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 Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2014 12:29 pm
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Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 5:54 pm
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Nuawahn should have known that something was not right. He knew his capramel, La'amu, better than he knew himself: she had been his constant companion, friend, and savior throughout his life. She had been trotting grumpily beside him as long as he could remember – in fact there was no memory without her being present. She had been there forever.
So, he should have known that her lethargy along the path to Mez had not been her natural stubborn slowness. La'amu always took her time, a trait that Nuawahn adored about her and loved to occasionally mess with, but he should not have written off her slowness of a few days ago to that. It hadn't been right. He knew now, as he looked over her heaving form, that it had been a sign of something terribly amiss: a sign he had missed. And because he had missed it, things were terribly wrong.
He stroked his hand over her too warm body, running his fingers through her bristly fur, his opalescent eyes imploring reality to break away and reveal the sick animal in front of him to be nothing more than a fresh, new nightmare to torment him as he slept. He willed himself to wake up from it, to find himself in the dark next to Ogbonna's powerful, spined body and the comforting smell of his sweat.
He did not, however, wake up. The nightmare continued, painfully real and clear, devoid of the soft and soothing mist that often shrouded and dulled his memories and waking moments. It was real. La'amu was sick, and in pain.
He buried her face in the bristles of her greying fur, smelling the familiar, oily scentl of her skin and the distinct not-odor of the heat that rose from it as her pained frame heaved and quivered in its torment. “Amma...” he murmured, running his hand along the slightly notched edges of her ears, which managed a vague, halfhearted twitch in response. “Oh, Amma...” He could hear her wheeze at him, a cry too weak and tremulous to be called a bleat or even a whimper.
He couldn't let her stay like this. He had tried healing her before, when he had first heard her cries that morning, but he had to try again. He needed to try again. He needed it to work. He summoned his magic forth, letting it sink from his gentle fingers into his companion's body, feeling it move through muscles and tissues and blood and bone.
He was afraid to try anything, though, as his awareness floated along with his magic, unsure what events to quell and what events to encourage.
He gave up, bringing his magic back and watching the light of it fade back into him. He kissed her skin, his tears evaporating from the heat that rolled off of her before they even left his face. “I'm sorry, Amma...” he whispered, “I can't.”
~~~
When Nuawahn had first woken up to La'amu's cries in the morning, Ogbonna had been beside him, watching anxiously, as Nuawahn tried to help his capramel. When it had become clear that Nua could do nothing, Ogbonna had gone to fetch the town healer. Ogbonna had been supposed to go on a hunt with his father that day, so he also went to tell his father that he might be late. Nuawahn felt awful about disrupting his lover's plans, but he was grateful for Oggie's support. He didn't think he could move La'amu alone, and he didn't want to leave her side: She had never left his, and it would have just been unfair to leave her.
Nuawahn was alone when the healer arrived. They had been teaching Nuawahn during the week or so he had been in Mez – a nice man with a proud streak. Capramels were not his usual patients, but it was not hard to see how much this one meant to her young earthling, and how tied she was to his well being, and how much pain she was clearly in. So, goaded by Nuawahn's silent pleading, the healer decided to try.
Nuawahn watched anxiously as the man's magic shifted and glowed around La'amu. It was not so long ago that the roles had been reversed, that he had been the one with the fever. It was hard to remember much more about that first awakening in Jahuar other than Takoda and the refreshing feel of water magic on his lips, but he knew she had been there, watching him anxiously. He fiddled with one of the baubles that hung from his clothing, watching the magic travel deeper, illuminating her insides and shining through her skin and fur. He could see the shadows of her ribs and veins as the healer explored her body with his magic, seeking the issue to fix.
La'amu cried out again, a desperate and surprisingly powerful bray, as she pawed weakly at the air with her hooves. Nuawahn watched as the man's magic receded back into his hands.
“I can't do anything.” Said the man, turning to Nuawahn and shaking his head. “Whatever she's got, it’s beyond what I can do. It's some sort of animal thing.” Nuawahn's fear and dissappointment were childishly, guilessly clear on his face, and the man relented. “ I know someone who deals with just animals,” he said, giving Nuawahn a sympathetic look, “She's not too far.”
