Noelani licked a healing wound on her front right paw. The scent emanating from her was somewhere between fresh metallic blood and acrid infection. She knew the basics of healing. Easily a poultice could be applied, the rot could be cleaned and cured. However, she enjoyed the pulsating sensation in her limb and the burning pain reminded her of being alive. She couldn't remember where this injury came from. A trip, a fall? A demonic volcano-child's doing? A poor attempt at a hunt? No way of remembering. What did it matter, anyways? What did remembering ever do for her?

She tried to keep herself tethered to time when she first arrived, but it was too difficult to try. How long had she been here, among the Habari? The volcano wolves? Time escaped her like leaves in the wind. The girl was not herself. She looked disheveled, to say the least. Her fur was covered in mud, soot, dirt, blood. Her coat was sparse and the spaces between her ribs were noticeable. Hunger and thirst were no longer strong enough to will her to move. Only fear inspired her these days.

She laughed bitterly to herself and laid her head between her paws. Bloody slobber on her front right paw stained her face. Yellow eyelids slowly fluttered shut, and she dreamed of the quiet.

(nighttime, foggy)

Veigar stalked quietly through the redbud forest, the boy moving as lightly as his slender paws would allow. He blended it against the desaturated backdrop of the forest; what was once alive with brilliant shades of greens and pinks was now muted and dreary. This autumn was proving to be quite a rainy one so far - not that Veigar had anything to base that off of, but it sounded like it was unusually stormy from the talk he'd heard from the adults around the pack. He wasn't deterred by the rain but it did make it harder to find things to do, and more so people to do things with, and he didn't want to spend his days harassing Recluse and Deathbelle to train him and play with him when they had important pack things to do.

He let out a little sigh as he hurried around a tight cluster of trees, pausing when he reached the edge of one and saw someone up ahead. They were a stranger to him, which didn't say much given how little he'd interacted with most of the wolves who were part of Habari. Slowly he crept forward, trying to keep himself concealed for now as he watched her and sniffed her out. She was from Habari, but she smelled off. Hurt, maybe? As he continued to close the distance between them it became increasingly obvious she was unwell- she was a skinny, dirty little thing, even smaller than he was, and he was just a kid.

Being dirty - at least that dirty - simply would not do. Veigar liked to roll around in the grass and dirt as much as any other wolf, but he didn't think either of his pseudo-parental figures would appreciate him staying very dirty for long. Why was this adult in this shape, anyway? "Hey! Lady!" He called out as he scrambled toward her, head cocked as he tried to get a better look at her. "You look like crap," he started, his voice without judgment, simple and matter-of-fact in the way only a child could be. "Don't tell anyone I said that, okay? But you do. You need something to eat and a bath, I think. Maybe a healer. Have you seen one?" Veigar knew how to hunt small animals and clean himself up and he could help her do both of those things, but the latter was out of his skillset.

Hey! Lady! Her sleep was already restless, but a sudden loud shouting terrified her awake. Already a minuscule thing, Noelani tried her best to make herself appear even smaller. She flattened her ears, squinted yellow eyes, and smushed her tiny body against the grass. A drawn-out, high-pitched whimper emanated from her. She was unable to risk looking at this wolf, but based on scent and voice she knew it wasn't one of the children who had tormented her. It was still a Habari native though, a young one, and that meant she was afraid.

He was saying words and while part of her was there listening, the thumping of her heart in her chest and the throb of her wounds made it difficult to hear. She felt like she was underwater, unable to kick her legs and surface. .. like crap... eat, bath? ..need a healer, have you seen one? Noe's whimpering grew louder. Surely it would be a trick, some funny game. Maybe the healer would just hurt her more somehow. Pour boiling water on her, or maybe rip her ear off to match her tail. Or maybe one of the kids was playing doctor today and going to re-attach her tail.

She knew she better respond to the stranger. She didn't want rudeness added to her list of mistakes. "Uuuhhh..." She cleared her throat. Her mouth was dry and metallic scented. "I will do anything you say... please don't hurt me." Her normally high-pitched voice was lower today. Terrified to make any sort of eye contact, she looked to her paws.

Veigar was largely naive to the horrors of the world, though he'd dealt with more than most kids his age. His father had died before he was born and his mother had died not long after his birth; he'd dealt with some amount of loss, though he was too young still to really put it into words. He didn't know much about suffering in the way Noelani must. He faced her with curiosity and interest, rather than the concern - or disgust - a full-grown adult might feel. He tilted his head as he watched her and tried to analyze the situation as best as he could. He recognized that she was afraid and hurt. Her cowering sparked something in he couldn't quite put words to either. He liked it, but he was more worried about her being caught all dirty and gross, so the strange feeling of power she elicited within him seemed to fade as quickly as it arrived.

