Open A Terrible Fall

[Hazine]

39 Fall 513


Hazine's black Strider was once again galloping through the grass lands the poor twenty year old clutching on for dear life. It was a mystery why such a spirited horse had chosen such an inexperienced girl as Hazine.

Hazine would have been screaming if she could get air into her lungs, panic rose into as she felt herself sliding off the horse, unshed tears pooled in her eyes. She was scared for her life as fell from the horse into the grass. "This time I really will be killed" where her last thoughts before she landed hitting her head on a rock knocking herself out.

The horse feeling its rider fall off finally came to a stop and slowly walked back to its unconscious companion, it slowly bent its proud head nudged Hazine softly.

As the girl laid there unconscious waiting for help, she dreamed of the day she
first met her Strider. It had been two and half years ago, the horse had still been a colt at the time.

(Start of Memory)
Merry laughter rang through the air, But Hazine wasn't in the mood for the laughter and rejoicing her heart was breaking, she was a girl of seventeen yet was very new to love and the guy she loved was to marry another. Hazine instead of celebrating had decided to take a walk around the pavilions by herself. Yet she wasn't alone a young black colt had fallowed the girl and every now again kept nudging her with its muzzle and when that received no reaction it would nibble at her braid.

Hazine tried to shoo the colt away and rescue her braid but the horse then began to nibble at her clothes, its big eyes looking up at Hazine with trust and such warmth. Hazine finally relented and picked up some grass and fed the young colt ever since that day the horse followed Hazine every where she went.

(end of Memory)

Time passed slowly, The black horse couldn't understand why its companion wouldn't get up, like it usually did when nudged. It began to neigh in almost urgent sound that call any passerby.

[Nathaniel Deveraux]

Yet another day, yet another problem. Well, there was one thing Nathaniel could say about his luck: it was consistent. Consistently bad, which while likely amusing to anyone he'd eventually tell the story to, was hardly amusing to the man now.

The day had started like any other. Get up. Try to get some stretches done while his back didn't feel like someone dropped an elephant on him while he'd slept. How did these Dyrkas sleep on such hard mats? See if there was anything that could serve as breakfast left over from last night. If he was lucky, he might even get some target practice in, if you really stretched the definition of the word target. And practice.

But the day took a nicely bad turn when he couldn't find Arundel anywhere. Off on another one of her errands, no doubt. But that meant he was, once again, left to his own devices with little to do and even less to accomplish. He'd attempted to obtain work at the Opal Clan tents earlier in the season, and while they apparently always needed the help, didn't quite trust his motives. He supposed he couldn't blame them for their distrust although it made him wonder if they had their priorities straight.

And apparently his ability to navigate was poor to nonexistent. Which made it impossible for him to be anything of a hunter out here, which was what he wanted to be doing anyway. Yet despite the fact that he could do nothing but sit around did not dissuade Nate from carrying around his equipment.

A good hunter and medic was never far from his supplies, and he hefted the backpack onto his shoulders with a grunt, snuggling the rucksack beneath it and grabbing his bow and quiver as well. The kukri was last, tucked safely into his belt as he headed out the flaps of the tent that he shared with Arundel's family.

So today's agenda: go back to the Opal Clan tents to see if, perhaps this time, they could look past his status as a captive and let him at least be useful. It wasn't that he particularly wanted to be here; if he had his choice he'd be back home in Syliras with his sisters. Like it always was. Like it should have been. But since he was here, he'd rather be busy than idle, and short any work to do he was beginning to feel restless. And that was never good.

As he trudged past various pavilions of every shape, size, and color, Nate started to hear what sounded like the neighing of a horse. That in and of itself was not unusual; Endrykas was filled with horses and there was almost always a horse-related sound occurring nearly every chime. But this was different - an urgent cry that sounded as though the horse in question was calling for help.

Nate was at first of a mind to ignore this cry. It wasn't his business, and although he was a medic he was under no circumstances qualified to treat an injury sustained by an animal, if indeed the horse was calling because it had been injured. Still, the sound seemed to be coming from a fairly remote section of the city, not heavily-frequented by foot-traffic, especially so early in the morning.

If the animal was injured perhaps he could lead it back to the city center where someone more suited could treat it. Nate might hate the Drykas for what they did to his family but that didn't mean he was interested in watching a helpless animal suffer. As he wound his way to where the neighs were originating he saw a very unpleasant sight, at least for a medic such as himself.