“And can she help?” Nuawahn asked. The healer flinched at the naked hope on the boy's face.
“Maybe.” He said sadly. “Maybe.”
The healer helped Nuawahn carry La'amu to the edge of town. She was surprisingly light for such a large creature, but the healer was not surprised. Living things were lighter than they appeared, especially creatures as old as this capramel.
The Animal healer was a busty ice/wind hybrid with a barn-like house. It was full of animals of all kinds, scampering, chittering, playing, sleeping, pouncing, and barking throughout it – she was clearly a woman who loved her profession with all her heart. Her various pets moved out of the way as she helped them bring La'amu inside and set her on a wide, stone table covered with fresh white linen. The healer explained the situation to her and the animal healer came forward, gently nudging Nuawahn away. “Some space, dearie...” she said, smiling at him before turning to La'amu. She began to examine the capramel. She checked the Capramel's eyelids and nose, and pulled the lips back to check on the teeth. She sniffed La'amu's breath, opened the mouth, and checked the tongue, poking it gently with a finger. “Well well...” she murmured, letting La'amu's mouth close and cleaning her finger, “What in Chi's name bit you...”
“Bit?” asked Nuawahn, confused. He knew bites, and things with poisonous bites. Was she poisoned? Was his Amma poisoned?
“No, dear, just a figure of speech...” murmured the animal healer absently as she palpated La'amu's body. She checked the neck, the flesh around her hump, her stomach, her legs. She looked at her hooves, tapping them briefly before letting them fall to the side. She checked her rump and tail and, finally, laid her head on the capramel's side for a few moments, her expression thoughtful. “Well... Hmmm...” she murmured, standing up again and looking down at the beast quizzically, “Well that's your outside... Lets look inside.” She began to seek inside La'amu with her magic, and Nuawahn looked away, unwilling to see her shadowed ribs again. He had seen too many insides in his short life - he had no desire to see La'amu's insides.
Instead, he looked at his shadow, cast by the animal healer's light on the warm wooden wall. It was a strange, a symmetrical thing, a blobby shadow whose edges were fuzzed by the clothing he wore. His hair turned the shadow's head into a wild cloud, except where the braids Tahigwa gave him lay. His eyes were drawn to the strange, half-shadows of the crystalline ornaments he wore, and the reflected lights of the shiny objects he had collected. They brought color and life to the strange form, but he didn't feel the joy he would normally have felt at that small mercy. This was not his shadow. His shadow was there on the table, being treated by a healer, and he could only hope that she would restore life to those distant eyes.
He had studied every detail of his shadow when the soft not-sound of magic faded away. “Well.” he heard, “That's that.” Nuawahn turned around hopefully.
La'amu was much the same, limp and tired over the pale white linen, and the Animal healer looked tired and drawn as well. Nuawahn walked over, tense. “Is she... all better, miss healer?” he asked, his voice high and hopeful.
“Nah.” she said, “I couldn't do much more than take down some of the pain. What she's got is like nothing I've ever seen before... I'm not sure you can...” she caught the other healer's eye, and he gestured at Nuawahn. She stopped at his look of frightened non comprehension and shifted uneasily. One of her pet raptrix nudged her leg and she pet it. “Well...” she relented, “If you really want to...” she stopped again and swallowed. “Damn. You're devoted...” she murmured, shaking her head at Nuawahn's steady, hopeful stare. “Look. Tind specializes in Capramel, right? There might be someone there that can help her better than I can... But its a long way, you know...?”
“Tind?” Nuawahn remembered Tind. “I can go to Tind?”
“Whats the...” she began, stopping sadly as the other healer shook his head at her. “Yeah. Can't stop you.”
She had other patients to attend to, or at least that was what she said, and helped them carry La'amu out into a hay pile outside, and returned inside.
“So.” said the healer man, “You're going to Tind.”
“Yes!” said Nuawahn. He curled up next to La'amu, who was as weak as before, though her breathing wasn't as labored. “She said they can help! They will make Amma better!”
