Grouse Thicket Where the wild things are.

Curiosity drove her from Rusalka's limits and down south, followiing the river, which turned out to be a good choice as it kept her from the foul smelling bog near to it. Stryx thought she could find fresh herbs if she went far enough. The forest rose up around her through the humid mist, giving shelter and shadows, but Stryx found the air thicker beneath the cover of the trees and she did not enjoy the taste. As she roamed she came across some clusters of weeds, shoots that looked like wild garlic and onion, and further along a nest of ratty flowers. She lingered by these, noticing how many of the wide red petals had fallen from the buds - and others looked chewed up - which made her wonder if this was deer territory. The thought caused her belly to rumble.

hope its ok to hop in here! successful hunt roll in the tabletop for the grouse :)

the mist that hangs over the thicket is so deep it is difficult to see through. it swallows everything up like a layer of snow over the ground; the soft crunch of leaves and twig under his paws seems to quiet even before it starts, as though he walks through a separate world altogether. he follows the lingering trails of game birds and the sunlight struggling to break through the mist and the heavy canopy of the trees, muzzle lowered to the earth, ears angled and waiting.

caligula is beginning to feel slightly more comfortable here. he has wandered over hills, across mountains, through streams and forest, and for the most part he walks to a peaceful silence, one broken only by the wildlife any might expect to encounter and the few wolves who had…well. simple conversations are – they are not something he enjoys, necessarily, but no one yet has –

a bird coos softly nearby. caligula freezes in place, but it is not a pause driven by fear – it is the pause of an animal catching sight of its prey, the stillness of a waiting predator. it has been a while since he has eaten; long enough that the call reminds him, makes his stomach growl insistently as he stands there. he does not bother to consider it. he crouches, drops until the tangled fur of his belly brushes the dirt, and waits, breath slow and quiet, waiting for the bird to call again – and when it does, he creeps forward, winding carefully through the mist until he has the animal in his sights.

it is a grouse, what he has been scenting all along, coated in speckled brown-and-white feathers, oblivious to his presence. it picks at the early summer green of shoots sprouting from the ground and does not seem to notice as he draws closer and closer, breath held to a catch in his throat, and leaps.

it notices him then. it launches into flight in a rustle of feathers, but caligula is past watching it – it is instinct moving him now, a knife-edged thing that snaps his jaws shut like a steel-toothed trap at the perfect time to crunch down upon the delicate bones of its wing, and though it struggles, there is nothing such a bird can do to free itself from the cage of a wolf’s teeth.

caligula snaps his head back hastily, searching for a more effective grip – he has no wish to feel it writhing under his jaws, to beat out the last of its life, struggling for escape from the cage that now surrounds it. but as he flips it into the air, the copper-and-salt of blood flooding his nose, he glimpses the flicker of something nearby.

his entire body flinches away, thoroughly beyond his control; his head turns, and the instinct driving him – the instinct to fill his empty belly, the instinct to eat – wars with the fear that always accompanies the sight of something, of someone, unfamiliar. his jaws snap closed, levered over the breast of his prey; the rest of his body, unbalanced, jerks him away, and he stumbles as he draws back, neck pulled back to his shoulders as his gaze comes to rest on the slate-and-silver figure before him.

The next few moments were a mess of movement and noise, all of which drew her attention and made her stiff-legged and wary. From the underbrush came a steely figure - ahead of which was some kind of plump bird - and when the target tries to escape the charging wolf appears to have anticipated every movement, every flap of wing or bolt of its little legs, and Stryx watched with mild fascination as the wolf grappled with a wing and snapped it, the sound causing Stryx to flinch.

She was not ignorant to the juxtaposition of her vocation against the needs of her body; she could hunt, she did hunt, and felt little remorse over the deaths of her own quarry. It was the sound of those tiny bones splintering to the scythes of teeth that hurt her, somewhere deep and unexplored. Perhaps her dealings with Raleska had stirred something inside of her - some kind of weakness, one she hoped would be brief. The world was harsh and she had to remind herself of that fact; it was only a bird. A meal for someone in need.

And then he was standing over the bird and breathing hard, pinning it down broken wing and all. Stryx hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath until she felt the sting in her lungs and exhaled loud enough for the hunter to take notice of her - and then they stared at one-another, a hesitation. He stumbles, draws in to himself, and gapes.