"I don't want to hurt you," he admitted after a moment. Veigar didn't know who he was, or what he liked to do, not really. He remembered Askell once asking him what he liked to do and he hadn't really been able to answer him properly. But the thought of needlessly hurting her didn't come to the forefront of his mind either. "You don't have to be difficult, either. I dunno who you are but you really should get cleaned up." He was pretty sure if he was walking around like this that Deathbelle would wring his ears if she found him. "Come on, let's go," Veigar urged her, motioning with his shoulder as he started heading toward the closest body of water he could think of.

A maelstrom of emotion clung to her like a sickly miasma. Tears burned in her eyes and she tried to keep them blinked them away. This guy was trying to be friendly with her, it seemed. She finally lifted her head enough to get a look at him. God, so young. Older than those bratty children, but still, so young, so fresh. Her opinion of this pack's children was low in regards to their morality but high concerning their malice. But, he wanted her to come with, to get cleaned up. Said he didn't wish to hurt her. It made her confused, a little nervous. As kind as he seemed, she knew deception was the only thing ahead of her. Forever.

With the fear of a creature who had been broken deeply, into her very foundation, she rose to her mud-caked feet and slinked behind her new companion. Fear of a beating or perhaps another cosmetic removal kept her pace. The fog and her sickly condition made it difficult for her to see, so she kept an eye on the blur of brown and white ahead of her. Where would they go?

Why was he out wandering this late, anyway? He hoped he wouldn't be scolded for that. He'd just been wandering and he'd happened across her, but now that he'd found her he wanted to make sure she got tidied up properly. No one should be wandering around the pack looking like this girl did, no matter who she was. "Come, hurry," he urged her, sounding a bit annoyed as she moved to keep up with him. "Who are you, anyway? You smell like the pack but I never seen you before." He continued along for awhile, hoping she'd keep up despite her state, until he came to a small stream. It wasn't a naturally occurring one but thanks to the wet season they'd had, it now carved its own pass through the land, flowing freely. "Now wash up," Veigar instructed her, nodding towards the water as he sat back and waited.

The agitation in his voice quickened her pace. She tried to stay just a few steps behind him. She was breathing heavily by the time they got to the little stream.

He asked who she was, and she paused. Who was she? She remembered a brother, a mother, a childhood - almost like a memory of someone else. "Noelani." She whispered her name. It sounded weird in the air like it didn't belong. "I didn't mean to come here.." She mumbled.

The water was frigid to her, and with no fat to insulate her body, her teeth began chattering within seconds. She groaned when the water opened up crusted wounds. All of the water nearest her was temporarily stained a brown-red, then it washed away. Her fur lightened a few shades without all the dirt, and for the first time, she felt something where her tail was. The all-over pain caused her to let out little shrieks of pain.

Veigar was naive to the horrors of the world; he had no idea what sort of things had befallen this woman, didn't know why she was here nor why she was in this condition. All he knew was that he wouldn't be seen going home looking like this, all bloody and dirty and gross - so wherever she belonged, she needed to get herself cleaned off. "I'm Veigar. Are you new then? I've never seen you before," he admitted as they walked together.

Her mental discomfort was obvious, but Veigar had a hard time wrapping his head around it. He was definitely a bit stunted, not quite familiar with too many wolves and how they might express their emotions. To him, Noelani mostly just seemed weird, but he wouldn't dwell on it for long, especially not when there were important things to do like get her cleaned up properly. Her comment about not meaning to come here didn't make much sense to him, but he overlooked it as they reached the edge of the stream and she began to climb in, shivering from the cold.

Though he was hardly what you'd call empathetic, it was obvious she was in pain. "Should I call a healer to help you? Something must hurt?" His nose scrunched up in concentration as he watched her, ever-curious as he tried to figure out who she was and what she was doing here. It seemed increasingly clear to him that he was missing at least part of the story.

The pain sharpened her senses. Her mental fog was lifting, and she was starting to feel a little more lucid. Her vision, her hearing, it was all coming in much more clearly. She blinked a few times and saw the confused face of a child. He was so young, so confused, concerned, naive. "Ahhh, I-'m.. ahh.. I accidentally crossed the border..." Her ears flattened with some shame, guilt, regret. Would this kid understand? Understand that it was a complete accident, and she didn't mean to come here?

She glanced down and the water caught her eye. Noelani watched the swirls of discolored water bend and twist, slowly lightening until they faded away. It was hypnotizing to her. Everything else was muffled for a time; even her pain and anguish; and she felt like she only existed to stare at the water. Watch the blooms appear and disappear. Follow the skirt of their existence fade into the water. Over, and over, and over.

His question yanked her out of focus and she looked up. A healer...? "Yes, it does hurt." She said, yellow eyes meeting his for a brief second. She contemplated for a moment. "Am I allowed to see a healer? I don't know if she would let me...." Noelani mumbled, thinking out loud. What more could she do? Take a limb? Noe shuddered at the thought.