The healer sighed and shook his head. “You're sure?”
“Yes! They can make Amma better!” he repeated, “I want her to get better...”
“All right.” the healer made a defeated shrug, “I'll let Ogbonna know and get you a pull wagon to carry her in. She can't walk like that.”
“Thank you!” said Nuawahn as the man walked away. The man waved – he didn't feel particularly thankworthy.
~~~
Nuawahn dragged the rickety handled cart doggedly along the worn rocky path. La'amu lay in the bed of it, on a meager cushion of straw. The healer of Mez had procured the cart, and Oggie had insisted on coming along. Nuawahn did not mind the company, and the closeness of his lover was comforting, but when Ogbonna had offered to pull the cart for him, Nuawahn had refused.
The path was worn but not smooth, and it jerked and rattled merrily along. But, no matter how the cart handled, La'amu barely reacted. She was quiet now, limp like a rag. Her breathing was labored but faint – Nuawahn could barely hear it over the sound of his own footsteps and the creaking of the wheels. When the wheels were quiet, he could hear the small grunts of pain she made intermittently. They, along with the unnatural silence of her, wormed their way into his mind and consumed his soul with worry.
La'amu had always been quiet – a mostly silent and judging observer, watching over him as he wandered Tendaji. She was his guardian, his companion, and his best friend. That was why he couldn't let Oggie carry her. Ogbonna was scouting ahead, leaving the two of them alone. Him and her. That was how it had always been – just Nuawahn and La'amu.
Nuawahn could remember no time when they had not been together, that she had not been present. He could not concieve of a life without her by his side. It was impossible. She was his constant, his family, his Amma. She had always been there. There was no way she could not be there.
But, as he listened to her struggles to breathe, he realized that the inconceivable loomed, impossible and terrifying, out of the gloomy amber haze of Sauti. That was why he had to get her to Tind: once he got there, she could be healed. When she was healed, everything would be all right. He firmly believed that the people there could make her better – they had to. His Amma was invincible, indestructible, and immortal. She had been there forever, so she would be there for him forever. She could not die. He refused to even think of her dying.
Night fell, and Ogbonna suggested that they rest. But he also said they were close to Tind, and that settled it for Nuawahn - he decided to keep going, resolute – he would not stop until he had reached Tind.
He did not remember that fateful fevered day in the jungles of Jahuar, when he had woken up a whole land away from home with no memory of how he had gotten there. All he remembered was Takoda and waking up. But he knew that it had been La'amu who had saved him.
She hadn't tired. She hadn't stopped. She had carried him through the jungle and found Takoda and he had been saved. He had to do the same for her, and he could only hope that the animal healer in Tind would be her Takoda.
He stopped only once, to give her water and tell her it would be all right, that she would get better, and that he loved her. He wasn't sure if she believed him.
~~~
Tind flitted out of the fog like a hallucination or a Tale mirage to Nuawahn's tired eyes. At first, he thought it was a hallucination, but he smelled the familiar distinctive smells of dried grass and capramel that marked the settlement. He stepped up his pace, following the scent through the silent night. The settlement was quiet with the hush of nighttime, but Nuawahn didn't notice it as he summoned a wisp of light to guide his way. It illuminated the soft reds and blues of the architecture and the glowing eyes of the penned capramel herds and, finally, rested on a longhouse decorated with capramel horns. This, he thought, must be it. it had to be the animal healer's house – why else would it be decorated so. He walked up to the door and hesitated, closing his eyes for a moment to rest them before he knocked. He leaned against the door, and the gauzy fog inside his mind soon took him, and he knew no more.
Morning light stabbed his vision, and he was gently shaken awake by strong hands. He opened his eyes slowly and reluctantly, smiling at the strong figure, his mind wispy and forgetful from his slumber. “Hello...” he said to the tall, strong man he saw before him.
“Good morning.” The man's voice sounded like sandpaper despite the golden smoothness of his powerful corded body. He looked a lot like Ogbonna, but he wasn't Ogbonna, and that confused Nuawahn's groggy senses for a moment.
