Dragoncrest Cliffs i could never get the hang of thursday

Her teeth lacerate the Rusalka wolf’s throat and every subsequent event after is a blur, hardly a memory, and it’s not until the next morning that she finally comes to. Exhaustion from the adrenaline leaves a nasty headache and a stiff body. She opens her eyes slowly, cloaked in the morning light broken from the tall redwoods. The bright light sends a shooting pain into her head and she slowly rights herself. Crusted blood cakes her throat and shoulder, unsure where his ends and hers begins, but the throb of puncture and tear likely needs attention.

Finally, she gets moving, but her eyes are half closed and if she makes a call for a healer (whom is likely busy), she’ll make the pain worse. She just needs to get somewhere to clean herself off and evaluate what has to be taken care of so she can find Rose later.

Her legs stagger beneath her every so often as she tries herself to the northern corner of the cliffs where it declines and opens up to the only salt water accessible without going down into Hougeda. Any rough slopes might lead to crumbling and she decides to take the careful route as low tide laps at the sandy shores. The damp sand parts beneath her feet and as soon as she touches the cold, salty water, she collapses into the froth. As the water breaks away at the dried blood, smears of red coat the sand and white caps.

adrenaline from the fight still throbs through her when she wakes, making her head feel foggy, like she's hungover. for a few moments blix just lies there, letting her brain sort through the details of yesterdays events -- the brute's appearance on the borders, furi and ephraim and opalia and her fighting, the girl, the rest of the invaders in the territory. a lot of it blurs together with only key details (the sight of furi slicing through the invaders throat, the feeling of the girl's slim leg in her mouth) sticking out. 

she's sore, her muscles tired and she bears some small lacerations from the girl's struggling against her, but nothing, in blix's mind, to write home about. rising slowly she figures she'll go find rose but more importantly, mallaidh, who, as she recalls, was hurt much worse. her worry turns to alarm as she follows her friend's scent, which is overriden by the sharp scent of blood. "furi," blix calls softly, approaching the collapsed figure in the surf. her wounds look worse than blix remembered; she watches tendrils of red swirl into the water for a moment, anxiously mesmorized. 

"mallaidh," she corrects herself, leaning down to nose at her injuries carefully. "shit. we need to call rose, yeah?"

She hears her name behind her, ear twitching backward, but water reaches up and covers half her face and nose. She snorts and shakes her head, slowly lifting her head and turning as Blixen comes in close. Why does she always shove her nose into the spots that hurt the most? Mallaidh growls in response, shifting so that she can get away from the touches. As gentle as they may be, they still hurt, and she’s still too groggy to know she’s only trying to help.

The matter fur of her throat and chest are water-logged, blood soaking further down and onto her legs. She doesn’t really hear what Blixen has to say and, sluggishly turns her head to her girlfr—

Mallaidh narrows her eyes a bit. That’s not right.

“I think I need P—” she pauses, remembering she’s gone. Or dead. Or something. “Help. Rose.”

okay, furi admitting she needs help? this is serious. "yeah, okay, i'll call her," blix says, voice gentle. she lifts her head and calls out for @Rose, her tone urgent. she wants to do something more -- lick the wounds clean? -- but furi's growling reminds her to uh, not touch right now.

"jeez," blix says, frowning, "why do you always gotta be the one to get hurt so bad?" the words don't mean much, just babbling to keep her from panicking until rose can show up and make things better... and that's a little frustrating, isn't it, that blix can't be the one to fix things after. "gotta work harder to keep you from getting hurt in the first place," she muses aloud unthinkingly, fairly sure furi won't hear her anyway.

Mallaidh flinches when Blixen makes the call as if she hadn’t been expecting it, but she really hadn’t thought about how she’d do it. Still, the sound penetrates through her thoughts and she slowly lowers back to the ground.

“At least I’m not dead,” she says with closed eyes. A weird sort of laugh escapes her mouth. Her brother had the chance, once, but he wouldn’t—couldn’t?—do it. She hadn’t meant to kill him. Him. She doesn’t even know his name! Is it better that way? Would she have been able to do it if she had known him?

Her questions are cut short when her left ear starts ringing and her head instantly cocks downward in response. She tries to shake her head, only managing a slightly shift from right to left, with no help to the deafening sound.

"don't even joke about that," blixen says weakly, her heart stuttering at the thought. mallaidh is a strong and capable warrior -- she knows this! -- but she's not immortal. blix just has to make sure she's got her back, then. better than she has been. what if those rulsaka wolves decide they want another round?

a small whine escapes her into the space between them as she moves closer, watching furi slowly shake her head. "what's up?" she tries, not sure what to make of it. water in her ears?

Rose was not a fan or war or the endless trail of pain it seemed to leave in it's wake, both mentally and physically. She had not even participated in the actual battle and yet she felt as if a freight train had struck her dead, for she was exhausted after the constant running around to make sure no one died from their injuries.

Just as she caught a break and thought she had snagged a moment to rest yet another urgent howl went up requesting her presence. Blixen. She wasted little time in gathering what she needed and immediately set off towards the fleimkepa's location.

To Rose's surprise it was not her fellow redhead that needed attention when she arrived but rather Mallaidh who seemed to be soaking in a pool of her own blood. The sight made her stomach do flips and she grimaced at the pain she could only imagine her friend was in. "Can you stand? I need to take a closer look at the wounds" she says as she slips into the cool water, moving to give a gentle nudge to the girl's dark muzzle in a silent attempt at getting her to stand.

She hadn’t really been joking. It was her or him and she’s fond enough of herself that it wasn’t going to be her. Some switch flipped in her. There was before she killed someone and now after she’s killed someone. She wonders if it’s the same for Eske or Antumbra or Artaax.

”I can’t...” she starts, actually shaking her head. The ringing is still there. ”I feel like I fell off the cliffs,” she says, mostly because she doesn’t know what a truck is. She falls quiet then, trying to listen to anything but the ringing with very little success. Trying so hard causes her to miss Rose’s arrival, turning sharply to see her friend. A sloppy smile forms on her lips and she starts to stand (with much effort) to prove she can. Her legs tremble, her shoulder aches, but her friend is here.

Blood thinner by water drips from the tufts of fur in her main. The bright blood is definitely hers, looking down to finally see how much is there, before she blinks owlishly.

furi doesn't have an answer and blix doesn't really know what to do besides reach out and tuck her snout underneath her jaw, pulling away when rose shows up. she waits for the familiar pang of jealousy that usually accompanies seeing mallaidh and rose together but it doesn't come -- whether because the situation is too urgent or because she's finally over that, who knows. but rose gets furi to rise -- blix also reaches out to help support her, all too aware of her trembling.

it looks... bad. she winces, furious at herself for not arriving to the scene sooner, for not being able to stop that dead bastard from hurting her. what kind of useless guardian is she? she let wildfire leave them and she let furi get hurt. wallowing in self-pity won't help, though, so she looks to rose, expression anxious. "what can i do to help? do you need anything?" she asks, her ears laying flat, hoping she can at least contribute a little bit.

Mallaidh shakes her head a little, wincing at the pain that shoots up her shoulder, distracting her from the arrival of her friend. Sloppily, she sits down, turning to Blixen as she offers to help piece her back together. She’s much too tired to properly listen, as if her sleep had only been a pause button and not an ounce of rest absorbed. She is quiet while the other two work around her, disappearing or staying by her side, she doesn’t know who is who, as she drifts off into a slumber while they tend to her shoulder.