TW: Sensitive Content Border circling the drainpipe — meadowpaw

[DIMMINGSUN]

trigger warning Semi-detailed descriptions of major eye injury; blood.

Golden hills blur around him. Bengt would huff in amusement if he could; it seems like the cheery rays of the sun are laughing at him, for the vibe they give off is a sharp contrast to the situation he had found himself in. It is wholly unprecedented. He is no stranger to fights, not even to those that go off-course, but this... how had he messed up this bad? The hostile stranger had truly made him work for victory- or a stalemate, rather. At least he can soothe himself with the knowledge that he had also taken something from her.

An eye for an eye. Quite literally.

Fuck, he curses internally when another sharp throb finds him right where it hurts the most. He is only vaguely aware of the blood streaming down the left side of his face, covering his usual sun-kissed fur with crimson. It sticks to his paws; the paws that are having trouble keeping him upright at this point. Bengt has no idea where he is. He had wandered away from his opponent in a semi-blind daze, and now, he is certain that shock and blood loss are settling in all at once. How delightful.

Something begins hurting at the back of his head, too. Perhaps that feeling had been there all along and it only got the opportunity to make its presence know after the rest of his body has weakened. It forces him to the ground, unceremonious as he drops, flanks heaving with the futile efforts of fighting it off. Bengt is a fighter, a survivor, but even he doesn't know how to treat himself when he is barely conscious. If a predator doesn't follow the delicious trail of blood and grabs him in its jaws, then infection will surely take him first. At least if it's a fox, he can go down fighting.

His remaining eye now closing too, Bengt pushes out a strained exhale from his lungs, too exhausted to keep on going.

@Meadowpaw

 

[Meadowpaw]

The sun was too bright, glaring off the prairie grass in waves, making the fields feel endless. Meadowpaw squinted against it, ears twitching at every gust of wind, expecting a familiar voice to call her name. She'd left camp alone, limping her way into the open wild. The search had gone on for nearly a week now, and still no sign of Gladebloom. She couldn't stand sitting around while everyone else went off to look. Now the patrols had trickled, warriors diverted elsewhere. They couldn't search forever. They needed to eat and keep their borders safe. Meadowpaw knew that, she knew, she did, but....

What was going to happen when Owlbear had another episode? Or when someone got hurt, and she didn't know how to help? Gladebloom was her mentor, yes, but she'd also been her rock. A steady presence who helped her recover, who believed in her enough to take her as an apprentice. "The hardest part about being a medicine cat is believing in yourself." That's what she had said but how was she supposed to do that when everything she did always seemed to fall short?

They needed a medicine cat. They needed Gladebloom—not her. She needed her mentor to come home. "Glade!" She cried, throat hoarse from overuse. "Gladebloom, please!" She could imagine it—the cinnamon-furred molly bounding over the hill, apologizing for being gone so long. Sometimes she even thought she heard her name on the wind, pulling her in random directions, her heart leaping and crashing every time.

Tears pricked her lashes as she trudged on, the grass sunbaked and patchy. Her paws ached from walking so long, limbs growing tired. Then, as she stepped, one sank deeper than expected, and she stumbled. Meadowpaw let out a yelp as she fell, pain shooting up her leg. Her chin scraped as she hit the ground. She gasps, yanking her paw free with a choked sob.

The calico flexes the digit before slowly peeling herself off the ground with a sniffle. A jab of pain shoots up the joint, but it's not broken.

That's when the scent hit her—blood. She checked herself again, but no, it wasn't hers. Besides, the scent is too strong to be a scrape. So whose is it? Meadowpaw steps tenderly, limping through tall stalks of grass. Dread curdled in her stomach, wind stinging her eyes as fresh tears trickle free. What if it was Gladebloom? Could she bear it? The fear of what she might find is suffocating but if its her then...

She has to know.

The grass was so tall, she almost missed it. A glimpse of white caught her eye, and she stopped, a shiver passing through her. She stands there a moment, working up the courage to look. Her throat is tight as she pushes forward to peer through the grass. It... wasn't her, but the relief she feels is short-lived.

A tom lay collapsed in the grass. Blood paints one side of his face, fur clinging in dark clumps.

She crept closer, lungs giving a squeeze. The death stench hasn't yet set in, but at first she is certain he is dead. It's not until she gets closer that she can see the subtle rise of his body. "You're not dead." Meadowpaw whispers, her voice splitting. "Oh, thank the stars you're not. I'm so glad..." But when then she takes in the full extent of it—his eye. Does he even have an eye anymore? It's bad. Even without properly looking at him she can tell. There is too much blood. "W-what do I do?" He wasn't WindClan. She didn't recognize him at all, but she wouldn't leave him to die.