“Who are you?” Nuawahn asked, sitting up a little, stretching against the tense pains he had in his back. “Are you the animal healer?” he said, vaguely remembering that he was looking for such a thing.
“No.” said the man, “I am the Headman of Tind. Your husband explained the situation.” he offered Nuawahn a hand up.
“Oggie isn't my husband.” said Nuawahn, his eyes falling on the capramel in the wagon. His mood dropped into panicked desperation again, and he looked back up at the man, hopeful. “There is an animal healer?” he implored, “Right?”
“Mmm... Not yet he isn't.” murmured the Headman, frowning, “Come on. Lets get some food in you and get your beast some help...” Nuawahn shook his head.
“No! I need to help her!” he said insistently.
“Yes. “ said the headman, his eyes narrowing, “After you eat.”
“No... please, she's very sick... I need to help her now!” he loosed himself from the man's grasp and was soon at La'amu's side.
“Fine.” said the man, slightly disgruntled, “I'll take you there. Follow me.” He beckoned and began to move. Nuawahn grabbed his cart and followed, grogginess and desperation mingling in his mind into a strange mixture that made the morning feel odd and artificial. He was led to a house with many spacious pens covered with feathered wards. “Here you are.” said the headman somewhat curtly, turning and beginning to walk away, “Good luck.”
“Don't mind him” said a voice. This one was feminine and pleasant and Nuawahn turned to see that it belonged to a young wind woman, a smile gracing her pixie face, “He doesn't like... uh...” she swallowed her words, changing them, “unusual people.” she hopped the fence neatly with the ease of long practice, “Is that the capramel? Your boyfriend let me know – he's very active, you see. He's at the inn now, setting things up for the two of you. You've got a great catch there, let me tell you – I'm pretty envious, actually...” she said, opening the gate and bringing the wagon through into a pen and setting her down on some fresh straw. “All right, lets see whats the matter with you...” she murmured.
She began to examine La'amu, her examination – teeth, mouth, body, and hooves- exactly like what the animal healer of Mez had done. He watched anxiously as she completed the exam. “Damn.” she exclaimed, standing up, “She's old! You sure you want to bother with healing her? I mean, she can't calve and she's got maybe another year in her at most. If you ask me, healing her when she's this far gone is a waste of time...”
Nuawahn had never been angry. It was not even a rare thing for him – it had simply never happened before. So the nerve-blazing, shrieking, firey feeling screamed through his mind, he had no idea what it was or any way to deal with it's intoxicating force. He was swept away and lost in it before he knew what was happening. “It's not a waste of time!” he shouted at her, his own voice startling to his ears. He began to cry, his hands balling up into fists as he glared, panicked and defiant, at her. “It's not a waste of time!” he reaffirmed, “She's my Amma, and you're going to make her better!” he pointed at the animal healer, his finger shaking, “YOU are. So, make her better!” The emotions receded like a tide, leaving a clarified, numb despair and exhaustion in their wake. He looked down and away, his hand falling to his side. “Please...” he murmured, and slumped against the fence. “Please...”
The animal healer raised her hands in annoyed, mocking surrender. “All right, all right!” she said, placatingly, “I'll try. I'm promising nothing, though...” she went inside as Nuawahn watched and brought out some sort of herbal medication that tingled against Nuawahn's face and the inside of his nose. She fed some of it to La'amu and began to use her magic. “But you'd better be able to pay for this.” she concentrated, the glowing tendrils of magic spiralling into La'amu's body. Suddenly, her face contorted into a scowl. “What the...?” she exclaimed, glaring up at him briefly, “What is this?!”
“I can pay...” said Nuawahn, reaching for his purse apologetically, “I'll pay anything, just please make her better!”
“You're paying anyway.” she retorted, drawing back, her magic receding, “But there's nothing I can do.”
Nuawahn stared at her, uncomprehending. “You can't?” he said, stunned. What did she mean, can't?Tind was supposed to make her better!
