[Flashback] Remembrance (Miharu)

[Amondaris]

At her harsh, pragmatic words, anger coiled about his stomach like some great, burning serpent. A flicker of red returned to his eyes, then was gone just as quickly, the inconstant orbs flowing into a bright, wintry blue as the anger dissipated. His practical side reasserted itself. She was, after all, correct. Life, especially out here in the unforgiving wilds of Taldera, was harsh. Her blunt words sobered him up as swiftly and succinctly as a slap to the face. Speaking of which, his face hurt. A lot. Wincing, - Which in itself caused yet more pain. - he lifted a hand to gingerly prod at the ragged flesh of the left side of his face. Deep wounds, as far as facial injuries went, but not life threatening. Bound to leave some interesting looking scars, however. Not that such things bothered Amondaris in the slightest. Aesthetics were of no concern to him. He flicked a glance at Miharu as she returned, her intentions obvious. All traces of grief and indeed, of most emotion, vanished from his face as if they had never existed there to begin with. With a fluid grace, the young man rose to his feet, wiping the blood slicking his blade upon the front of his trousers and taking a step back to allow the Kelvic time to work. Sheathing his weapons, he cast a glance about at the surrounding environs to make certain no opportunistic scavengers had arrived early, icy blue eyes roaming over the area before returning to Miharu. He stood silently and unmoving as she worked, skinning the corpse and cutting free choice sections of meat without fuss or flourish. A practical woman to the bone, he suspected, though he wondered what brought her out here. She had obviously spent time around people, as she could talk well enough, but she seemed like she would be more at home here than in a Hold. Overall, Amondaris was faintly impressed. He couldn't help but respect those that could fend for themselves out in such merciless wilderness, and thrive. He was, however, faintly disgusted with himself. He had let his guard down, and had suffered for it. He should have died, by all rights, but this pale woman had saved him. He could hear Rhanor roaring with laughter as if the man stood beside him now. The boy suppressed an irritable scowl. That laughter had always followed some horribly embarrassing or stupid mistake on his behalf. He'd be more alert from now on. This would be the last time he was caught unawares in the wild, this he swore to himself. Personal vows to not mess up aside, he waited patiently for Miharu to finish, seeing little point in striking up conversation. He would simply wait for her to finished and lead the way. He had no choice but to follow her and hope she stayed true to her stated intent to patch his face up. If he tried to make it back to Avanthal like this, he'd die from blood loss well before he got anywhere near the frozen city. Following a complete stranger irked him somewhat, as he was used to doing things by himself, but it was either that or die. Pride had a way of being set aside when death was on the table, funnily enough.

[Miharu Mindi]

The pale girl dropped to her knees beside the corpse and began to skin the wolf, the well-worn little knife moving with surprising efficiency. This was not the first animal she'd skinned, and she was precise and careful with it, every ounce of her concentration focused on her work. A quick slice down the chest and belly, starting at the spot where Amondaris' sword had pierced the wolf in order to maintain the integrity of the pelt as much as she could. All the way down, and then down each leg, and a circle around the jaw to cut it off from the head. Then she gently stripped the skin off, pulling it with nimble fingers and scrapping at the hide with the knife to separate it from the muscle. She did a poor job on the legs, but the body turned out all right. She was no expert, but she knew enough to keep it intact enough to sell.

When she was done with that, she frowned at the skinless corpse with dissatisfaction. He really had been half starved. With a sigh, she simply cut off the flanks and dumped the two globs of meat in the center of the pelt and folded it up into a bundle, tying off the legs with a bit of string from her pack and then attaching it to the bottom much as her cloak had been. She shrugged it on, then climbed to her feet.

"We'll leave the rest for the forest," she said, starting past him and towards the edge of the woods where it opened up into the vast wastes between here and Avanthal. "Quickly, we need to get away from the scent of blood and clean you up."

She swept on with determined strides, breath fogging in the cold though she didn't seem too bothered by it. She was used to it, after all, had spent the last year alone in the wilderness. It was strange, though, hearing his footsteps behind her, smelling the pungent scent of his blood, of his skin.