"Cobwebs? What else though I-I don't—I can't!" The panic creeps in like a vine, wrapping up her legs, her chest, her throat. The breath flutters, hitching in her airway each time she tries to draw it, like pulling water from a dry well. "No." She looks around frantically. With her leg, she can't carry him back to camp, and even if she could, she can't help him! He was going to die. Someone was going to die, and there's nothing she can do about it.

______________I believe that there is a courage ✿ but its burnin' like ash in the wind_____________

• "speech" - thoughts
  
• ​
• Meadow she/her & windclan
  ✿ Three-legged black and red tortoiseshell with green eyes.
  ✿ A light crisp-sounding voice
  ✿ Loves flowers and always has some woven into her fur
  ✿ Peaceful and healing powerplay permitted. All others DM.
  ✿ Fur smells floral and mildly sweet.
  
  
  penned by Scarlet​

 

[DIMMINGSUN]

He doesn't know how much time passes, if any passes at all. With his usual perceptiveness gone with the wind, Bengt only becomes aware of someone else's presence when they announce it with words, rather than noticing their approach first. Yet another death sentence... or would be, if it was his previous attacker following him to finish the job. (Impossible. Bengt had given her enough to care about for now.)

Bengt doesn't lift his head—can't, because that would risk another wave of unbearable pain. Instead he cracks open his eye, just barely, squinting against the blinding light that adorns a she-cat like a halo around her head. She's frantic- about him? Perhaps she's not used to seeing random cats bleed out amongst the prairie grass. He can't exactly blame her.

He's just glad he still has his sense of humor intact to keep himself entertained and pivoting him back towards wakefulness.

"No,"

he croaks,

"I'm not dead."

An attempt at a laugh comes out broken, but his face remains smiling—as much as it can in a state like this, anyway. Stubbornness kicks him in the chest. He can't die a pathetic death like this; any triumph he may have felt is gone, stripped from him cruelly, and now it's just his pitiful mortality at full display here. Unsightly. Boring. The tortoiseshell makes no move to hurt him, and if he hears it right, then she's crying. She will not mark his end then.

Subconsciously, he lets his head tilt so that the ruined part of his face is obscured by the ground's kiss. It's not like he minds blood, but he would like to seem a little bit dignified at least. He almost misses the she-cat's panicked ramblings about cobwebs and with a start, Bengt realizes that she is trying to help him. Instead of shooing him away to die somewhere else, her first thought is putting him back together.

Who are you?

He doesn't get the chance to make her acquaintance, not yet.

Bengt's face contorts for a few seconds as he forces his brain to continue working.

"Cobwebs- cobwebs first."

He has entered survival mode, he thinks. If they can just stop more blood from pouring out of him... he can worry about the other complications later.

 

[Meadowpaw]

tw - descriptions of gore

The stranger's rugged voice startles her. The squeak she makes is pitiful and waterlogged. The fact that he can even speak, nonetheless crack a smile, is nothing short of a miracle. "Cobwebs, r-right, to stop the…" A shuddering breath catches in her throat. He's right. Cobwebs first—to stop the bleeding—and stars, is he bleeding. Instead of staunching the flow right away, she'd stood there, letting him bleed some more. Gladebloom wouldn't have done that. She wouldn't have panicked. She would've known exactly what to do. How could she even call herself a medicine-cat when her stomach coiled at the slightest show of gore or when asked to make calls on her own?

Damp lashes flutter, her head swiveling one way, then another. "S-stay—no, of course you will. I-I'm sorry II'll be back!" Her paws shuffle off, brittle grass snapping beneath her steps. There's no time to run back to camp. The bleeding needs to be stopped now. So she searches the area, eyes darting to crevices, shaded tufts of grass—anywhere spider silk might have gathered.

A shimmer catches her eye, a strand of web fluttering in the wind. She scrambles toward it, nearly tripping over her own paws in the hurry. To her relief, a funnel spider has painstakingly built a dense, gleaming web in the tall grass. If the situation was not so dire, she might've felt guilty for destroying its intricate home, but she doesn't have a choice. A twig serves as a suitable tool to collect the latticework. She gently twists the webbing around the makeshift spool. Once she's gathered enough, she returns to the wounded tom.