“Nope. Never seen anything like this before.” she said, holding out her hand, “Now money or goods. This was a whole lot of wasted time and effort, and I don't work for free.”
Nuawahn reached for his coinpurse absently, then stopped, staring at her with a sort of pleading horror. “But...” he said slowly, “You have to help her....” he slumped, defeated, “She has to get better...” he sniffled, his eyes glittering with tears, “She has to, you see!”
The healer looked at him neutrally, then glanced down at his purse and sighed. “I can't help her and there's really no point since she's so old, but...” she hesitated, “I know who can.”
Nuawahn perked up eagerly. “Really?” he squealed, “Who? Who? Tell me, please!”
She looked meaningfully at the moneypouch and Nuawahn brought out a handful of the shiny objects and laid them in her palm. She smiled and pocketed the money. “My teacher can do it, I bet. She knows all sorts of strange things about capramel.” she said, smirking, “Wanna know where she lives?”
“Yes! Yes! Where does she live!” asked Nuawahn, his face as hopeful and innocent as a puppy's.
“She moved out of town a few years ago, and I hear she's set up in the Edge of the World.” Nuawahn knew about the Edge – he'd traversed it's steep cliffs briefly in his wanderings, back when he was with his family caravan. “So you'd have to go there.”
“All right!” he chirped, “Thank you!” She helped him load La'amu up into the wagon.
“Its a ways, so you shouldn't waste time with that wagon. Here...” she shoved a bolt of magic into La'amu. The Capramel cried out and flailed before lying still, her eyes rolling as Nuawhan looked on in confusion, “There, that should help her move around on her own for a while. Won't be long until it wears off, so... get moving...” she bit back a laugh as he hurried away with his cart. “Heh. Good luck, kid.” she murmured, ingling the money she'd gotten off of him as she went back inside, “You'll need it.
~~~
Nuawahn knew where the cliffs were and they reached it as soon as his swift feet and the clattering cart were able. He helped La'amu off of the wagon and onto her hooves – it would not fit on the narrow cliffside path. La'amu struggled to regain her balance after so long on her side, clattering her hooves and shaking her head. Nuawahn smiled at her. “Your'e going to be okay, Amma.” he said, heartened by her mobility. He kissed her face. “We'll find the lady's teacher, and she will make you better!”
La'amu snorted. She knew her boy had been taken advantage of. But, as he started down the path, she plodded after him. After all, someone had to keep him out of trouble.
The path was treacherous: it was a narrow affair with a steep, smooth wall on one side and a sheer drop on the other to the beginning of the Tale sands a hopeless distance below. Loose stones and dirt were scattered along the weathered stone of the path, a hazard for the unwary foot where a single slip could mean a gruesome death hundreds of feet below.
Nuawahn, though, was not afraid. “Oh Amma!” he exclaimed, looking out over the view of Tendaji as it faded into the distant haze, “It's beautiful!”
La'amu grunted. She did not have a concept of beauty. In fact, she would rather they not be up there in the cliffs at all. Being sick was not fun, but she didn't care either way if she got better. She knew, in that way that animals do, that her time with her notcalf, her boy, was pretty much up. And, even with the energy that that horrible earthling female had zapped into her, she knew she didn't have long. Still, she had this energy, so she might as well follow Nuawahn, the thing she had been doing for many years already.
The path wound on, thinning dangerously in some places to ledges that Nuawahn had to sidle along, gripping the wall with both hands. La'amu had none of it, traversing the stony earthling-impassable upper parts when she could, watching to make sure her boy did not slip.
Soon, as daylight began to wane, they found a wide ledge that they could safely rest on. Nuawahn watched the sun set, La'amu beside him. The setting sun gilded the expanse below with a gleam of rosy gold. As it slowly dissipated into the Sautian haze, Nuawahn realized that he had been away from Tind for a full day.
He'd been so desperate to find the healer's teacher that he had forgotten to tell Ogbonna where he was going. He hoped that someone else had done so – he would have hated to make Ogbonna worry.
