Malleus felt terrible. With the help of a stranger he'd fought a freakish, mutant cougar. The cat had managed to claw him across the face, leaving four long gashes along the right side of his head. The painful marks ran from the base of his ear to the corner of his mouth. While deep at the base of his ear, thankfully the claw marks grew more shallow the closer they got to his mouth, otherwise they would have shredded his cheek. In any case, the entire right side of his face was painfully swollen; so much so that he couldn't see out of his right eye. To make matters worse, Malleus was fairly certain the mutant cougar had been venomous. Some of its saliva had gotten on his left foreleg during the fight (no bite, thankfully, just splatter from a wet hiss) and where it had landed burned as if he'd been struck with hot coals. Now, hours later, his leg felt strange and tingly. It reminded him of a limb that had fallen asleep; how it ached and refused to work properly. To be honest it felt like someone else's leg and that did not bode well. He needed to get home. With the still working half of his face screwed up in a determined expression, Malleus continued his slow limp homewards. He had no choice but to make it. Failure wasn't an option.

It was rare that Sparrow left the pack now. She had decided to have a little outing. It was going pretty well until she spotted a large brute off in the distance. Sparrow crouched down slightly. His ataxic gait was off-putting and, after a moment, she smelled blood.

She was facing him, but at too much or a distance to see his injuries distinctly. His face, however, was was unmistakably bloodied and swollen on his right side.

Oh. So that was it.

What had this man gotten himself into?

She bet she could probably outrun him if he tried something.

Gaining her confidence, Sparrow stood and called out to the man.

"Sir, excuse me, but- uh- do you maybe... need healing? It's fine if you don't, but I'm a healer and so I thought maybe you'd consider it?"

A woman's voice broke through his steely resolve and snapped him back to his current predicament. He'd set his sights on The Empire and cleared his mind of all other thoughts in an effort to will himself home. An added benefit was that it was easier to ignore the pain if he focused on nothing but the goal before him. The pain radiating through his head made his movements stiff as he slowly raised his head to look at the stranger. He was passed the point of being wary of strangers, but it wasn't like this particular one was going to him much trouble anyway. The manner in which she spoke suggested she lacked confidence even in the face of a wounded stranger, although he supposed (if it wasn't a ruse) she earned a point for courage for lacking confidence but offering anyway. He sighed, head dropping (an action he regretted immediately as the changing pressure caused the wound to protest) as he was forced to swallow his pride. To avoid jostling the wound too much, he barely moved his lips and kept his reply short, "Yes, that would be much appreciated." Slowly, his movements pained as the inflammation in his face protested even the littlest changes in pressure, Malleus sat down. He thought it better to allow the uneasy woman to come to him on her own terms. Perhaps his sitting down (and the realization that she would have plenty of warning should he try to rise and harm her) would help put her at ease.

As soon as the male looked her way, Sparrow could tell he wasn't in for another fight. Sparrow breathed a sigh of relief. He agreed that he would accept her help and Sparrow's confidence grew. She could heal. At least she knew that.

As the large male sat, Sparrow approached.

"I need to get a look at your injuries," She said calmly.

The male had four long cuts along the right side of his head. They spanned from the base of his ear, where they were rather deep, to the corner of his mouth, where the marks were shallow. His face was heavily swollen. Sparrow worried about infection.

"How old are these wounds?" Sparrow asked, drawing back again so that the male could see her with his other eye.

His left foreleg showed a type on injury Sparrow wasn't all too familiar with- a burn. Not that she knew what it was from or how it got there. It smelled... off. It didn't smell smoky or singed, but it definitely wasn't a normal wound.

Sparrow drew back once again, "How did you get this?" Maybe some context would help.

He gave a slow, shallow nod in response to her first statement. It hurt, but no where near as much as talking. Grimly he considered the injury. Should the infection prove difficult to treat it was situated in a horrible place. Malleus wasn't afraid of possibly scarring - his appearance was of little concern to him - but the ability to speak clearly, or at all, really? That was a skill he wished to keep. Not to mention all of the important senses that could be compromised by an infection on his face. His nose, eyes and ears were all relatively close to the wound. "Two days," he murmured. And as for what had happened to his leg...that was going to take some explaining. It was a bit unbelievable, but hopefully she would see that he was lucid and serious, and that his account of what had happened was honest. He cleared his throat and then spoke slowly, each word parsed carefully in the hopes of minimizing the amount of speaking he would have to do. "I fought a cougar that was...sick. Mutated, perhaps. Its saliva burned like snake venom."