When they finally reached the first pile of clean snow, she stopped and motioned him over. "Sit," she commanded, and grabbed up a huge handful of snow. When he settled, she set it in his hand and then pressed it to his ravaged face. "This will numb it and stop what little bleeding there is, and clean it a bit too." She crouched beside him, shoving her pack off and digging through it until she found her precious medical kit. It had been much-used in the last year, but she had enough supplies to last at least until the end of Winter. She hoped.

Golden eyes twitched up to him as she unrolled it and began pulling out jars of salve, a thin needle, and a roll of silk thread. The stitches wouldn't be as close as if she used the box of horsehair, but she'd learned from experience that horsehair brought a higher risk of infection, and with something as delicate as a facial wound she thought he might prefer a thicker scar to having half his face rot off. "I am called Miharu," she said, realizing she didn't know what to call him. "Have you ever been stitched before?"

[Amondaris]

The forests, he was unused to. The tundra, however, was basically his second home. His spirits instantly began to lift as they headed towards the exit, leaving the vast forest with it's looming, titanic trees and starving wolves. He settled into his usual gait, his stride lengthening into a steady, measured lope that was designed to devour distance without expending an inordinate about of energy. As accustomed to wandering the wilds as he was, he was most certainly not used to doing it behind a strange female. Or anyone at all, really. This travelling in the company of others things was fairly new to him. He wasn't entirely sure he disliked it. Though they uttered not a word between them as they went, the silence didn't bother Amondaris in the slightest. It never did. He couldn't understand why people were so bothered by silence that they felt the need to fill it up with useless chatter. Waste of energy, to him. So he always relished the opportunity to spend time with someone who could go spans of time without blabbering like an idiot. This Kelvic was one such person. Horrible facial injuries aside, it was a pleasant journey. All good things must come to an end, however, and so too did the quiet trek to a..Pile of snow. What? He sat when instructed, and moved not a muscle as she explained what they were doing beside a pile of snow. Oh. Comprehension dawned as the snow cooled the throbbing heat that consumed his face, and for once he was grateful than there was someone around to take care of him, even if it was a wild wolf girl who might well turn around and kill him if he was rendered obsolete. With one eye covered by that blessed handful of snow, the remaining one remained fixed on Miharu as she worked, impassively observing every move she made. He had a habit of staring, this one. Even wounded and in the company of a stranger, every glance, every movement held a quiet sort of challenge to it, as if daring someone, anyone to challenge his claim to dominance. It made for uncomfortable company, for the most part. Unless you were used to such, of course. When her aureate eyes flicked up to regard him, they would find his own staring back, so blue and so cold they seemed to have been carved from ice, each and every time. After a moment, he spoke, his voice low and soft, his eyes still fixed upon hers. "I am Amondaris. Pleasure to meet you, Miharu. Nice name." With a soft snort of laughter, swiftly cut off as he winced from the pain the motion caused, he nodded slowly. "Lots of times. I'm no stranger to wounds." An absent wave of a large, fur-strapped hand indicated for her to continue, and the man remained perfectly still. Movement while being stitched up, he had learned, was never a good idea.

[Miharu Mindi]

She blinked at him, not really understanding what made a name good or bad. It was just a name, it was what one was called.

She just nodded and pulled his hand away from his face, staring at his blood drenched face. There was too much still on it to really see what was going on, so she pulled out her canteen and a clean square of linen, and wet it before dabbing it on his face to try and get a better look at the wound. It likely hurt, and her eyes kept flickering to his to see if he would bite her, but if he didn't she simply continued until the last of the blood was wiped from his face. Her hands were gentle, as careful as she could be. "It looks like a fairly clean cut," she murmured, pinching the torn edges together to judge what she would need to do for stitching. "And I don't think your eye will have taken any damage. I think his tooth skipped over your browbone. Here," she said, turning to unstopper a bottle that smelled strongly of alcohol and herbs, and poured it over a clean square of linen. She seemed to have a whole pile of them tucked into her kit. "This will sting. Very badly. Very badly, so you can put it on yourself. Press it to the wound and make sure the liquid gets into every part that's cut. It will clean it." And with that, she handed over the sopping cloth and scurried back a step, still crouched, to make sure he wouldn't be able to hurt her if he decided to lash out.

