Like my heart longs for an ocean

She called him El...

He paused his work for a few breaths when he felt his heart skip a beat in his chest. He wished she'd lay back down... The trembling, the fever, and the coughing were only to get worse if she got up!

He gathers her up and cradles her next to the smoke. Suddenly she was thrashing against him, she was scared of the smoke. He knew it wouldn't be pleasant. He tried to shush her with a soothing sound but her panic was just incensed. She finally relents to the smoke, inhaling sharply. Fuck, she wasn't supposed to inhale it all at once. And begins to cough in fits and wracking agony. He could see how much it hurt. How could they have brutally submitted infants to this agony in the name of some goddess? It was all he knew. His heart ached as he felt her cough and cough and tremble weakly.

Her weak voice is his breaking point.
"I know. I wish it didn't." He whispers, a hot tear falls from his own eyes, his own chest ripped asunder for her. Between fits he strokes the fur behind her ear, over her cheek, rubbing her back to somehow soothe the wracking terrible agony. He looks in the basket he brought. A pot and some peppermint.

"Lay here." He commands softly, making a nest of her bed furs. He grabs the pot and fills it with the water coming off the falls right over her den entrance. Once filled he makes a makeshift spit and hangs the pot over the fire. Continually stroking her shoulders as the pot begins to boil. He throws the peppermint into the pot and takes it off the fire to steep.

After several minutes he gives her a cup to carefully lap from. A splash of cold water in it to cool.
"Drink slowly." He said and carefully brought it to her lips. No doubt she was too weak to take it her self. Regardless, he brought her own paw up to the cup to help him control the amount. He didn't want to make it all worse by having her take more liquid into her lungs.

"Speech!"