Two days, huh? That wasn't good, considering how injured this man was. How much blood had he lost? Had he been wandering this whole time?

As he responded to Sparrow's questions about his leg, she felt herself growing a little more skeptical. She expected the man to crack a smile any moment and say he was kidding. It sounded like something Ashmedai would do.

The man kept a straight face. He never said he was joking.

Was he perhaps delusional? Well, either way, the injury did look like something that a snake would cause. Sparrow nodded slowly, her mind churning over how to treat such a wound.

He needed something to boost his immune system. Elderberry? Something to bind his facial wounds too. Sparrow knew she definitely had some horsetail and lambs ear. Marigold could possibly help with the burn or poison thing.

"I could run and get some things to help patch you up," Sparrow said. "Or we can go a little closer to my pack, and I can use healing supplies from my stash."

Sparrow weighed the pros and cons of each.

"Which would you prefer?"

Not for one second did Malleus think she wouldn't believe him. His explanation was outlandish, sure, but he was being truthful. He was nothing if not honest; honesty tied directly to dignity and while he didn't think mortals were owed anything, he had everything to lose by being dishonest. Not just the intangible things, but, you know, his face, which could swell up and fall off for all he knew. He wouldn't lie about something so serious. The healer woman gave him a choice and Malleus had to think about it for a second. Assuming he wasn't going to have to trek halfway across the continent it was probably better that he go with her. With a (presumably) wider variety of plants and things to choose from it was fair to assume he'd receive better care than if she was having to haul things over a great distance or find them nearby. "If it isn't far," he murmured, "I'll go with you." Perhaps there was a silver lining in all of this. Getting closer to the pack might give him insight into it. The leader, the numbers, general health, etc. Little details that might prove useful one day.

The male seemed to ponder over Sparrow's offer for some time. Eventually, he agreed on the condition that the walk wasn't far. It wasn't and although Sparrow didn't vocalize this, she nodded at the man with a warm smile and began to lead the way.

After a little while, Sparrow glanced back at the man.

"Is your leg still burning? We can rinse it in a stream on the way if you'd like."

---

Once they were about at the Abaven borders, Sparrow turned, "It might be best for you to stay here for a moment. I can move quickly to my den that way and we won't get questioned."

Sparrow considered for a moment, but then shrugged "You can follow if you want, but I think it's faster from here if I go and come back."

With that, Sparrow ran to the nearest herb den and gathered lambs ear, horsetail, and a earth smoke and dandelion mix. She put them in a skin pouch and carried them to the male.

She dropped the pouch and opened it when she came to the male's side. "Okay, so I think we should take care of your face first. I'll clean it- but it'll hurt. Then I'll apply this mix to it and seal it. Your face... will probably scar... Sorry if that's an issue."

Sparrow decided not to dwell much on that detail and she looked at the leg wounds.

"I can apply the paste to that and lightly bandage it. It would be best to change that wound frequently. As for scarring..." Sparrow thought for a moment, "There isn't much fat there so most forelwg wounds scar at least for a while. It shouldn't cause any future problems, though. Purely surface scarring, I'd assume."

Well, she had given him a snopsys of what she was going to do. Taking one last deep breath, Sparrow nodded.

"Let's get started!"

Without a word Malleus lumbered after the woman. He was ready for this to be over with. While he couldn't say he'd learned his lesson, in the future he would try to be a more aware of his surroundings. Perhaps if he'd smelled the big cat first he could have avoided the fight altogether. He followed dutifully, his gaze mostly on the ground as he tried to make his journey as smooth as possible. She asked him of his legs was burning still and he had to resist the urge to nod. "It is." --- The woman paused at the border to ask him some more questions and after catching up to her, Malleus replied, "I'll stay here." And then she was gone, disappearing into the pack before had a chance to seat himself. In no time at all she was back, medicine pouch in tow. She explained what she was going to do and that his face was probably going to scar. While that might matter to some, it didn't matter to him. All he cared about was still having a face. "Nah, wasn't pretty to begin with." She explained that his leg would probably scar too, and he thought about shrugging but she carried on and the moment was quickly lost. Time to begin? Perfect. "Alright."

