Her mouth was agape, tongue flapping against her lower jaw lazily. Noe was beyond hungry. She couldn't remember her last meal. Her stomach didn't even hurt with hunger anymore. She was a little lightheaded and at some point, she decided to go this way - but the reason was long gone from her memory. She merely plodded through the cold silently, waiting for anything to appear before her. Her paws dragged behind, leaving deep lines in the snowy mud around the pond.

A fuzzy outline caught her attention; a patch of morels clumped against a tree trunk. They were pale in color, with complicated, fleshy tops. Noelani stopped her march to investigate. Upon sniffing, Noe's open mouth oozed drool. She remembered in her youth, her father pointing out these morels. Yes, yes… That's it. The mushroom that can be eaten, safely. Without a second of hesitation or clear thought, Noelani bit down on the morel.

After a third bite, Noe looked back at the morels - where are they? She couldn't focus on them. Her eyes kept going the opposite direction she meant to look, no matter how hard she tried. Anxiety and fear washed over Noe and she paused rigidly. Within seconds, mouthfuls of chewed morel mixed with bile and foam sprayed from her mouth. Dizzy and confused, Noe tried to back away but collapsed into the dirt and snow. She scraped her limbs on exposed roots peeking through the branches. Vomit and bits of morel oozed from her open mouth.

https://www.ardently.org/showthread.php?tid=34151&pid=209717#pid209717 He’d ventured to Lirim’s old lands once more to check the prey population and see how they were faring on an unusually harsh winter. However, retching and the thrashing of a small figure caught his attention as he stopped to gain his bearings and scanned the area. A small, slim young woman seemed distressed, and the sting of bile and the musty, earthy scent of fungi touched his nose as he trotted forward, woofing softly to let her know he was there as he drew near enough to study her. He was no master healer, but he knew just enough to know the symptoms of poisoning. And his mind raced over the options. Water, he decided, and an emetic to be sure her stomach rejected all of the bad mushroom. Well, water was certainly nearby, so he called softly, “Can you follow me, miss?” Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think

The distant sound of a woof echoed in her head over and over, gaining in volume and her eyes widened with fear and anxiety. She couldn't right her head long enough to look around her with any clarity. The whites of her eyes were red and all around her eyes swollen and practically glowing with inflammation. Her tongue and gums were pale and her chin soaked in yellow bile. She emitted endless sets of nervous whimpers and whines.

Loud footsteps alerted her to the one who made the noise - she managed to get a glimpse of brown and white nearby. Can you follow me, miss? She turned her head towards the source. "I.. Hhh- She tried to speak but coughed up sticky trails of bile instead. After she coughed and sputtered for a few minutes, she tried again. "Morels… I don't.. I don't know," She tried to respond but she couldn't summon the right words.

He ticked his tongue as she responded, disoriented and ill, and he hummed comfortingly. He doubted they’d been morels, likely a similar looking fungus. But as it seemed she wasn’t able to follow, he stepped closer, aiming to come alongside her. “I’ll have to take your scruff and help you up.. We need to get your cleared out inside, and then see what we can do to get rid of the toxins.” Her body was already trying to expel the danger, and as he reached to gently grasp her scruff in his jaws, hoping to lift her to her paws and support her, he pondered whether it would be best to rush her back to Valhalla and let Paladin or Kati work on her with their much higher levels of knowledge. A rustle told him Enito was nearby, and he paused long enough to tell the mandrill, “If we can’t get her treated out here, I’m going to have to carry her to Valhalla and find Paladin, or Kati.” The mandrill studied the woman and muttered, "She said Morels? Probably false morels. Vomiting should help." The monkey snatched a tortoise shell from Cai's pouch and trotted out of sight, returning with the shell brimming with water. He offered it to the woman. Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think

I'll have to take your scruff and help you….. She heard the first few words, but the ringing in her ears muffled out the rest. She closed her eyes for just a moment, to try and focus. She felt the other wolf beside her, lifting her, and she tried to hold herself up. When she opened her eyes a pool of water was held out in front of her. That wasn't always there, was it? What about the monkey? She pulled up her dry tongue into her mouth and felt the sting of acid on her gums. Without consideration or hesitation, the girl lapped the water in front of her, no doubt splashing the kind creature holding the water. It soothed the ache in her throat and settled in her stomach.