All she can do is blink owlishly at him for a moment, but then she offers an olive-branch of sorts by saying, Good catch.

hunting is by no means caligula’s favorite task, or even a task he enjoys. to eat is necessary to live, and for everything that has happened – perhaps it is determination or pure stubborn spite holding him together, that keeps him moving. perhaps just the fear of what it would be like to die.

it is not something he cares to examine too closely.

a wolf should enjoy such a kill. he did, at one time. but in this moment, the salt-smell of blood and the splinter of bone and the sudden jolt of terror all combine to a nauseous roil in his stomach. he drops the body to his feet – his startled recoil has placed him several feet away from the stranger – trying very hard to breathe; the air rasps in and out of his lungs, thick with moisture, every fiber of his body singing a warning that is familiar, by now, too familiar –

– she speaks.

the words swirl back and forth for a long moment, refusing to register. caligula stares at her, his lips shiny with blood, though the body is far enough away that he tastes mostly clean air and grass and animal with each gasping inhale. the tenseness of his shoulders relaxes by degrees when she does not move, when she merely blinks at him instead.

it is perhaps not the ideal meeting. but no teeth have been bared, no harsh words exchanged, and perhaps someday, that knowledge will actually do something for him; for now, no matter what he knows, it is not enough to control the spiking adrenaline, even if he maintains enough presence of mind to be able to force it back down.

it takes him an extended, awkward moment to reply, though at least his stomach has stopped threatening to revolt.

“i…thank you?” bewildered confusion threads his words together. he stares for a moment longer, still breathing too hard. “i am – i apologize, who –”

right. okay. caligula snaps his mouth shut before he can sound any more of a mess. exhales. “i am. sorry if i…disturbed you?” the words are painfully formal, and sound more like a question than an apology. “i did not know that, ah, that anyone else was here.”

Sorry for the lag on this one!

The boy looked dumbstruck. Maybe he had been so focused on his hunt that he hadn't been aware of his audience? That sounded accurate enough, judging by the way he stared back at her, then fumbled his words. The longer he fumbled and the more Stryx could observe, the less the term boy really fit her mental description of him. He was older than a mere child - closer to her own age, perhaps.

He spoke in painful spasms replete with immaturity, which was why she had mistakenly deemed him young. That said, between the two of them the lethargic Stryx was comparatively lethargic, and as impressive as his hunting skills appeared, his lack of social intuition caused Stryx to mentally erect her usual walls.

Not disturbed at all, she quipped. I'm lookin' for some fresh herbs. Did you notice any while you chased the bird, or...? She doubted it very much. He seemed quite focused. Nevermind. Probably trampled them. She gave one glance at the dead thing he loomed over, and moved in a crescent around his position, her head low as she investigated patch after patch of green.

no worries! have not really been around for the past couple of weeks 8)

even avoiding her gaze, he is certain she is…unimpressed. it may have been a spectacular leap to catch the grouse whose body lies still at his feet, blood still sharp on his tongue; caligula has not been able to even maintain the illusion of competence since he fled from his father’s jaws, bleeding scarlet over the snow –

and this –

caligula shuts his eyes, gives a furious shake of his head as he might to dislodge water from his ears – no. no, it is not the time. he cannot keep doing this – again and again and again, brought back into his head every time through fault of his own –

his heartbeat rabbits into his throat, insistent, wholly disregarding his wishes. in front of him, the wolf moves among the ferns, words forming on her lips – and then to his side, nose to the ground, circling now –

his breathing sharpens, rushing in and out of his lungs. what had she said, what was she saying – something about –

herbs. he clings onto the single word with tooth and claw, following her gaze down to the patches of grass underfoot. they mean nothing to him – a tangle of weeds and flowers and fronds, some trampled down to the earth already by his own paws.

he keeps staring until he sees green instead of white and red.

“i…do not know herbs,” he says at length, voice regaining some shred of confidence as he speaks – though confidence is a generous word, applied to him. “it…there is something you are looking for?”

Maybe he's slow. He certainly doesn't seem to be 'all there' at any rate, which distracts Stryx from her perusal of the earth. Most of what she's looking at is in pieces, or has been crushed in to the mud. Nothing can be salvaged at this point. She looks upon him then, hears his mutterings, and then shrugs. Not everyone knows the value of the world around them, the bounty that can be collected, nor are they expected to. He is a man; his calling is inevitably bloodier. She won't hold it against him.

Nothing in particular. She answers finally, pawing at a cluster of loosened moss he must have kicked up before the plunge. There is a smattering of red across a piece of it. The blood is already dry, absorbed by the sphagnum. It is almost purple as a result.

You are a hunter then? Or merely passing through. Idle chatter isn't her forte. It doesn't hurt to practice a better bedside manner though, and she sees no harm in his company - odd though he seemed.

caligula twitches. his mouth still tastes of blood, if he concentrates too hard – and if he concentrates too hard there is more blood than just that of the grouse, than that on his mouth, and before he can draw himself back into the memories he digs a tooth into the soft black of his lip until the pain narrows his focus back to the moss.

nothing else.

