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A sigh slipped from the white cheetah's lips as she shook her head pausing her her walk to shake her left forepaw out. She grimaced as pain shot through her leg and down her spine. "Ugh," she whined gently placing it back on the ground and continuing to limp forward. She had taken to racing a tan cheetah with black spots(cough, cough, Kika), when she had stepped wrong and crashed to the ground. As a result she had twisted her paw, which was now swollen and difficult to walk on.

Of course more than just her paw was wounded, so was her pride.

She loved the fact that she was a cheetah, one of the fast creatures found in the savanah, of course it varied, and she was only able to travel over short distances. BUT! She was getting better at it, and her endurance was lengthening greatly, the more she ran of course. She was a racer and there was no denying that fact and she thought she was one of the fast around to be found, which unfortunately of course probably wasn't true. But she didn't care. She could pretend after all.

"Why did I have to go and injure myself," she mused shaking her head as she continued along, "and I lost too!"

To her losing was worse than getting hurt in some ways.

As he'd never really taken to trying to 'outdo' anybody, especially in terms of ability or speed, Rotem had never really found himself out of shape in anyway. He could hunt, he could run, and he could patch those who were a little... less thoughtful about their own state of being right back up. While he wasn't exactly a brain surgeon, the brown cheetah was well enough into his domain to be able to at least ebb a pain and make sure something didn't get too much worse.

Folk cures were wonderful in that sense.

Certainly humans could laugh at such cures, but for the fourlegged with different digestive tracks, it was all a matter of opinion. Which was why he'd found himself picking flowers and other things for his little napsack of unusual cures he sported about his neck. Not to say that he didn't look a bit fruity, romping about the little patch of greenery and looking every little piece over for the sake of his 'cures'.

Nope...
...
.....

He definitely was a strange one. Hell, Rotem even took to rolling over into the bed of flowers with his legs stretched out above his head before he noticed the limping female, frowning a bit at the sight.

"If it hurts, why are you still walkin' on it?"

Roxdene's ears flickered at the sound of someone else's voice. She froze, a frown etched upon her features, as she turned her head and spotted the brown male. Funny, she had sworn she had been alone. But then again she hadn't actually taken the time to check and see if anyone was around before chatting with herself.

How strange she might seem to any who happened to wander by.

Not that it really mattered to the female, she was too busy being disappointed in herself.

Oh!

He had said something, she should probably reply....

"Ah, well, I can't exactly sit still really," she began to explain as she turned to face him before tentatively sitting down, her tail flickering back and forth nervously. "And I don't want to be out of commission for days!" She exclaimed suddenly almost springing back to her feet before she felt that tug of pain again.

"Stupid paw..."

"It'll hurt longer and put you 'out of commission' for longer if you force it to limp around like you're doing." he answered, not exactly springing up to throw himself at the female's assistance (though he never really mind helping). Rotem did, however, roll onto his belly and curl his legs up underneath him with a half-contented look on his face. Mmmm, flowers.

He probably looked hilariously fruity like that, ha ha ha.

"You'd be best served if you splinted up that leg of yours so you'd stop hurting it when you walked." he continued via observation. If anything, 'splinting' was one of the most common 'corrections' he made with his cures. In fact, it was the most simple of things to do as well, given that so many beasts out on the savannah weren't above hurting themselves in chases (or races).

So he'd more or less mastered some of his 'arts'.

"Really though. The 'paw' is no more stupid than the body it's attached to."

A pout formed as she lifted her paw to examine it. "I guess you're right," she shrugged gingerly putting it down, letting it dangle just above the ground so it -barely- touched. Best way to avoid the pain in her opinion. She tilted her head as she looked up, actually taking the time to examine the male before her. "What are you doing bathing in flowers?" She asked confusion decorating her features. She thought that was something only children did, mostly female children too.

"You look silly," she bluntly stated flicking her tail behind her.

Her gaze flickered back to her paw and sighed. "You mentioned splinting, how do you do that? Will it really help?" Already she was changing the subject...er...going back to the original subject. Sometimes it was hard to get the girl to focus on something.

But that wasn't always a bad thing she supposed, better than lingering on somethings for too long.

"Hey! Are you calling me stupid?!"

"I'm simply saying that labelling one part of your body as less intelligent than the rest of it is illogical." He answered, rising up to his paws and stretching his body out, much like a housecat would, before he made his way over to the nearest tree he could find and jumped up into it.

