasmodically. It was still too tender, so she continued methodically packing snow against the girl’s nape. It would be some time before she tried again.
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i did not get a noti for this, my dear! i am sorry!

perhaps this other girl was not as feral and unlearned as she was, but the silence that lapsed between them comforted reigi.  it was one thing to be accepted, and it was another to be understood.

she did not voice her discomfort as the groenendael worked the delicate matted mess at the back of her neck.  instead, she closed her eyes and pretended that she was somewhere else.  maybe back in bearclaw, but maybe wherever this girl lay her head at night, their two tiny forms nestled together in the most innocently intimate way.

an appreciative whine worked its way from her throat, but it seemed far away.

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The melted snow, plied with gentle sweeps of the sheepdog’s tongue, moistened the grisly mat of fur and blood even as the cold numbed the inflamed flesh of Reigi’s nape. This time when Seelie nibbled at the surrounding area, there was no involuntary quivering — so she set about removing the scabs and the fur around it with quick, decisive snips of her incisors. Despite the care she’d taken, hurting the distinctively marked female was inevitable; and she kept a watchful eye lest the instinctive urge to nip or bite at the source of pain overwhelmed her patient. When Reigi’s discomfort grew too great, Seelie backed off, applied more snow, and started again.

The Gampr emerged cautiously from the shadows a good distance from the pair — checking on his aralez. She was delighted to see him, having decided that the nameless female was truly a friend and therefore worthy of greeting and being greeted by her mate. Her feathered tail eagerly stirred up a miniature snowstorm behind her. She did not rise to meet him, deciding that staying in her prone position might help her skittish new companion adjust to the new face, but her sleek hindquarters began wiggling feverishly with excitement anyway. To reassure the raven, she supplanted her streamlined muzzle with snowmelt kisses. Then, in a combination of posturing and frail vocal signals, she sweetly conveyed to the heavier wolfdog that Reigi was hungry.

It was probably all gibberish to the bi-eyed girl, but Stockholm was fluent in Seeliese and excused himself good-naturedly to locate a nearby cache with a low chuff. Whether the wild woman was hungry or not, Seelie couldn’t say — but wounds didn’t heal when wolves didn’t eat.



It took some coaxing, but at last Stockholm returned and the woman was persuaded to eat; she never got within touching range of the Gampr, because Seelie was protective both of her mate and her patient and served as the privacy curtain that winnowed unobtrusively but implacably between them. Only after the wild woman’s wounds were fully tended to — at least, to the best of her current ability given winter’s floral famine — did Seelie withdraw, persuading Stockholm to call across the distance that if the woman ever needed sanctuary, she need only head north to the sea, where the wolves of Undersea ensconced themselves in an idyllic island paradise.