“no.” the word is delivered with more emphasis than most; his ears flicker uncertainly. he…has hunted, yes, but… “no, just…what i need to eat. to survive. it is not…i do not like it.” and even with that – nobody needed to hear that about him. not the least a stranger he had known for only a handful of minutes, pleasant(????) as she was…trying to be?

“i am. sorry.” caligula lowers his head. looking past her, gaze just clipping the edge of her shoulder – nowhere near her eyes, but enough to keep watch. what would – to get away from – “if you…what do you do? with the herbs?”

yes. he relaxes minutely, shoulders loosening a fraction. this is surely how conversation is supposed to go.

She knows better than to let her concern for his behaviour bleed in to the expression on her face. She remains cold and clinical, exactly how she has been trained. It strikes her how neurotic he sounds; hesitant to speak maybe, or poorly socialized. If only the woman had paid more attention to the crone's lessons on the mind and mental illnesses - but she had always been hyper-focused on issues of the physical, things he could witness, touch, cut and mend. All she can do is endure this young man and hope she doesn't send him off the deep end. He appears a touch more unhinged the longer she dwells with him.

He refutes the claim of being a hunter. A utilitarian creature, at the very least. The way he emphasizes he does not like it is unnerving. It is a distinction that he does not need to make. —what do you do? He stumbles through the question, tacks on some specificity, and she takes a carefully measured breath.

I am a physician. There should be pride in her voice, but there isn't. Stryx cannot remember the last time she felt pride in her work; there wasn't really a place for it in her opinion. There had been other students to the Askleipeian Order that had let their ego grow with each success and they were insufferable, often turning away individuals on the basis of their allegiances, their usefulness, and various idiosyncratic justifications. They had broken their oaths in short order. Stryx would never let herself fall in the same trap.

I am pledged to remedy that which ails the body. Do you... Need such help? Maybe it is foolish for her to ask. The question holds a certain connotation that could be misconstrued. She does not want to push this boy; but it is an offer she upholds for every soul she crosses.

there is no expression on her face to distract him; the word she uses is a familiar one, though it takes a moment to place. as with everything of, well – of the days before he…was like this – to recall these things is a dangerous proposition, but this is a memory that does not hold nearly that much weight. the aftermath of injury is much easier to bear.

“ah. you are a healer?” caligula returns his ice-pale gaze to the plants underfoot, though it continues shifting anxiously between them and the stranger. “then, i am…sorry, about,” his muzzle tips down, indicating some of the crushed shoots, “…what is this? here?”

the following question is not so easy to formulate a response to. “oh. that is…” voice trailing off into nothing, he hesitates. he has given too much out already; he does not think he needs his own words to clarify that all of his, ah, problems are entirely in his own head. for now. the raw scar on his chest, no matter its appearance, is no longer a threat.

the sentence picks, stutteringly, back up, as though it had never stopped. “…it is…this is not a problem. but. thank you.”

He motioned to the crushed grasses and herbs and she gives this a glance, but answers obliquely, Mostly grasses for indigestion. There is no point in sharing any deeper details with a layman. They were ruined anyway. The crushing had forced their natural juices out and they bled in to the soil to nourish the dirt instead. It is not a big deal, there is plenty of it.

While he stammers, she looks him over again. It is hard to miss the massive scar on his chest. It looks to be well treated, and quite old. A wound like that would have been nearly impossible to correct and she is glad she is meeting him now, after recovery, versus as a fresh layer of damage. Most of her skills had already been put to use on Raleska and Praimfaya, and while Stryx was not superstitious by any measure, sometimes she did wonder if all her luck had been spent on the two of them.

She nods her head to his thanks, a stern little smile creeping over her face. It is not her place to ask after his past, he is a stranger (and an odd one at that) but she has a professional curiosity - What happened to your chest?

caligula blinks down at the crushed grasses, rather expecting something more. but he is aware that he could hardly be said to understand the intricacies of healing; in his…in his youth, then…he had never appreciated what any physician had done for him, nor their skillset. not that he would have been allowed to pursue the trade, if he had.

and yet. the thought of healing, instead of hurting, for once in his life – there is… it is a nice thought. a nice idea. it is not like he has anything else to show for himself now – nothing beyond an endless stream of memories that refuse, day after day, to leave him be.

when he lifts his eyes from the ground, she is watching him. his heartbeat jolts on automatic, the same discomfort of anyone looking at him so closely, but – and he tries, every time, so hard to remember – she is doing nothing but watching, but speaking, and not everyone attacks only because there is someone there to fight –

– and that is a foolish thought. he should know this well by now – sometimes speaking is enough.

the scar…he does not like to think about the scar. he does not like to look at it, either – another trauma, only safe when it has become so distanced from his thoughts that the knowledge of its presence lingers only in the back of his mind. like everything else caligula has become resigned to, it is not something that can be removed.

