The grumbling demon was tolerated, even seeming to amuse some of the fairies as they zipped about their work. Before long, they seemed satisfied that the patients were clean and the now-cloudy tubs of bathwater were levitated from the room. Kane noted that once cleaned, the kid's leg hadn't looked quite as bad as he'd been imagining...though he'd been imagining something pretty gruesome, so even if it still looked like the beast had tried to rip her foot off, it looked better than he thought it would. He had a few fairies of his own, buzzing around and muttering over his various scratches and bruises. Most were fairly superficial, at least for the tiger-demon. Their primary concern seemed to be for his face and the deep wound in his thigh, going by the disapproving tongue-clicking he was hearing.
"Oh, just smear some of that healing crap on it and wrap it up," he blurted at last, waving ineffectually at the hovering fairies. Such a hassle. As it turned out, they weren't satisfied with that; they wanted to stitch him up to keep the wound closed and help him heal. "Fine, whatever," he grumbled, too tired to argue any more at this point and wanting to get this over with.
"Again? Haven't you heard curiosity killed the cat?!?" The harsh voice rang through the room, seeming to fill the fairies with a frantic energy. The Matron of the Healing Houses hovered in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest and sparing only a glance towards the black and white teen on the other bed before fixating on Kane again.
Attempting to glare back while being instructed to turn and lay on his side so that the fairies could treat his leg, Kane rolled his eyes before returning the stare. "I'm still here, ain't I? 'Sides, I wasn't the one to go looking for them this time," he added defensively, now turning his glare on the fairies spraying some sort of disinfectant or something on his leg. Wait...that tingling. Ah, damn fairies, he didn't need it numbed like some sissy; just do the damn work and be done with it.
"No, but you certainly found them, didn't you?" she shot back, unaffected by the tiger's irritable manner. She could be downright fierce when she wanted to be too. "What's the matter? The old scars not doing it for the ladies like you hoped, so you decided to get some new ones?"
Oh for... Pesky, bossy fairy. "Lay off it," he grumbled, still glaring with his head on his arm, trying to relax as the fairies did their work. His thigh tensed with an involuntary muscle twitch at first, then stilled and relaxed as the numbing agent took over, the fairies swiftly going to work as well. "Tell those monsters to stick to their own damn forest," Kane grumbled into his arm, "and we'll all be better off."
The Matron had already gotten the gist of the story from Silvana, so she didn't really need details; she was mainly here to needle the cat. And make sure her fairies were doing their jobs right. Still, she frowned, looking over the two patients before leaving the room. If those things were spreading out now, there would be trouble for anything in their way. Well, except her Healing House. There'd be trouble waiting for them if they dared try to come here.
Slitted blue eyes watched half-lidded as the fairies worked swiftly on the teen in the other bed. Before long, he'd lost track of the number of different salves, lotions, herbs and things that had been brought in and taken out again, and her leg was covered in layers upon layers of wrappings and dressings to the point that it seemed twice its normal size. Hard to say what lay beneath now. She seemed to be sleeping more peacefully now at least.
Growling softly at the fairy that came to hover in front of his face, pointing to the slashes on his nose and cheek, Kane snapped, "I don't need stitches there. Just smear some of that salve on it; it'll be fine." He really wasn't concerned one way or another with scars. He had more than his share of those already through the years. He only let them stitch his leg so that when he decided to get out of this place, he was less likely to tear it open and start bleeding again.
His tail draped over the side of the bed, the tip flipping from time to time like a cat's. This was the second time that something in Dragnid had resulted in him taking a trip to the Healing House. Course, he'd tangled with more than just that. That old curiosity that he'd managed to bury for many seasons had stirred again. Though he knew it to be a foolish undertaking for a lone Pae, no matter what their skill, he couldn't help but entertain the thought of a trip into that forest to find out exactly where all this s**t kept coming from.
*****
[FIN]
[FIN]