A girl was laid splayed out on the ground, her head bloody from a blunt-force injury probably sustained from a nasty fall from the horse. It was rather obvious the horse was calling for help for its master, and Nathaniel now presented with a genuine medical emergency felt the old compulsion again. He could not tell if she was a Drykas, but ultimately it didn't matter. Someone was injured. He was a medic. It was clear what he needed to do.

Dashing over to the girl, the first thing Nate did was tilt her head gently to inspect the wound. It seemed she'd struck her head rather harshly against a rock, and the injury appeared to be bleeding profusely. Despite what people might think, profuse bleeding did not necessarily imply a serious wound. Most serious concussions tend not to bleed, but instead do their damage much further into the head. The injury on the surface appeared to only be a superficial scalp wound but Nate did not want to take any chances.

Removing some cloth from his rucksack, Nate used his kukri to cut some off and then reached into his backback to remove his waterskin. He would seriously need to restock on alcohol after this; he was nearly out, and the precious liquid was one of the best antiseptics one could hope for.

But under current circumstances he could not afford to be stingy, so he poured a generous amount onto the girl's scalp where her injury was, looking to wash away any dirt or other infectious agents that might have gotten into the wound while she'd been lying there, and in addition hopefully kill off any infection that might have already taken root.

Nate was glad the girl was unconscious; a head injury like this; it was likely that if she'd been awake when he poured the alcohol, the sting would have caused her to automatically jerk away and cause him to waste most of the liquid.

In any case, once he was finished, Nate took some of the cloth and started to wrap it around her head. Not too tightly; the cloth's only purpose was to try to prevent anything else from getting at the wound. The Opal Clan healers would be able to provide a true bandage, and probably true healing at that.

As he wrapped, Nate remembered the old mnemonic he'd been taught:

"Up and down,
around and around,
over and through,
tuck into."

The field dressing was not perfect. It was not permanent. It was not pretty. But it would work, and that was all that mattered right now. Nate waited patiently for the girl to wake up. He could not do anything until she woke up, because it was only then he could determine just how badly concussed she'd been from the fall.

If the injury was major, he would be forced to try to flag down someone to fetch a real healer. He was definitely not at all qualified to handle injuries of that severity.

[Akilah Windsong]

Akilah crouched in the grass, her eyes searching the ground for any tracks of the rabbit she had been following the past half an hour. The soft mud had given way to hard land, and the prints had all but disappeared with this change. Now she had to rely on the subtle.

With Adámas following her a few meters behind and the age of the prints, she doubted she'd catch the small animal. Still, it was a good exercise, and wiping the sweat off her forehead, she searched the ground again for the trail.

If only the grass wasn't so long. It was hard to see anything down here, and the size of the grass meant the rabbit barely bent anything in its passing. There were a few spears that were bent slightly from the passing of an animal, but she wasn't sure if it was her rabbit or something bigger.

Her friend had been good at this. She couldn't recall his name still, for some odd reason, but she could still recall hunting with him.

Her father had told her she was spending too much time on the past. She should fixate on the present but the memories of last summer were still filtering her thoughts.

Maybe that's why she was thinking about him now. It was easier to think before summer than after.

There. Akilah froze at the sight of the small tufts in front of her. Slowly, she reached out and picked some of the tan fur from the grass. The fur was short and slightly coarse and she was sure it had to be her rabbit's.

Or at least, a rabbit's. Excited, she pushed the grass away from her as she searched the ground. There! Stool. The small clump of brown sat there, dry but not crumbling. The trail was old, as she had suspected, but there was still a trail.

Eager to follow it, she started to move forward before she heard a sound nearby. A neigh--a horse was distraught.

Confused, Akilah stood up, her mind still on the rabbit. Why would a horse be--ah.

She hadn't noticed it, but she had slowly been moving closer to the city. A horse in the city. That made more sense.

"The horse was troubled!" she exclaimed, realizing what she had heard. Maybe it was hurt? Or its partner?

She turned to whistle for Adámas to catch up before realizing her strider was right behind her. "No wonder I couldn't catch anything--if you're that close all the game would be scared."

Quickly, she mounted her strider, her feet slipping through the straps as she hoisted herself up. Urging Adámas forward, she listened once more for any sound of distress, hearing it again before it stopped. Did something happen?

Fortunately, the problem was close to the edges of the city and ahead of her she saw two figures crouched on the ground.

Or rather, one crouched and the other lying. A strider stood nearby, riderless and nervous, and it must have been him she was hearing.

"What happened?" she called out as she slowed Adámas down to halt next to the pair. Close up now, Akilah could see the cloth wrapped around the girl's head. "Is she okay? Can I help?"