he does not look at it when she speaks. this does not prevent the knowledge of exactly what happened from rising from its place.

his breathing falters, and –

there are teeth on his skin again, dozens of fights behind him and pain wholly unlike anything he has had before, worked deep through his flesh –

– stripping skin from meat is such a delicate thing and he has always been so good at it, enjoying the screaming, and now they hold him down as they do it and it –

his chest hurts.

it did not – it should not –

grass. there is grass. the shadow of the trees, the air thick and humid and hot, sticking in his lungs. there is no snow, no ice; only mist and filtered sunlight, the singing of birds and the buzz of insects, and a single wolf, waiting, a pale and unfamiliar cream-and-grey.

there is nothing here. nothing besides what he carries with him – and those things always seem foolish, when their teeth are not set to his throat. he knows for certain they must seem foolish to other people, not the least this woman.

“my family,” caligula manages, and laughs a little. it is not a pleasant laugh. “i am sorry, it is…not a good story for me to tell. or think.” another huffed laugh. "i think the herbs might be more... pleasant."

She does not probe for answers. If he is not comfortable with his story then that is answer enough, really. It did not look like a fresh wound so she presumes it happened during his infancy, which would explain his stunted behaviour as well - trauma manifested differently in each person, and being treated somewhere privately for an extensive period of time at that age would cripple him socially. He seemed addled; but she accepted what was shared, and gave another little nod.

Stryx has her own stories she will not share and she is sympathetic. Her scars were not physical so her issues were easier to hide from strangers, but they were there. When the boy connects the scar to his family she feels a tension set in her jaw, and is mindful to release it before she gives herself a headache. Family should not be a burden in her opinion - but one does not get to choose their bloodline.

I can teach you of the herbs. She offers, her voice slightly more friendly, maybe a little soft. I was schooled in the use of plants as remedy for most of my own youth. It... Was not by choice, initially. You could learn to heal others the way I do.

It has been a while since Stryx has had an apprentice and she doubts he has the stomach for all the work given his visible history with trauma, but she could try to instill some of the basics. It would fulfill the goals of the Order while giving him something new to focus on.

caligula has good days and bad days, when it comes to his thoughts. on the good days, he can move through the world without thinking so much of the scar on his chest, without his recollections threatening to drown him. his near perfect memory used to be a blessing; now it is just as much a curse.

this is not one of the good days. but those memories have, at the very least, drawn his anxieties from the wolf before him to the things lurking inside himself; her tone calms him further, and the loss of the sharp and insistent terror in his limbs leaves him, again, exhausted – enough not to question it.

his ears twitch at her admission. “i do not think many of us have the choice.” a long pause stretches before he speaks again. “it is…i do not have much experience.” caligula lowers his muzzle respectfully. “but i think that i would like to learn.” he is not thinking of the implications of this – that healing is not free of blood on its own, but then he has not truly faced such an realization; nor his he capable now, with the remnants of adrenaline still shivering through his blood, insistently ignoring the memory still clinging to the edge of his mind.

in time, of course, he will have to confront it. for now, he is content to wait.

He did not seem committed to the cause, but that was fine. Not everyone needed to pledge themselves in the same manner that Stryx had, and she was not about to force him in to the order without proper tutelage or fair warning. At most she could give him some basic understanding that he could then cultivate at another time.

I would like to learn, he expresses. Stryx takes a breath, contemplates what exactly to tell him, and then nods firmly, as if having come to a conclusion.

I will give you the first lesson.

There are four aspects to every person that must always remain in balance. I was taught that these were: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. Each aspect grows in strength with the body, and each has specific qualities. When someone is in good health they are properly balanced, but should any one change, destabilize, then the body becomes sick.

Blood is produced in the liver. People with strength in their blood are enthusiastic, social, and energized. Yellow bile is similar; it is where one's natural aggression flows, and when someone experiences anger or heightened aggression then it damages the liver. A pause for breath, and to watch for signs of understanding. It is not long, and she goes in to the rest promptly.

Black bile is produced by the body as well, mostly in excess during times of struggle or sadness. Individuals who are deeply depressed have too much of this in their system. It is produced in the spleen.

The last aspect, the phlegm, is the root of many illnesses. None can say where it is produced or why, but its presence is the root cause of much sickness. It is purged with clean water and proper diet.

All of these things were difficult to explain for Stryx, who had barely paid attention during her lessons on the subject; it was all too esoteric for her, and she prefered getting down and dirty. However, seeing as her new apprentice did not seem like the type to handle real blood or anything, starting in the theory stages made the most sense.

It is a lot of information, and... Perhaps it does not mesh well with what you already know, if you know anything of medicine. It is what I was taught.