Her paw smarted, and Rashmi was very unhappy for it. The pale lioness limped to the medical wards, leaving a small trail of blood. She'd gone out just beyond the border, under the watchful eyes of Keahilani and a few others, to hunt some of the prey just beyond the desert's reach. The hope had been that they'd find better pickings, since even the prey animals appeared to be avoiding the drought-plagued desert. She'd found a warthog, and it was very angry. Sure, the hunt had been a success - They'd brought back not just the offending warthog, but a gazelle as well - but it had been at the expense of Rashmi's paw. She snorted, glaring back toward where the kills were being taken for the pride's consumption. She hoped that warthog rotted in its eternal hell for making her have to deal with Ea.
The smell of blood reached him before the sound of a limp on sand. Of course, being in the medical wards, Singh ended up smelling a lot of blood. So he didn't look up until the sound of only three paws, and much effort put into moving them, on sand reached his ears. The medic tilted his head, before turning and looking. "Oh, Rashmi!" He got up from where he'd been working, carefully making a poultice from one of the many things he'd collected out in the roguelands, to go over to the huntress. "What happened to your paw? It looks like you greeted something nasty!" He got a scathing look for his question. "Come, lay down over here..."
Carefully moving to the spot Singh indicated, Rashmi lay down with a low grunt. As she shifted on the skins, she tried not to hiss at his ministrations. "Warthog..." She started to lick her paw, only to get swatted at. "Hey, I'm trying to CLEAN it! If I don't, then my fur will stain!" As blinding as her coat was, it was also a blessing. If she came at the prey from the direction of the sun, they might smell her but wouldn't SEE her, so they never knew just where she was coming from, especially on the dunes. The grasslands were a bit different from the dunes, though. She was so... EXPOSED. And she stood out against literally everything. There WAS no hiding in the sunlight.
"And the fur will eventually shed and grow back! Stop that or you'll make the wounds WORSE!" Pushing the lioness' face away from her paw, Singh went to work administering salves. He was almost out of so many things... He'd have to send someone to get them. Or go with an escort of guards. He wasn't sure he could trust others to find the plants he needed to counteract the risks of infections and removals of snake venoms. His ministrations earned him a snarl and he leaned back to avoid getting swatted at by Rashmi's good paw. He used his own to pin it down. "Do you want me to help your or not so you can keep hunting and don't have to RETIRE at such a young age?" He watched all the lions, and the young adults were always the most active. They wanted nothing more than to go out and see action. Though frankly, given how scarred this lioness was, he was actually... Surprised. "Where did all these scars come from, your prey...?"
Rashmi pulled her pinned paw away, glaring at the medic. She didn't appreciate her paws being pinned! The lioness gave a snort, then looked at the scarring on her shoulders. "Some of it..." Hooves, after all, were very sharp. But she liked how they showed her prowess as a huntress that she still brought her prey down despite injury. "Some of it's from my duel with Azar..." It had been, to put it simple, a brutal fight. Conventiona etiquet had said not to use one's claws, but they'd really lost themselves in it and it was a no-holds-bar smack-down for both of them. She was actually quite proud of herself.
Singh finished binding the injured paw, then examined the scars. "Well, there's nothing I can do for them NOW..." He noticed the smug look. "If you're so proud of them, why aren't you a soldier or guard?" He sat back, examining his work on the paw. "Your parents are guards, if I recall right..." And one of her sisters was a Water Seeker, a brother was training to be a Medic...
Rashmi shrugged. "I can fight, yeah, but... Doesn't mean I should, you know...?" She examined her bandaged paw, marveling for a moment that he was able to do that at all. She didn't know lions were capable of such a thing. "Anyway, the pride still needs lions to hunt..." She let out a sigh. "There's comparatively few of us, to feed so many..." Her ears suddenly twitched. "I think I know how that could be helped, though..."
The medic's eyebrow went up. "And how's that...?" He then motioned to the paw. "You won't be hunting for about six to twelve days, by the way..." He reached up, scratching at his chin with a forpaw. "Give or take a few days. You need to stay off that paw. It's not too deep, but if you push your luck, it could get infected and ruined and you'd be no better off than Ea's sister."
Rashmi looked to her paw, blinking. She had to stay off her paws... For that long? Or at least not hunt for that long. Her face contorted. "I'll feel USELESS doing nothing, though!" She blanched a bit at the sharp glare Singh gave her. "Well, I will..." She tried not to pick at the half-hazard bandaging before she got up, holding the painful paw up. A prompting look reminded of her prior tangent about hunters. "Oh! Cubs!" She started limping away. "If there's cubs in the pride trained just to hunt... Then there'd be plenty of us to keep up with demand!" And they'd be able to go out into the lands beyond the desert to get some food in more force to drag back to the pride.
Singh's eyebrow went up. "Cubs..." Her explanation at least made sense, though. There WERE a lot of lions to feed in the pride, and demand was beginning to outweigh the supply as far as he could tell. But then... He didn't leave the wards that often nor did he bother to COUNT everybody. It was a huge pride with what was easily several HUNDRED lions. He'd never figure out what was the right balance, so long as the ydid their best to NOT get injured and thus on Ea's bad side... Not that it was hard to do the latter. "Just remember to come back and see me every day so I can check that paw, alright?"
She gave a nod. "Yes, Medic Singh."
"Please.." He rubbed his brow a bit. "Just Singh works. You don't have to call me by my title..." It wasn't like he had Ea's problem where there was one other lion named Ea and one who had Ea as the start of their name. There was only one Singh.
She raised her injured paw to her maw so she wouldn't put pressure on it, hiding a small giggle. "Okay, Singh..." Then she limped off, back to her den to rest and feel useless. This would be a trying several days.
