Nimbus Summit rowenes

as per this thread, heda will have sustained a fractured right fore-ankle. tagging @Lane & @Antha (also @Tessa) for visibility, as i am assuming BTS she's been under their care since then <3 this is aw w all tags for ref!

it had been a very long two weeks. and it had been embarrassing to have @Issorartuyok help her back up the summit.
severely restricted in movement, with poultices itchy around her mending wrist. heda was annoyed with herself and more with the situation at large.
she lay her muzzle across her good foreleg and glared down out to where she thought the edge of the mountain might be. she should be exploring there. she should be running there. she thought of sequoia and witch and mahler and druid.
left alone with her thoughts, heda struggled against the sudden shove of tears against the back of her eyes.

antha found herself worrying about heda. with all that the girl had suffered recently, an injury like hers could easily become a tipping point. she decided to visit the girl, and found her alone. the air felt tense; or perhaps that was only imagined.

restless, i take it? she smiled gently as she approached. my sister, tessa, had a rather restless childhood. she was very ill when we were young. but that didn't stop us from having fun. it only meant we had to be a bit more creative with our games. perhaps i could teach you one of them, if you'd like.

antha again. heda had become accustomed to her constant presence, though she very much would have liked it to be under less duress.
she nodded at the healer's pronouncement, and then her red-caped ears swept forward in spite of herself. "yes, please." she shuffled upright as far as she dared, avoiding weight placed on her healing leg.
something, anything, to drive out the agonies of lying here day in and day out.

the strategy game is like...wolf chess basically LOL

perhaps a game of strategy and tactics? she asked, recalling the girl's aspirations. any warrior should know the basics, antha knew from her own time spent in training. even if they never grasped it, the knowledge was invaluable. most wolves were nothing if not willful by nature, and an ignorant willful soldier could often be more dangerous than the enemy.
or would you prefer to solve a puzzle? she'd moved some of tessa's cache of game pieces to a spot near where heda rested, anticipating the need for them after the girl had injured herself; when heda gave her answer, antha would leave and return shortly with a leaf-wrapped bundle.

if heda chose strategy, the game would consist of river stones in various colors and fragments of antlers stained with berries and crushed flowers to match. the puzzle would be a piece of pale grey bark stained in a similar manner in the rough image of a sunset over a hill, broken into several pieces so that one would need to painstakingly piece it together to see the image. antha explained the rules of the game heda chose and arranged it accordingly. then they would begin.

love it!

"strategy seems nice," heda mumbled. she watched in interest as antha moved about, gathering the little game pieces. their sight and scent interested the girl greatly; she moved to observe more closely. 
antha explained the rules: the pieces were in two sets, one for each of them it seemed.
the girl nosed over the stones and bones, then thumped her tail. "okay. i think i've got it."