Darkened Skies

When he began to speak, his gentle voice reaching her ears, she almost felt like she could breathe again, as though she'd been suffocating from the uncertainty she felt. Her ears slowly lifted, perking toward Paladin as he explained as best he could about what had happened, from his perspective. Sterling's brow furrowed before she finally lifted her gaze to meet his face. She'd slipped and fallen? How had she managed that? What had she been doing? She craned her neck back to look upward, seeing the edge of the ravine where she supposed she must have fallen. She squinted against the heavy drizzle, wondering what she'd been doing before she'd ended up here. Before she could mull it over any longer, she felt a gentle touch against her roughed up pads, and her eyes fell to meet Paladin's gaze for a split second before his focus carried over to the plants nearby. She watched him as he padded away to collect some leaves, but she was hardly observing his current actions; instead, her mind went over the soft lick to her injured pads. She hadn't expected him to care much about her injuries, at least not more than his healer's tendencies would cause him.

But his mannerism was not just professional; it was soothing and somewhat warm, the least of which she'd expected. Yet, because of their last encounter, she wondered if it was just the way he was trained to behave. Was it part of being a healer to be gentle with every patient, regardless of who they were? What other reason could there be? Just as she'd not had time to mull over how she'd gotten here, she quickly ran out of time to wonder about the nature of his touch. He'd returned with a mouthful of leaves which he left nearby as he retrieved a hide, similar to ones she'd seen him with in the past. "Th-thanks," she spoke softly, unable to compose herself properly. She felt like nothing made sense at the moment, and maybe that was just her concussion, but everything seemed to be happening too fast for her mind to rationalize. Her ears perked as he then told her she was close to Druid's Moor, and this place was called Cryer's Ravine. Suddenly it occurred to her that the moor was where Paladin's family resided. Had she really come so close to their home? She wondered why she'd been travelling in the west at all.

She nodded her head to Paladin as he confirmed that her pads were ripped up. She focused her attention onto her body, and very slowly, she shifted her limbs so that she could identify where it hurt. The bruising along the side she'd landed on seemed to make her feel like her entire body ached, and she chuckled somewhat as she tried to pick out the worst areas, while also trying to keep her spirits up, despite the pain. "It's like everything hurts," she said, while trying to push herself up into a seated position. That searing pain shot through her side again, and she lowered herself back to her elbows. "Yea, I think my rib's broken," she stated, her voice tight with pain, "And my ankle. It's pretty sore, but not as bad as my side." She wondered what he would do next, still not sure of the full extent of the healer's abilities. Would he be able to fix her injuries, and what would he do once his work was done?