Though his was followed by possibly one of the 'dumber' displays of masculine intelligence -- he just stood on one of the weaker looking branches and wiggled up and down, up and down. Yep, his aim was to bre-

SNAAAAP!!

and down went his branch of choice... and oddly without him for several minutes, only following along at his own pace, in which he jumped down from the tree and pulled it back over to rest up against the trunk of it in order to JUMP ON IT AGAIN.

Being a medicine man-cheetah was almost like making sure you were showing off all yer 'hot skeelz' at the right time.

And breaking s**t.

a lot.

"I'll have to break this into smaller pieces before you can be splinted."

Roxdene had to think his words over for a minute, she wasn't exactly the smartest cat around, she tended to rely on her talents as an 'athlete' rather than her brains, most days. "Uhh..okay?" She wasn't entirely sure how she was supposed to respond to his statement so she did the only thing she could think of. Pretend like she understood, shrug and push it out of her mind.

It usually worked, so far at least.

Then she watched, rather awe-struck mind you, as he jumped easily on to a branch and...started wiggling up and down. It was honestly, one of the strangest sights she had ever seen. "What are you doing? It's gonna--" She wasn't given the opportunity to finish seeing as how the branch decided to snap right then.

Yet it didn't take him with it, instead he jumped down, moved it and jumped back on. What on earth was going on in this cheetah's head?

Even when he spoke to her, explaining his actions, she didn't understand so she simply nodded and kept silent confused. "Uh...okay..."

Who was this crazy man?

Him? Crazy? He certainly wouldn't have thought himself such, but then again one's own opinion often didn't count did it? Either way, he went about his task with a degree of swiftness that came with experience, eventually having broken down his branch of choice into two similarly-sized small pieces which he retrieved and went practically-prancing over to the racer's side with.

"Paw out please." he requested once he'd set his two pieces down, using a paw to flip the top of his neck-pouch open with and shoving his nose in to it to look for something. Hmm, now where had he put that?

Ah! There it was!

Eventually he produced a length of fresh-ish (enough for it to not be 'crunchy') jungle vine, which he also took care in breaking into two pieces for the sake of tying his two splints of broken wood onto once he'd gotten the offered paw.

"Huh?" She asked jerking back as he pranced over to her. She winced as her paw hit the ground. "Owww..." She mumbled trying to fight back letting him know how much it actually hurt her. Then she remembered he had told her to do something. What was it? Hm... Oh yes!

"Okay?" She told him uncertaintly as she hesitantly held out her paw to him watching as he stuck his face into the pouch he was carrying. She stifled her laughter, it was an amusing sight she had to be honest.

"Er...I don't understand," she admitted, ears flattening against her head. "What are you going to do?"

"Splint - basically I'm going to give your paw extra support for your weight so you can walk while moving your ankle less. It'll relieve a lot of pain." he explained, carefully balancing one of the pieces of the branch on the topside of her paw while balancing the bottom piece with one paw and using his mouth and other paw to awkwardly wrap the piece of vine around both pieces of the 'splint'.

God he looked hilarious balancing like he was. But it was still getting the job done. However, while the task would have only taken a few minutes for a human with thumbs, the task of 'tying' took almost 12 minutes for him until he finally managed a suitable knot to hold it in place with.

There...

"As long as you don't balance all you're weight on that paw, you should be OK."

"Oh," she replied blinking as she looked down still not completely understanding the concept. So he was going to tie wood to her paw using a slightly dried vine and it would remove most of the pain? That seemed a little ridiculous but...if it worked then there was no problem. She shrugged, eyes watching as the male worked his 'magic'.

"You know you're kinda weird," she bluntly stated. "But it's the good kinda weird!" She smiled at him stupidly as he started to talk to him.

"Can't put all my weight on this paw," she restated with a nod waving the paw as she talked about it. Gently of course because anything other would be stupid...

"I would have used the word 'knowledgable', but weird works too." he shrugged, sighing a bit. before he went about getting his pouch's contents settled once again.

MMmmkay. Now he just needed to... go on a quest to get him some more herbs and stuff in the near future... and probably something to eat in the next day -- the stuff in his pouch always turned crunchy and strange (but it sure made the 'icky herbs' taste good to his 'patients'.. or a stranger who might have invaded his pouch .