[Amondaris]

For one so wild she has a surprisingly gentle touch. Still, those glacial, crystal blue eyes stared at her golden ones as she worked at cleaning his wounds. He had little else to do beside study this strange woman that had come to his aid such a short time ago, and if he was honest, she was not a painful thing to peruse. Pleasantly constructed, with high cheekbones and full lips, alabaster skin offsetting the huge golden orbs with which she studied his wound, she made for a comely woman. All of this Amondaris noted with a clinical, detached sort of curiosity. She interested him, as he had never encountered a Kelvic out in the wilds before, and she was a far cry from the giggling girls that infested Avanthal. She made for pleasant company. He did not bite as she ministered to his injuries, nor did he even so much as give a warning growl. He simply sat quietly, staring at her as she worked, the occasional tautening of his jaw muscles the only visible sign of any discomfort or pain. He might not have been the most dazzlingly charismatic man in the world, but he made for an excellent patient, at least. What a claim to fame. His gaze shifted from her eyes to the bottle she now held in her hands, a faint dread settling on the young man as he realised what was coming. He hated this part. His nose wrinkled up, his lips twitching up in the faintest hint of a snarl as the overpoweringly strong smell invaded his nostrils. He really, really hated this part. With the weary sigh of a man resigned to meet his doom, he clutched the sodden cloth in his right hand, staring at it bleakly for a time, his eyes fading to a dull, whitish green. Calmly, he set the horrible thing down upon his knee, and set about removing on of the fur straps from his left hand, picking apart the thin ropes of fabric that held them in place. After a moment, the entirety of the fur swathes fall apart, exposing a large, extremely pale and heavily scarred hand. Picking up a particularly large strip of fur, the man set it in his mouth, between his teeth, biting into it with a grim resolve. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he picked up Miharu's cloth and, grimacing, brought it to his wound. The pain was, simply put, excruciating. The putrid combination of alcohol and herbs seared his open wound as painfully as any red hot brand, the ragged nerves ablaze with agony. Yet, the man did not cry out, or scream. A low, dangerous growl reverberated deep within his throat as his teeth ground into the thick strip of fur, the muscles of his jaws bunching tightly with the sheer power going into the bite. The man's eyes swirled to an incredibly vivid, lurid violet as he dabbed at his wound with a grim, determined doggedness, that guttural growl pausing only as he took breath. He hated this part. Eventually, however, the ordeal was over. He judged he had cleaned the wound as best as was possible and tossed the cloth, now dyed red with his blood, contemptuously to the snow at his feet. Removing the fur from his mouth, he pressed his forefinger and thumb on either side of his jaw and slowly massaged the strained muscles, flicking a look at Miharu as he did so. His hand dropped, gathering up the many lengths of fur and fabric, and he began to renew the makeshift, furred covering he had possessed before. One-handed, it proved a nigh impossible task, and he was essentially getting nowhere, but he was in a stubborn mood, and kept pulling and picking ineffectually. "Thank you, Miharu. I will repay you for your help someday. This, I give you my word on." With the majority of the blood gone from his face, and his wound somewhat tidied up, he looked decidedly less gruesome than before. But the stitching was still to come. He hoped she was good at this. With a gruff flip of his hand, he waved at his ragged face, the soft voice still managing to produce a respectable growl as he said, "You can start stitching whenever you like. And stop scurrying away. I'm not going to hurt you."

[Miharu Mindi]

Miharu watched him through all of that, a frown touching her brow to witness his pain. She hated seeing any creature in pain, though she had always known it to be unavoidable in life. Those eyes held both curiosity and some measure of sympathy - though no pity. She wasn't truly capable of it, an emotion that her animal heart had no room for.

When he finally finished, she gathered the discarded bloody cloth and dropped it atop the other. "Here, can't have you getting frostbitten," she said, getting back to business. Nimble fingers reached out to take the ties of his mittens and weave them together - not as well as he might have, perhaps, but she wasn't used to wearing such accoutrements. When she was finished, she picked up the bottle of alcohol and drenched her hands to be sure they were clean, then tucked it away in her kit and brought out a small jar of white cream. "I have a little numbing agent left, so it won't be as bad. It should wear off in a few hours, though, and then you'll have to keep ice on it when the pain gets bad. No more than ten minutes at a time, and wait an hour between using it. The cold can damage the tissue as well, but if you don't use it at least some of the time then the swelling could pop your stitches."