[Hazine]

Pain, sharp pain. The world was pain her body was pain. Pain was all Hazine could feel and think about as she laid there waking up. Slowly the pain receded and other thoughts could enter her mind. “Where was Shadow Runner?” The first real thought was for her magnificent Strider. That thought lead her to throw open her eyes and jump up. Her body would not let her get up, pain shot through her sending her crashing back to the ground.

She groaned with agony, and berated herself for trying to move so fast. She was lucky that she hadn’t passed out again. Slowly she blinked the sun was so high now, how long had she been out? She could now sense the presence of other people. She turned her head and tried to sit up this time she moved slowly and cautiously. Testing out what was hurt, so far so good she thought as she sat. Yet her head felt funny, her rough fingers went up to her head feeling the course bandage. “Did you do this?” She spoke in her soft voice it was surprisingly delicate for such a wild child that she appeared to most people.

Slowly the black Strider stepped up behind Hazine and nudge her softly in the back, the jarring movement sent pain running through Hazine making her cry out in agony, unshed tears forming in her pale eyes, a stream of curses escaping her red lips. Hazine wasn’t one to curse usually but it hurt so terrible. “Shadow Runner stop, you foolish horse” Hazine word sound harsher than she usually spoke to the animal but the tone still showed that she loved the Stallion. The Horse stopped nudging her and began to nibble at the strange cloth wrapped around its owner’s tasty hair. Hazine tried to push on the horse’s muzzle to stop it but it was such an awkward position and sent pain through her.

[Nathaniel Deveraux]

OOCFirst: I'm so sorry this took so long! I'll try not to let the thread sit like this again. Second: I am going to assume that you are both speaking Pavi (which Nathaniel does not understand) since that is both your fluent language. I figured it didn't make sense for you to automatically be speaking Common unless you had a reason to, given that you're both Drykas .

Nate had been too focused on his task, trying to bind the woman's head and check for further injuries, to notice the approach of another person. That was one of his glaring weaknesses; the tendency to get overly concentrated, and miss the rest of the world as a consequence. It was certainly a helpful trait for a hunter, and occasionally for a medic, that single-minded focus, but it was also what got him lost most of the time.

The approaching woman appeared to have long black hair, and he couldn't quite see if she had windmarks but the presence of a Strider implied yet another Drykas. Nate mused that he really should stop being shocked by this point. He was in Endrykas, the vast majority of people he would encounter here would be Drykas and he might as well get used to the fact, but it still did not stop his automatic reaction of distrust.

The woman's hair was not done up in the intricate braids he normally saw the female Drykas wear, although there were a few wraps here and there. She had called out something that Nate could not understand, and he looked at her uncomprehendingly. Both from the fact that she'd used Pavi and he did not understand the language, and the fact that it amazed him that these Drykas still didn't get that he did not speak their language.

Seriously? Right, yeah, he had tons of opportunities to learn Pavi back in Syliras. Because, you know, Drykas showed up there all the time! LIke, every other day! Nate suppressed a sigh. Before he could point out to the clueless girl that, no, he could not read minds, his patient seemed to come to.

She seemed to glance about, seeming honestly a little fuzzy as she groaned and every instinct as a medic screamed at Nate to prevent her from moving. He needed to determine if she'd received any sort of concussion from her fall, but he couldn't do that if she was moving around so much.

She asked him a question, also in Pavi, and Nate couldn't suppress the groaning sigh this time. Really? More of this shyke? Did he honestly look Drykas to anyone here?

"Try not to move," Nate admonished gently. He wanted to be harsh, he really did. The girl sat up which was the absolute worst thing you could do after a nasty fall like that. For all she knew, she might have cracked her spine during that fall. But he was a medic, and bedside manner was all but drilled into his head since day one of his training.

The best thing to do would have been to remained lying down until a medical professional had taken a good look. Nate pushed her horse's muzzle away from her head though; while the animal was well-intentioned it was just making things worse with what it was doing.

"What is your name? Do you know where you are? Or what day it is?" Nate asked the injured girl. The rapid-fire questions served a greater purpose than just gathering information about her.

They were designed to determine whether or not she was concussed. If she had a concussion, one of the classic symptoms was short-term amnesia and confusion. If that was the case, a question that would normally not take a person any time at all to answer, such as "what is your name", would take her a chime or two to respond. If she did have a concussion, he would have to lie her down and request the stranger who had come to help to fetch someone from the Opal tents to assist.

The girl's petching horse, however, kept insisting on interfering, and Nate could tell its attempts were hurting her. Glancing over at the newcomer, he indicated with his left hand.

"Would you mind controlling the horse?" he requested. "I know it means well, but it is really not helping matters."

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