A Mistep

Halla limped quietly through the orchard in search of a good place to rest and tend to her injury. She'd been after a young white tailed buck and had been gored in the process. The wound wasn't terrible but there was noticeable bleeding on her right thigh where she'd been struck. It was an unfortunate turn of events. A wounded wolf was less effective at catching prey and as a loner that could be a death sentence. With a puncture wound she was particularly concerned about infection. If only she could find her aunties and be able to live in a small group or even a pack if that was where they were now. At least then she wouldn't need to rely so much on herself and would have a back up plan in case of injury or sickness. Well, she didn't intend to stay a loner forever, and she trusted the gods to guide her to the rest of her family. She just had to make sure she was staying alert to the signs and interpreting her dreams correctly. That was the trick, really. It could be so easy to misinterpret a dream and then wind up in trouble. So many things only seemed to make sense in hindsight.

It didn't take long to find a nice shady spot out of the heat of the afternoon sun. She headed deeper into the small forest. The birds around her were singing joyfully and she could hear the gentle buzz of various insects as the flickered in and out of the corners of her sight. A variety of trees were blooming around her, some with little white blossoms, others with pink. The scent was rich and heady and in some ways it was almost overwhelming. All around her life seemed to be stirring. Everything here was lush and green and she thought to herself that it might not be a bad place to stay. She could always set up a home base of sorts she supposed. Though she didn't see anywhere off hand that looked like it would be a good place for a den.

Wincing, Halla shifted her body, carefully laying down on her left side so she could get a better look at her right thigh. Curling around she started licking at the wound go clean up the blood around it. It was already starting to clot but was going to need a little extra care. She dug around in one of her satchels. In order to more easily carry items she had two rabbit skin bags, tied with a distance between them by a leather cord which she could then set over her shoulders to allow her to carry more and still leave her jaws free. The downside was that it didn't allow for much sorting so she had to carry only a few items with her. Luckily after her failed hunt she was able to acquire a little bit of honey which she was eager to use. She'd wrapped it in a bit of leather but she was still worried the sticky substance was going to leak out onto everything else.

Finally finding what she was looking for she carefully unwrapped the honey as best she could but it still got all over her paws. She sighed as she immediately started attracting leaf litter. Best not to stay too long here or she was going to attract ants as well. Halla carefully use her tongue to spread the honey over and into her wound. Wincing as she did so. It burned but soon felt lightly numb. She'd learned from her mother that honey could be used to prevent a wound from becoming infected or even to treat some skin infections. Hopefully, the honey would do its work here. That was really the last thing she needed was to get an infected wound. That really would mean the end of the line if she failed to get it under control. Stupid buck. Though she supposed she couldn't really fault it for defending itself. She was the one who was really at fault for getting far too ambitious.

In the future she would need to be more careful, but ultimately she was realizing she'd need to stick to smaller prey or prey that was sufficiently weakened if she was going to focus on solo hunting. It just wasn't practical otherwise. Halla sighed. She was close, she knew that much but so far she hadn't received any other dreams from the gods and she could only guess as to where her family was. Perhaps tonight she would be gifted some answers. She had to preservere, no matter what.

As Halla swallowed the honey, working it off her tongue, she wondered if it had any other healing properties. She could see honey being useful for a sore throat but what would be the best way to store it? Perhaps she could keep some in a skull or other solid object, rather than smashed between a few pieces of hide. Yes, that would work out well. She'd just have to see what she could do about a storage container and then perhaps gather some later. In the mean time she realized she better get up and get moving. She could see more and more ants scurrying through the underbrush. That was the downside of honey apparently, she was bound to attract bugs. If she had a proper poultice to cover it with that would work better but she didn't have any on hand. Time to move.

Halla slowly got to her feet and shook out the leaf litter from her coat. She took a moment to clean her pelt, making sure she didn't have any ants or anything crawling on her. Once she was satisfied she started again on her journey, looking for a place that might be a bit more bug free. Was there really such a place? Not that she knew of for sure but staying here wasn't the answer. She still had a lot of ground to cover before she was ready to lay down and take a rest.