When Sparrow explained the scarring to the man, he made a quip about his face not being pretty to begin with, earning a light laugh from the small women. She thought about spouting back a "nooo, you're pretty" but then she realized he was kind of pretty. After her second of hesitation, the moment was lost and the words never escaped her lips.

She started with his face, cleaning the wound as well as she could without getting too terribly in his space. Okay, that was a lie. Sparrow couldn't possibly be more in his space right now.

Okay, that was a lie too. She could on account of one thing, she realized, and her face flushed. She shoved the thought out of her mind. Why couldn't she ever just heal someone without feeling like she was invading their space?

After she cleaned the area, she chewed and applied a generous amount of the earth smoke and dandelion mix. That should help it to heal a bit. She tried to cap it off with bits of horsetail, but she doubted it would really stay on a place that moved as much as the face.

Sparrow moved to the leg. If it was poison, she doubted she should clean it with her mouth. Using water was risky too since it could introduce more bacteria. If it had been two days, then most of the poison had probably metabolized. If it was a burn, even by fire, she didn't need to go scratching it up with her tongue.

Instead, Sparrow applied a thick layer of the earth smoke and dandelion mix, padding it with lambs ear and binding it with the horsetail.

After treating his wounds, Sparrow looked up at him, licking around her maw to rid herself of the bitter herb flavor.

Malleus politely averted his gaze as the still unidentified woman tended to his wounds. His mind wandered elsewhere as his eyes took in the scenery in an attempt, whether he realized it or not, to create some amount of space between himself and her. He felt no need to speak - it would have been painful anyway - and was content to let the healer go about her work unbothered by whatever banal small talk others in his position might have attempted to engage in to make up for whatever taboo barrier they were breaking by standing so close. Breaking the unspoken boundary of personal space came with the job. Malleus understood that and so he was blind to whatever discomfort others might have felt being tended to by a stranger. Once she moved on to his leg Malleus' attention did return to the woman. Working on his face was different than working on his leg somehow and he didn't feel it was as intrusion to watch her as she tended to the burn. He watched her on and off as she worked; his gaze roving away as she reached for things and roving back as she applied them. He took note of the way she did things and the items she used. He stored that information away for later use. Clearly she was more practiced than he. After his leg was wrapped the woman looked up at him with an air of finality that suggested she was completely done. He eyed the bandage on his leg curiously as he studied the method she'd used to fasten it to his leg. It was quite good. Perhaps when she wasn't looking he'd study it a bit more thoroughly. Personally, he struggled with keeping bandages in place. Others could do it so well, their wraps looking so proper and secure, but whenever he finished a wrap, no matter how careful he'd been, it always looked as if it were held on by thread and a prayer. "Thank you," he rasped. "You have my gratitude, miss...?"

Sparrow watched as the male inspected the bandages. Somehow she was nervous he would disapprove. Never mind that, Sparrow knew she had done the best job she could. He seemed to approve of it and Sparrow found herself smiling a tad proudly.

He went to thank her, but stopped at her name. In the rush of things, Sparrow hadn't given him her name.

"Oh, I'm Sparrow, the alpha of Abaven- this pack here," she said. "I never caught your name, sir."

Sparrow couldn't spare the time to really talk to him about the cougar he had run into. He needed to heal.

"You'll need to mostly avoid talking for a few days. Come back and see me if it starts getting inflamed. When you've healed, perhaps you can share the details of the animal you fought?"

Ah, so there was silver lining to this miserable black cloud! The Lord worked in mysterious ways, that was for sure. If he hadn't been injured, hadn't been in need of help, this woman, this mortal alpha, wouldn't have crossed paths with him. The Fallen God had practically tossed her at him. Perhaps it was a sign. "Thank you, Sparrow," he murmured. "My name is Malleus," he paused as a twinge of pain shot up his neck. "Malleus Abraxas." As for her instructions, those were easy. He wasn't a big talker anyway. To those he nodded his acceptance. As for her request for details... "It would be my pleasure." -exit?-