things can really get rough when you go it alone

Roan could hardly see with the dimness of the cave and the blood in his eyes. His breathing was raspy, his heart pounding in his chest when he didn’t get an answer from Dapple. They both knew well the dangers of their lifestyle, knew they were dancing with death every time they went after a bear. The realization that this was the last time they would ever fight together hit him harder than the voice of the strange woman.

He felt his heart fall as she answered him instead of his sister. She soothed him, let him know help had arrived and was further on the way. He wanted to get up, he needed to make sure Dapple was okay. He couldn’t hardly lift his chest to breathe let alone get up to find his sibling. Roan tried to keep his breaths even, tried to quell the panic in his chest as Iolaire introduced herself and drifted off from the second part of her words.

Roan shut his eyes tightly, the dried blood poking into the soft tissue as the scent of Dapple’s blood filled his senses. He was alive, and she was not. ”Dapple…” He mumbled back to the healer as she tried to comfort him and soothe his worries. The bear was close, his sister was dead, and his own injuries had him laid out in the sandy cavern. He should have been the one laying dead, not his brave sister. ”She.. She…” He gasped for breath and would have struggled to find his feet had Io not told him to lay still. Roan groaned heavily as he fell back in on himself, the trauma fully catching up to him as he realized how much his life was changed in the last day.