I see fire

Misae stroked his forehead as he struggled to speak, her mouth turned down into a deep frown, creases bending her forever-young face. She watched as his lips tried to form words, consonants raspy and vowels stiff, and she wondered if maybe she should have given him just a few more sips- but no, his face broke into something verging on a smile and she couldn’t help but muster one back, just for him. “Kit,” she replied as a way of greeting, shoulders tensed up like a badly strung bow. She began to say something else but he shifted, and her words died in an odd, wordless noise of disapproval, trying to convey he should stay as still as possible without outright doing so. The Keeper watched him rock his head back and forth like a new born calf, eyes unfocused and straining even as he made a relatively harmless joke. She soothed his brow further, beside herself; he was joking, but it was unavoidably obvious to the both of them how dire this was. Still, there was something very comforting about having him semi-lucid. After all, she thought, letting a bit of the tension leak from her frame, she had found him. They would be okay. She was certain of it. They….they would be fine.

What happened to him? Dakota frowned and prodded with his fingers at the crusted blood coating his shoulder. His teeth ground together, as they always did when he was angry. All his life he had lived on this island, as his people had for generations. He had assumed that he had walked the hills and valleys until they were burned into his memory, thought that he knew the wildlife. Falsely, he thought he'd been safe. Dakota had known which animals to fear from the day he lost his parents, but now he had a new understanding of the beasts of the island that walked on two legs.

heathermcgrath:

He gurgles just as she’s about to lean over and inspect the bandages on his arm, and the way his mouth moves sounds almost like a name, like a tacky sweet sound that doesn’t quite make it. “Dakota?” she asks again, sitting back, her face hovering over his. She wipes her brow with the back of her hand before placing it on his face again, patting his cheek, prying open his mouth gently after realizing he might be half drowned for all she knows. All that meets her is his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and cracked lips, and she realizes he hasn’t had too much water, he’s gone without enough; she pulls the water skin slung about her hips to the front of her and pulls off the cork with shaky hands, but she waits a moment. “Dakota, it’s Misae. You’re alright now, I’ve got you. Wake up, dear one, I have water,” she says, and honestly she’s just saying the first things that come to mind (Dakota is the medicine man here, not her), but it seems to have a slightly positive effect; his mouth stays propped open and she leans in to pour a tiny rivulet of water onto his dry palette, her long hair hanging down into his face despite her frantic movements to keep it all tucked behind her ears. She’s afraid of him choking but she’s also afraid of him dying, so she continues till she’s certain he’s actually drinking it, and then pours it a bit more liberally, soft brown eyes taking complete stock of what’s wrong with him. He’d been struck by something at least twice along his shoulder and his leg, deep gashes if the blood soaked deer skin is any indicator. Maybe a large predator got the drop on him, but if that was the case, he’d be mauled worse, she thinks. He’s been bleeding, though, and blood is never good. She thanks the stars and their ancestors that she found him before some wild animal did, but he still reeks of something close to beginning to fester, and she knows those animals will not be far behind. They were on borrowed time before she arrived here. She bites her lip, sitting back on her haunches and corking her skin, already noting it’s half empty. How did we come to this? she wonders, peering at his face.

The water free-fell into his mouth, washing away the grainy taste of mud and dirt. Swallowing proved a little clumsy for the native. Little rivers of it crept out of the corners of his mouth and into his hair at first, but the tightness of his throat evaporated thanks to the water. When the flow stopped Dakota pushed his thick tongue over desert dry lips. He found his eyes and cracked them open, seeing only bright blurs at first. His eyes kept roaming as he waited for his vision to clear, and soon he saw a rough shape leaning over him.

