If It Wasn't For Bad Luck

As Keelin worked she heard Merrick give a quiet groan and she glanced to see his eye lids fluttering, holding still for a moment as she prepared to stop him from moving if he did manage to wake up, but after a moment he fell quiet and still again other than his shallow breathing so she went on about her work, hurrying to get him closed up as soon as possible. She held her breath as she leaned down to be able to see into the wound a bit better and peeled back a portion of his skin to get to the piece of antler that had been buried deeper than the first. Her dexterous toes very carefully caught the end of the tine and when she pulled it out she did it slow and gently so that it wouldn't scrape or damage anything else internally than it already had. She let out a sigh with the breath she had been holding and dropped the bloody piece of antler off to the side before she peeked around a bit more, ensuring there was just the two pieces before she moved on to anything else. She used the trillium laced water to finish rinsing out the wound to clean it as best as she could before finally reaching for her needle and thread.

She was forced to very gently place his intestine back where it should be and then held the skin closed while she started binding the two edges together using steady and practiced passes of the thin sliver of bone. She had stitched him up countless times before, but it had never been anything this serious or intense. A bad cut here, a nasty bite there, but a huge wound like this big enough for his guts to be spilling out of his belly... This was more than she was fully confident that she was reasonably able to treat, but she had to try. There wasn't time to go looking for a different healer. Time was very much of the essence and she had to save him. Never once did the thought cross her mind that she could have just let him die, that maybe he deserved it for how she had been treated, that this was really her chance at a real freedom, to not have to carry his children or play the role of his mate. She didn't want any of that. She wanted Merrick to survive so that they could keep living this life she had grown to enjoy.

Once she had made one pass down the length of the wound she doubled back and made a second row of slanted stitches over the wound. It would likely make a thick scar once it healed, but that felt like fair trade to make sure this didn't kill him. Once the stitches were in place she sat back a bit and gathered some some dandelion root, marigold, and the little bit of marshmallow she had, crushing them together with a bit of water to make a thick ointment. With one toe she carefully painted it across the wound, pressing it in gently around the stitches to make sure they didn't get infected and help keep down some of the inevitable inflammation. The last thing she did was take some sticky horsetail and make one last seal over the whole wound and use some almost like hair gel to press back his fur around the wound to keep it out of the way. With that done she sat back, falling onto her haunches with a heavy, shaky sigh. Her paws were bloody and covered in various herbs and concoctions, her toes ached from pushing the needle though his skin, and her nerves were fried from the pressure she had suddenly been placed under, but she felt like she had done all she could possibly do.

She went and washed off her paws, gathering up all the remnants of her work and placing them in a pile on the other side of the den, including the pieces of antler she had retrieved from his chest cavity, and then turned back to Merrick. She leaned down and placed her ear on his chest, listening to his heart beat and his breathing for a few moments. He wasn't out of the woods by any stretch, but at least his guts were contained once more. She quietly laid down beside him, resting her head on her paws while she watched his face, waiting and hoping that he would pull back from this and wake up sooner rather than later, still occasionally muttering a frustrated and exasperated curse under her breath while she waited. Her paw absently fiddled with the long, deadly talons on his massive paw after a while, but her ruby gaze never left his face.

"Keelin"