ohana

When Viviane had returned to find that Artur, Meri, and Meri's children had all scattered into the wind without a trace, she'd had reason to hope that wherever they were, they had avoided this insane disease that had fallen over so many. Several of Valhalla's wolves had contracted it and were in quarantine, and though her family had so far avoided contracting it when she'd left, Viviane had left desperate to find a cure for her packmembers before it could be too late.

It wasn't particularly unexpected to come across a victim of the Ooze, since so many had been struck by one form of it or another. Viviane bit her lip as she saw the crystallized, oozing form collapse ahead of her, but tried to steel herself to move on. There was nothing she could do at this stage, and she had too many loved ones in need of a cure for her to stop. All she could do was offer comfort to a stranger, and she couldn't justify doing so at the expense of Valhallans.

Still, she couldn't help but glance sadly at the fallen form as she passed, only to stumble to a halt with a pained cry. The form beneath the ooze and the crystals was nearly unrecognizable, and time had changed her even before, but... yes, it was her niece, Harlow!

Immediately throwing herself off her path she raced to Harlow's side. "Oh, Harlow," she gasped aloud in shock despite having seen the disease before. The Ooze as it appeared on Harlow was the most advanced case she'd seen to date. A deep visceral fear raised the hair on her spine as a tremor raced through her before she could control her reaction. She did not know how to fix this. She did not know how to save her niece.

"Harlow, it's me, Viviane." Heedless of her own safety she sought to curl her body around Harlow's crystal-encrusted form to offer her what comfort she could. She couldn't stop her mind from racing, from offering her a triple-dozen obviously useless ideas to treat it, easily rejected. Besides, she had none of the tools of her trade with her. What could she offer? A pawful of lavender? Still, her eyes darted around them, searching for something - anything - that could be growing in the moonlight-bathed spring around them.