Misae trails the stream down the mountain, prodding her staff into the mud here and there, feeling and hearing the vibrations of the life on the island through the gurgling of the water. Her only garb is a simple poncho and woven cotton skirt to combat the hot weather, and she’s thankful she thought not to wear anything heavier on her hunt for berries as the sun beats down on her black hair. She’s thinking about the new story banner she’s working on and how nicely it’s coming along when her nose catches a sudden whiff of something…almost rotten smelling. Nose wrinkling slightly, the Keeper slows slightly as she comes towards the approaching bend, staff raised now in a loosely defensive position. She’s expecting a carcass maybe, of a deer or maybe a particularly ripe opossum, but what she finds is a dirty heap of flesh and blood lying on the bank, half submerged and very much human. Misae gasps, startled into stillness, but the beads in the other’s thick hair has her in motion before her mind can even process this new information; Dakota is unconscious, but still shallowly breathing. She throws down her staff on the nearby grassy incline and crouches down to shove one hand under her clan mate’s armpit, the other hurriedly but gently peeling hair and smoothing mud away from the other’s face. “Dakota?” she asks with relative composure, thumb tracing an eyebrow as her fingers bat off a damp leaf from his cheek. After a moment with no response, she huffs in bewilderment and pushes her other hand under his other arm, tugging till he begins to budge; though small, she is definitely of Piccaninny stock, and she uses her work-honed thighs till they ache as she pulls Dakota out of the sunlit stream and up onto the shady embankment. Just when she thinks she can’t haul him any further, she slips and falls on her ass, landing painfully on her quarterstaff with Dakota half on her left leg. She grimaces, sweating, and gets up, wiping her slick palms on her skirt as she goes back to trying to figure out what happened to him, her face betraying how worried she is. He reeks of blood and sun baked wounds, and she notices as she pulls on him that one of his pants legs is missing and there are rather bad bouts of bandaging along his shoulder and calf. ”Dakota? Kit, can you hear me?”

What Dakota was experiencing couldn't exactly be described as dreams. They were more a stream of memories and familiar faces laced with a strange surreality caused from the heat and the pain. But Dakota didn't know any of that. The mutated visions flew by and crawled all at once, and in an hour Dakota had all but relived his whole childhood. He was with his parents again; both alive and all three of them happy and together. He was a child with his mother, sitting amid a thousand warm pelts, watching her string beads together while the chilly winter raged on outside their tent. It was so good to be near her again, to hear her sing to herself as she worked and to see her face.

 ”Careful. . I wouldn’t want you to fall. .” She smiled. Kaya closed her eyes as Dakota described the place where they once called home and grew up. Imagining it as he said. Smelling the ocean and the earth. It was pleasant. “Do you think we’ll ever go back? I mean I know we made the mountains out home and it’s a good one but… Have you ever wondered?” She asked curiously. Opening her eyes she looked at him. “You did! Oh, I want to met a nature spirit.” 

He rolled his eyes and elbowed her. "I never fall," He declared rather stubbornly. In his mind, he mulled over the possibility of returning to the lower lands of the island. It was so different from the rocky scarring of the mountain. Everything green and alive. His heart ached to think of one day coming home to it. "Maybe one day..." It was up to the elders, he knew. And the chief especially. Even though he doubted it, he still had to hold out the hope that one day they would return to their ancestral cliffs. His thoughts turned again, this time to happier things. The nymph he'd met in the woods. Dakota smiled. "I'd be surprised if you didn't. You've always been friendly."

"Looking for you," she says blithely, sitting down close at hand. Once settled, she begins to play with the strands of grass beneath her idly, the gentle breeze catching the ends of her hair with almost lazy fingers, tugging gently to and fro.

"Looks like you found me." Almost whenever he had the chance, Dakota liked to steal away from the mountain and spend time here or there on the island. It was a whole other world down here. One that he loved.

A deep and inhuman growl escaped from his lips when the dust hit one of his eyes. He bared his teeth at the native, the same way as one the wild beasts of the Dark Forest would do. Quickly recovering himself, Nibs shot the arrow. And while this one was still in the air, he grabbed three more and shot them at the same time. Not all of them would find their target but it didn’t matter because he was already running after his prey.

There wasn't time to think. Only to act and react. With the arrows whizzing past him, it was all Dakota could do just to keep his footing once he felt the meadow's grass give way to the dead foliage on the forest floor. Running here was dangerous. There were roots and stones hidden from sight, small burrows and pits covered by leaves. But he couldn't fixate on that now. If he stopped or slipped or anything like that, then the Devil would gain ground. And if it came to a fight, the native was at a severe disadvantage. Running was all he had.

"Friend…," she giggles girlishly over the thought, just as he grins. It didn’t seem that he was dangerous, and seeing one of the Picaninny, was enough for her to feel safe already. "Oh? Did you gather everything? Yarrow happens to be one of my favorites since it’s pretty much good for everything." Her smile fades, and she quickly closes herself off. "The taint….and death of so many..I haven’t seen..I haven’t seen someone who’s like a father…for awhile. I woke up some time ago, and everything was just different and scary."

"I think I've gotten all I need, though I haven't seen any yarrow." His fingers pushed the small bundles in his bag around, triple checking that he had enough of what he needed. Her tone had changed when she began to speak again, and Dakota looked at her curiously. There were things that she was saying that just didn't make sense to the native. Like a father? And hadn't she said she'd 'woken up'? "What do you mean?"

Nice to meetcha, too, Dakota.

Yes. I'm a healer; I use these to treat people.