Sigh)

"I'd imagine it may be in your best interest to find a more capable hunting companion for two or three hunts until you're healed up." he offered as further 'doctor advice'. Alas, doctor-advice was....
...
...
Sometimes not followed though.

"There's nothing wrong with being weird mister," Roxdene replied holding her paw up in the air to examine it more closely. At least that was her plan however she lifted it just a little too high and leaned back a little too far and...

BAM!

She was on her back, paw across her face. "Ow, ow, owwwww..." she moaned squeezing her eyes shut as she rocked on her back before rolling over and pushing herself up. "Guess I'm a little clutzy eh?" She asked sticking her tongue out at the other cheetah before she glanced at her paw. "How long do you think I'll need to keep this on?" She asked seriousness flashing across her features. "A hunting partner? Ugh."

Rotem winced as she tumbled over, knowing fully well that it would possibly be painful (very paintful) for the female... and as expected, it was.

Sigh.

"I'd say you just don't center your weight properly when you move." he answered, sighing lightly. Certainly he'd seen felines and canines of the savanna with... 'less grace', but he would just go the easier route of assuring her it wasn't clumsiness and just... yeah.

YER NOT CLUMSY, YOU JUST FAIL. So good with words, wasn't he? Ah ha ha ha ha.... ha...Nnnnghf....

"What?" She asked as she sat up flicking her tail behind her. "That's pretty much the same thing right?" Why did he have to speak so oddly? Wouldn't it just be easier to say what he wanted to say without speaking all fancy like?

Honestly was it that difficult? She shook her head. "Why do you talk so funny, it's easier to just say what you want."

Roxdene had always been more of a straight-forward kinda person, of course she always skipped around, but only sometimes when people distracted her. Which was really often actually...the simplest thing distracted her. That probably wasn't very good.

"Hey! You didn't answer my question!"

"Not everything I say is what other's want to hear though." He answered, ears flicking back as though he'd had said incident happen to him several times already.

Alas, too often was it that he got clawed for not telling someone they'd be healed up and 'all better' the next day....Nngh. Some animals were just so..impatient about the pace at which their body would recovered. Alas, alas.. now it was time to see just how impatient this one would be about it.

"Dependant. Could be a couple of days before you can at least walk, could be more than a week. Depends on how well you take care of your paw in the next while."

"A couple of days?" She repeated sounding rather, er, shocked. That long really? Ugh. "Gross, but I guess I can't really do anything about it huh?" She sighed and sunk down to her belly before deciding to roll over onto her back. She settled her paw carefully on her belly and stared at the brown cheetah upside down. "So I need to find a hunting partner?" She asked closing her eyes as she thought about it.

She was only good at focusing on one thing at a time and that was if she gave it her all, and more often than not it was put toward racing. Which she was good at, something she really prided herself on. And now she hurt herself and wouldn't be able to race for a while.

"Guess I'll have to focus all my attention on getting better right?"

Rotem was actually not very surprised at how upset the female seemed to be by the prospect of having to sit and recuperate, as it was. Not everybody he met could be entirely sensible about their own health, but at the same time it worried him to just leave her to her own devices while she recovered... which left him with a proposition on his end:

"I'll hunt."

Okay, so it was less of a 'suggestion' and more of a 'THIS IS HOW IT SHALL BE, WOHMAHN' on his part. But what else could he do? It would give her someone to hunt for her and allow him to make sure she didn't further harm that leg of hers -- because that was his real concern with the whole situation... not to mention someone had to take that splint off in the long run anyways.

"Is that alright with you?"

"Eh?" Roxdene squeaked at his suggestion, er, demand. "But-but I...I can't make you stay," she told him furiously shaking her head. No, no! This simply would not do! "I-I'll be fine, so you don't have to worry about it. Nope. Nothing to worry about!" She chirped. However when her paw touched the ground she couldn't help but squeak in pain. She had no choice, he would have to help her. "Okay, okay...you win."An operation timed out.

Damn right he won -- without even fussing at her. Nope, during all of her protesting, he just gave her a rather cool-eyed and level-headed stare, frowning when she hurt herself by trying to fight against him (though not a physical battle. That would have been pointless between two beings of a more delicate specie). However, only once she'd given in did he actually make the motion to nudge her with the top of his head, gently.

"Now lay down. I will return shortly." he instructed with the sort of stern behaviour that only a doctor could prescribe before he turned to take his leave -- albeit for only a short time. He had hunting to do.