La'amu slumped, her eyes dulling as the light dimmed. It had been painful, but that woman had given her the energy to move and to keep up with her too-damn-young charge. But now, she could feel the remains of that energy dribble out through her hooves. She struggled against it's outward flow, leaning against Nuawahn as she tried to stay upright and keep some strength in her limbs.
She failed.
Nuawahn looked at her in surprise as he heard her horns clatter onto the stone, and, as he beheld her barely breathing form, he panicked. “Help! Help!” he yelled, not knowing if there was even a sailscale around to hear him, “Someone! Help!”
“God's boy.” Nuawahn looked behind him desperately to see an old woman glaring at him from behind a boulder. He blinked – there was a cave hidden by the boulder, so well hidden he wouldn't have seen it. “You'll cause a rockslide, shouting like that.”
He recovered from his surprise and pointed, pleadingly, to the limp form next to him. “She need's help! She just collapsed and... and...” he started to cry.
The old woman looked down at the capramel and, for a moment, her expression softened. “Shame on you, boy,” she said, walking over, “Running that capramel to the ground... Help me get her inside.” she said.
Nuawahn and the lady picked up La'amu and they went into the darkness of the cave.
~~~
“I know what this is, and I can heal it” said the old lady affirmatively. She put up a hand to stop Nuawahn before he could say anything, “But she won't survive.”
“What?” Nuawahn stared at her, uncomprehending.
“The irony is... if my fool of an apprentice in Tind hadn't done her little spell, I could heal her and she'd make it. But that horrible mercenary of a healer zapped all of that life force right out of her.” her voice was bitter and annoyed, “Before, she was sick. Now, she's dying, and the best I can do is ease her passing...”
Nuawahn looked at La'amu, shivering as a dribble of spittle and blood oozed from her mouth and laboring body. He didn't want to believe it, but he knew, deep inside beyond where the fog of his mind could reach, that what the woman said was true. “What...” he began, reaching out to her as if he could grab her and hold her back from death, “Can I do?”
She looked at him for a moment. “You're looking to be a healer, boy?” she said suddenly, pointing to the beads at his belt. He nodded, and she beckoned him over with a sigh. “Well, you're going to have to learn to do this eventually. You're going to need to do it far too often, with humans and animals both.” she murmured. She took his hand in a surprisingly gentle grip, laying it on La'amu's weak, shuddering body. “We are going to make her pain go away, all right boy?” she said, setting her hand over his. He felt her magic seep through his hand into La'amu, “Just follow my lead.” He did so, letting his magic flow in her magic's wake. He could feel the weak beat of La'amu's blood and the shiver of her nerves and the various twists and turns that were the other things her body did. He followed the old lady's magic past that, beyond the bones and sinews and other things.
Finally, he was aware of a pulsating core of life. Its Amma he realized as he touched it with his magic, It's her.. It was pulsing, like her heart, but it was flickering and dimming, sending sparks out into the living flesh surrounding it. It's hurting her he realized.
“That is her life force.” explained the old lady quietly in his ear, “It is the seat of her soul and the source of her life... But it's failing now, and its causing her pain. We can't build it back up... We have to help it go out.” Nuawahn didn't want to understand, but he did. He whimpered wordlessly. The healer squeezed his hand. “You will be helping her, boy. And I will be helping you.” She began to shape his magic with her own, forming it around the core of La'amu's life, enclosing it in a sphere of his magic. “You snuff it gently, like a candle.”
He opened his mouth to protest, to fight what she was saying, when a strangled bleat came from La'amu's tortured mouth. He opened his eyes and looked down at his capramel's face, their eyes meeting, and he knew.
This was what she would want.
“She needs you to do this.” said the woman softly. He closed his eyes again and felt the interplay of the magics and how the core that made up his friend and maternal companion felt like it was waiting.
It was waiting for him.
“Just like a candle, boy.” she said.
He made a choked wail and, with a shudder that ripped through his whole body, closed his magic around the pulsating glow, forcing it to go out, like suffocating a candle. He collapsed into wracking sobs as he felt his Amma, silently, almost gratefully, slip away.
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 7:47 am
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OOC 