"The shape, it's... You get a lot." She said while trying to focus on the brown wolf. "It isn't… uh,… one or two." She lowered her head when her stomach started to burn. One more time, she retched heavily. Not much was left inside of her but she was still able to expel some drips of foam and clumps of the morel. After her last hacking cough, she closed her eyes and hung her head. Noelani panted heavily, trying to catch her breath and right herself to little effect. The dark spots clouding her vision were getting thicker and thicker.

OOC: Flying by the seat of my pants here lol

If Enito cared about getting sloshed, the monkey didn’t show it. Cairo stood close, an ear canted toward the girl as his eyes scanned the area, in case any dangers came near. He was better with treating scrapes and cuts than poisonings, and he was still considering whether he could take this woman home and have Paladin see to her treatment. The water didn’t get long to settle in the woman’s gut, and up it came, though he was heartened to see more chunks of fungus coming up with the water and mucus… although, worryingly, little else. How long had it been since she’d eaten? Enito went and refilled the tortoise shell, then returned and set it to one side, digging through one of Cairo’s pouches and pulling out a birch bark packet seamed with pitch and sinew stitching. At Cairo’s glance, the monkey provided, “Knotweed seeds. Or Pigweed seeds. They have several names. But they are an emetic, so if she eats some, whatever’s left of the mushroom should come up.” Cairo regarded the woman. She seemed on the edge of passing out, and he pondered before leaning to nudge her ear. “Can you stay awake to eat these? They’ll make you throw up more, so it won’t be pleasant, but we have more water for you. Can you remember when you last ate?” He tacked the last question on, thinking a quick hunt would be in order anyway. Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think

"Oh, my head.." She groaned. She couldn't keep her eyes open. Her gray eyebrows hung heavy over her eyes, keeping her barely able to see. She just wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep. But this guy, he nudged me, so I should probably answer him… She found a particularly cognizant moment and gripped it tightly. "Uhh, I don't think I should…" She said, glancing at the seeds presented to her. Eating plants got her into this mess.

Can you remember when you late ate? Last ate? No, can't remember that. But she vividly remembered her first kill - a lemming. She jumped on to it from a distance and accidentally crushed it without even trying. The little lemming twitched for a few minutes, and she watched intently. It made awful, painful noises while it thrashed. "No.." She mumbled. "Sorry, sorry.." In her mind, the lemming and herself switched places; a giant rodent towering over the crushed gray wolf.

She slumped to the ground. Her heart was racing, but her eyes closed.

(safe to assume she passed out lol)

Well, that was a flop. He wasn’t going to force feed the seeds to her, though he probably should have. Enito nodded to him, reassuring him as the woman eventually collapsed. Cairo could hear her heart hammering, but that was likely mainly due to the morel toxins. He gave a low, “Eeeeegh…” of concern, and Enito reached out to check under the woman’s eyelids. “Unconscious. Why don’t you go bring down a deer or something. Maybe a beaver… Something more nutritious than a hare. I’ll watch over her. And yell if she needs carried to the pack.” Cairo nodded quickly, eager to move and work off some of the anxiety with something he knew best. He trotted away while the Mandrill set about getting a fire going nearby, heating the water in the tortoiseshell and starting a tea. Cairo slid along the shoreline, eyes and ears alert, until he spotted a likely spot where animals seemed to like to come for a drink. He tracked a good spore, and after a burst of activity, brought down a particularly small and inexperienced doe, dragging her back to the fire and working the hide off the carcass. He wouldn’t leave the woman laying unconscious, and if it took too long, he’d see what Paladin could do. Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think

All of the loud buzzing in her head and the pain-filled ebb and flow of her body fighting off poison slowed to a halt. Once her gray snout made contact with dirt she simply let go. In just a moment, everything faded away into peaceful darkness. She twitched occasionally; little phantom movements, but she was gone to the world.

Slowly, one by one, a sense phased back in. First, sounds. She heard the sound of ripping, crackling, rustling. It sounded so foreign in her world deprived of other senses. She couldn't make sense of it. Slowly, the sounds paired with smells --- the crackling with smoke, the rustling noises paired with the wolf who was creating them. She smelled a fresh kill as well, which brought back her body's senses a little better. Fresh kill?

Slowly she opened a yellow eye to see the brown wolf from earlier. Her vision was still blurred, but not so badly she couldn’t see the strip of white beneath his eye. The male was working over a fallen deer - where did that come from? Did he have that earlier? Her throat was so raw and dry she didn't even attempt to speak. Instead, she just watched from the ground with curious yellow eyes.