As she spoke, she dipped her ring finger into the cream and scooted closer to him, leaning up on her knees to begin dabbing it at the edges of his wound. It had to be done carefully, for it didn't need to be in the wound, just around it to numb the skin for stitching. She also had to be careful not to get it on her other fingers, for she needed to have sensation in them to properly stitch everything. By the time she'd worked her way to his jawline, the skin of his forehead would have gone strangely numb.

"What were you doing in the woods alone, anyway?" she asked, curiosity finally getting the better of her as she closed the jar and began threading the needle. She tied it off and then cut a good length of it from the roll, enough to do his brow. She would need another length to finish his cheek, but would deal with that when the top was done. "I can smell the holds of Avanthal on you, so you're not a wilderness scout. Were you tracking something?

She leaned closer and, pinching the wound closed with her free hand, began the slow process of stitching his face back together.

[Amondaris]

He blinked in mild surprise as she helped him with his ragtag fur-gauntlet, his head canting gently to one side as he watched her deftly reconstruct the blood-stained covering. She was a very peculiar individual, he had decided. More helpful than she let on, definitely. Strangely endearing. A faint ghost of a smile passed over his lips briefly at the mention of frostbite. He, like most Vantha, if not all of them had been blessed by the Queen of Avanthal at birth. "I have a Gnosis mark of Morwen upon my shoulder, Miharu. Frostbite isn't much of a concern." Maybe she'd spent time with the Whitevine healers..She certainly knew her stuff, that much was obvious. Which he was glad for. He didn't much like the thought of someone with no experience in the field trying to patch him up. Eying the tub of cream warily, he reluctantly remained seated as she began to daub the stuff along the outside of his wound. The effect wasn't instantaneous, but the flesh was definitely beginning to lose feeling. It made for a very peculiar sensation, to say the least. He'd hate to have that stuff applied to his tongue. At least it worked. He barely felt even a twinge of pain as the needle pierced his flesh, only registering the fact that she had begun by the peculiarly dulled sensation of the skin being tugged and stretched gently. It wasn't painful, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. But, he was not the complaining type, and so he simply sat there and responded to her queries affably, for once not minding having to participate in conversation. He felt like he could actually talk to this girl and not be itching to get away the entire time. "Ah. Well. Today is the annual anniversary of the day of my birth, which means nothing to me personally, but my family seems fixated on celebrating it every time it comes around. Or, at least, they try." His right shoulder shifted upwards slightly in the best shrug he could accomplish, given his current situation, and he continued. "I hate being indoors for long, so I always leave, and treat myself by exploring new places. I'd heard stories of the forests with Dire animals roaming around, and wanted to see if they were true. Unfortunately, I got lost in thoughts of the past. An incredibly stupid thing to do." He lifted a hand and pointed up at the wounds that were in the process of being sewn shut, a faint flicker of a smile twitching the corner of his lips up. "Not something I intend to repeat, nor will it be easy to forget. I'm not usually such a bumbling fool, I promise." And he had been one, really. He was lucky to be alive. "What about you, Miharu? You seem to know a lot about healing, and you have the supplies necessary to utilise the knowledge. Are you from Whitevine hold? Collecting herbs, or such, or do you live out here?"

[Miharu Mindi]

The wolf girl stitched his face with a single-minded determination that left her brow furrowed and her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Pinch, sew, gently pull through, move down another bit. They weren't the straightest in the world, and they would leave a scar, but with any luck they'd hold long enough for his body to knit itself back together.

"You'll find the dire animals deeper into the woods," she murmured, tying a knot in the last stitch and pulling her skinning knife out of its sheath to cut the thread. "They know the humans live beyond the tundra and avoid them if they want to keep their skins on."

