Shoot Me Down

*Casso* · 04-22-2020, 05:58 PM

He kept his ears perked toward her and his full attention on the healer beside him when while she continued to speak. Listening to her voice and letting himself put his attention besides himself helped. It broke up the constant stress and strain he felt over his entire body and let him take calm breaths into his lungs again. He sympathized and related with her when she shared that her mother had faced issues of her own and how it had scared her. His father had been the stem from which his own problems had grown from and he remembered the fear he had seen in his mother before she ran away with him and the small gathering of family she had been able to take with her. It had been hard for him to see, but it gave him a reference for what he didn't want to be. His heart was so torn because he knew what had ultimately happened to his father and how things had spiraled because of his illnesses, but a part of him was still so devoted to his Preator lineage. He thought back to the days when he was a pup with such fondness despite the darkness that had unknowingly been around him from the start.

His gaze followed her when she went to collect a few light purple flowers - another herb he vaguely remembered from his mother's collection. This one felt more familiar than the last, but he wasn't sure why just yet. A frown creased his expression and his ears flicked uncertainly when she told him that the man she had lived with that had similar problems to his own had eventually killed some of their wolves. Even though she tried to insist that it wasn't his fault, he couldn't help but feel like it was. A fear crept into his chest. Was that what he was destined to become? A killer? The man in her story and his father had both followed that path... How much could his own will power keep him from doing those things?

It was harder for him to focus on Elizabeth while she began to tell him things he could do to help manage this. His mind was already wandering toward the dark path he felt fated to follow, but seeing how hopeful she was that her advice would help him made the male want to listen. Her kind blue eyes made a slight smile tug onto his lips. There were still worries and concerns for himself lingering in the back of his mind, but it seemed that at least for the time being the noise in his head had gone quiet. The fragrant lavender found him as he took a slow, steading breath and it was the scent that finally triggered his memory. The day that his mother had found him bleeding heavily from his tangle with a bear, this had been one of the things she had used with him. He looked down at the purple flower and his ears folded back against his head as a confusing wave of emotions washed over him.

He could still picture the panic on her face that had eventually smoothed into that focused, calmed expression that she always had when she was hard at work. He remembered laying in her den with the strong scent of herbs around him while he tried to fight though a similar lapse like the one he had gone though today while she applied herbs to the wound on his shoulder. One of the first things she had done before she treated anything else was give him lavender and kept it around his head while she worked on the physical wounds. Casso brought his gaze back to Elizabeth's and he gave her a small, but grateful smile. "Thank you. I'm... I'm glad you found me." With the memory from his past to focus on, the tension had almost entirely fallen from his shoulders. The herb she had given him earlier for the blood loss seemed to be doing its work since the light head feeling that had lingered on him before had dissipated, leaving him simply feeling tired and worn.

A heavy sigh passed his lips and he began to pull himself to his paws, wincing when he felt the pain from his leg. He hadn't noticed it much when he had received the wound initially, but now that his clouded mind wasn't there as a distraction he could feel it in all of its painful glory. He wasn't knew to having injuries by any means and it was far from the worst one he had ever sustained, but it didn't mean that it didn't sting all the same. "Well, this will certainly put a kink in my plans," he commented, giving her a slight smirk as he chuckled quietly. His own personality began to slowly come back to the forefront, feeling more like himself by the minute. He never really knew how long those episodes would last, but he took a slight, fleeting comfort in knowing that he usually had a longer, quieter lull after one that was as intense as that one was. "I was on the way to find my aunt and cousin before all this... She was going to a pack near here to find her brother when we separated. At least I hope it's near here." He wasn't exactly sure where it was since he hadn't been this far west before, but if he was following her description then he should be very close. He glanced down toward the wound that Elizabeth had helped to treat with a frown. The last thing he wanted was to face Baine with a fresh wound after insisting that he would be fine before she left him. "I don't want to show up like this though... Maybe I'll just rest near here till this starts to heal up a bit."

"Speech" Thought

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