If It Wasn't For Bad Luck

Keelin didn't always expect Merrick to come home each and every night, but it was pretty uncharacteristic of him to not return after a day or two, especially unannounced like this. The first night she hadn't thought much about it, but as they got into the second day with still no word she started to get a little concerned. It was strange, feeling this kind of worry over someone who had once just been her owner and nothing more, but since they left the ship and she had gotten to see different sides of him outside of what she had experienced around the other slavers she had slowly grown more and more attached to him. He was a sadist and an asshole, but he was her sadist and asshole and the cave felt too empty without him.

She just had a feeling that something was wrong. She couldn't really explain why, she just did. Keelin packed small satchel with some healing supplies that she had kept around from their various travels and then headed out to see if she could track him down. Maybe she wasn't the best wolf for the job, but if she didn't find him right away then she'd come back and get his sister perhaps to help her hunt him down. However, she didn't get far on her search because as soon as she started nearing the side of the island that had the land bridge that would take her to the main land she heard a struggling howl that made her fur stand on end and a chill of dread run over her skin. "Merrick...?!" she gasped softly before she took off running in the direction of the howl, the satchel around her neck streaming out behind her.

When she reached the shore she spotted the large form of his violet and black marked body laying on the sand of the land bridge and her heart sank, silently cursing herself for not worrying about him sooner. He usually seemed so invincible that the idea of anything taking him down almost seemed absurd, but here they were. She noticed that the howl had caught the attention of a couple of other pack members that had started to hurry toward the land bridge as well and she waved them forward, rushing them to his side. She reached him first and made a couple of futile attempts and getting him up by nudging lifting his head and neck, muttering, "Don't you fucking die on me now..." Luckily the brutes that came to check out what was going on were able to lift him and she guided them back to their den so she could get him patched up—or at least she hoped she could. On the way she felt for his pulse and it was almost too weak for her to find and she took a peak at the wound that he had crudely covered in vines and she didn't like what she saw.

Once the males got him into their cave and laid him down on the furs there she shooed them out so she could work, rushing around the cave to gather up her supplies. A bowl of clean water, a sea sponge she had cleaned and dried, a thin needle made from bone, long horse hair for the stitches, and every herb and extract she had on hand, all set up around where he was laying within moments. "You fucking idiot, what did you get into this time, gods damn it..." she muttered to herself under her breath as she worked. She could see the rise and fall of his chest, but it was shallow and labored and didn't give her confidence in his current condition. A bit afraid of what she was going to find, she picked up a small bone knife and started cutting away the vines he had tied around himself and as soon as they were peeled away and the pressure they had been putting on the large wound across his gut was relived a part of his intestine slipped free and a bit of panic gripped her chest.

Taking a shaky breath, she mixed some trillium extract into the water before soaking her sponge with it and beginning to clean the wound carefully, removing all the dried blood from around the edges and cleaning off any dirt and plant matter the vine might have left behind. She also started carefully applying a thick, concentrated paste of yarrow along the torn edges of the skin to help prevent them from bleeding any more. As she was trying to decipher what could have caused this she noticed something poking from the edge of the wound and she pulled it out, finding a tine of an elk antler. She frowned deeply, her brows pulling together as she started gently and carefully feeling across his side, and gently lifting the skin to try and find any more. She certainly didn't want to sew him up with elk antler caught up inside of him.

"Keelin"