She rethreaded the needle with another length of thread, and leaned up to begin on his cheek. His question of her origins got a blink and a frown, but then she went back to work. "I live out here now," she said, something sad in her voice. "I used to live in Avanthal. I studied medicine under one of the Whitevine clan, yes. It's been useful to me in the wild, when you've no one to rely on but yourself."

[Amondaris]

She was growing on him like some sort of diabolical fungus. Curse his thrice-damned emotional soft spot for females. Try as he might, his usual trick of ruthlessly clamping down on even the slightest of blossoming emotional fondness was failing spectacularly. The way she frowned so seriously when she concentrated while biting her lip like that was simply adorable. Oh, Frozen Lady, no. No, no, no. This wasn't happening. He would not allow himself to develop a crush on this strange woman. Exerting the full, considerable force of his willpower upon the task at hand, he visualised a cold, gauntleted hand crushing a fledgling flower. Ah. Better. This visualisation he so often did helped immensely when it came to such things, he found. He blinked. Skins? Well. He supposed they would fetch quite the price with the right people. Still. "I only hunt to eat. I would not kill something just for it's skin. Wasteful." The very notion of it rankled with him. Thankfully, the numbing cream had worked it's magic by the time she got to his cheek, and the process was similarly free from pain. What wonderful stuff it was. His thoughts were derailed, however, by her response. She lived out here? By herself? Morwen's frozen tears, that wasn't right. Sure, he lived out here for the most part himself, but that was choice and he could always go home to a warm meal whenever he felt like it. This just wasn't right. Tiny, vivid flecks of crimson crept into his otherwise glacial blue eyes, subtle, visible indicators of his current emotional state. Slowly, with terrible, inexorable force, his left hand tightened into a fist, a dull undercurrent of fury coursing through his veins at the thought of this girl being left to fend for herself our here. If her family had been taken away, or passed on, well, that was understandable. But if someone had cast her out will full knowledge of what her fate would be, out here in the merciless tundra? He would make them bleed. But, priorities. No sense in getting ahead of things. Miharu was a wolf Kelvic, right? Kelvics tended to reflect their animal forms, if he remembered right. Wolves were social creatures. The least he could do was offer some company, poor as it might be. He spoke, the tone of his soft voice shifting subtly. It held a hardness to it, but he was sensitive enough to the sorrow in her voice to temper the steel with a light, conversational tone. "Well, you have me to rely on now. I owe you a life-debt. You patch my wounds, I'll return the favour. You have a tent, or a cave, somewhere warm to sleep?"

[Miharu Mindi]

His last words caught her completely off-guard, concentrating as she was on his wounds and not what he was saying. When it finally penetrated, her head snapped up to meet his gaze and she fumbled the needle, dropping it so that it jerked a little on his skin and then hung from his face.

"I'm so sorry," she stuttered, taking it up again and checking to be sure she hadn't done any more damage. The last hole she'd placed bled a single crimson drop, which she dabbed away with a finger before taking the needle up again. Now, though, golden eyes flickered between her work and his face. Rely on him? Could he-- But she didn't even allow herself to finish the thought, the wounds of her being cast out of her home still too fresh. "Most kill for meat and skins both," she said, straining to keep her tone light, which was nearly impossible. He'd surprised her, that much was clear. "And for the thrill of the hunt. It is a sign of a great hunter to take down some of the dire creatures here. But for every one that is brought down, there at twenty men who die trying. Which is as it should be," she said, chuckling lowly.

She had to tie a knot off and get a new length of thread to finish the long gash that traveled the length of his cheek, and once again her concentration faltered and she fumbled to get the thread through the eye of the needle, too busy glancing up at him. Finally she sighed, and let her hands fall to her lap to simply stare at him. "I sleep where I can find a safe space," she said with a shrug. "Tents are too heavy to carry when I shift, and to stay in a cave is to paint a great big target over your sleeping body. So I do what i can and keep moving."

She realized she'd spoken more with this man than she had within anyone in the last year combined. It made her suddenly feel awkward, unsure if she should be talking to him. But what if he needs me? He was out here all alone, and would have died. He obviously needs a companion... The thought wormed itself inside her head, and she shook herself and took up the needle once again, pinching the wound closed and working quickly to finish it.