The idea of finding him dead looms over her as she checks his breathing. He is alive, thankfully. Meadowpaw crouches beside him. "I'm back! I have the cobwebs!" She says breathlessly, begging that he is still lucid enough to answer. Meadowpaw doesn't wait, biting back the nausea as she inspects his eye. His eye—or what's left of it—resembles more of a congealed soup than anything else.

Meadowpaw bites the inside of her cheek, steeling herself. Her paw shakes as she lifts the cobwebs. "I'm s-sorry." There are many things to apologize for, but that is for hurting him. He is in pain, and touching the wound will only hurt him more, but it has to be done. With as much steadiness as she can muster, she presses the silk into place. Gentle as can be afforded, she puts pressure on the gushing wound.

Quietly, the apprentice offers a prayer, to anyone really, to the stars if they feel like listening. Lately, it felt like so much tragedy was around them, she couldn't take any more. StarClan, please let the bleeding stop... Let him live.

______________I believe that there is a courage ✿ but its burnin' like ash in the wind_____________

• "speech" - thoughts
  
• ​
• Meadow she/her & windclan
  ✿ Three-legged black and red tortoiseshell with green eyes.
  ✿ A light crisp-sounding voice
  ✿ Loves flowers and always has some woven into her fur
  ✿ Peaceful and healing powerplay permitted. All others DM.
  ✿ Fur smells floral and mildly sweet.
  
  
  penned by Scarlet​

 

[DIMMINGSUN]

This time, when Bengt's lips quirk up to smile, it is a soundless laugh. The young she-cat's antics are amusing to no end. Cute, almost, though he wonders why she is so intent on helping him when they have never ever met each other, and—by the looks of it—lacks the experience to confidently mend what's broken. She's going above and beyond for... what? What reason does she possibly have?

The thought then crosses Bengt's mind that she might not even return. Maybe she had felt too awkward to say what she really meant when she stumbled upon him, and now that she has given him a sliver of hope, she could just get whisked away into the far distance without a second's hesitation. It would certainly make more sense in Bengt's mind. Through the haze of pain, he hadn't even caught the fact that she wobbles away on three legs; the both of them missing something.

I'm back, she says, and Bengt's confusion only grows. He lifts his head, painstakingly slowly, but it is paramount. That orange-black splotched face tightly holds onto their prize in the form of cobwebs—Bengt's first step towards continuing to haunt this world with breath still in his lungs. She had not abandoned him after all. This little stranger is either the kindest soul that has ever graced this earth, or she is painfully naive... but either version works for him at the moment. He isn't about to begin complaining and drive away his only chance at survival.

"Sorry?"

Bengt echoes her apology. What for? He dips his head slightly and squeezes his remaining eye shut, preparing for her paws to scrape against the part of him that hurts the most right now (aside from pride). Instead of the waves that have been plaguing his existence, the pain now comes swiftly and intensely. Bengt refuses the urge to flinch away but cannot help the hiss that instinctively tears from him. He grits his teeth and rides out the worst of it; if he focuses on the feeling of the she-cat's pawpads against him, offering warmth and the ba-dum ba-dum of her heart's song, then it is a little more bearable. He endures.

After what feels like ample time, Bengt slowly draws his head away- peels himself away, really, certain that the white paws of this cat had not been spared from his blood. One of Bengt's own paws raises then to gingerly pat at the literal bandaid slapped to his problem. It will bleed through, likely fast, but the she-cat had found cobwebs thick enough to give him some more time. Above and beyond.

He doesn't think about the fact that his eye is just gone. He doesn't think about how it will heal, if he will look grotesque, if he will ever get used to the lack of sight on that side.

When Bengt finally opens his eye again, he stares at the she-cat like he is seeing her for the first time. Maybe it's true—she had shown him selflessness now, prioritizing him instead of her own comfort just because. She might still have ulterior motive... but he is, unfortunately, desperate and vulnerable. It's not like he gets to be picky. Although he remains silent while searching the stranger's face for something, the green depths of his eye that remains glossy with pain tells her one thing: gratitude.

Ever-greedy, he prods.

"Say..."

His voice is still unlike himself. Blood had found his mouth too, a mix of his own and his earlier opponent's. Bengt smacks his lips in an attempt to sound better; it doesn't help much.

"You don't happen to have... more herbs 'n you?"

 

[Meadowpaw]

"I-I know it hurts, I know, I'm so sorry..." If they were back at camp, she could give him something to ease the pain. No, it would not numb the wound completely, but it would help more than words alone. As accustomed to suffering as she is by now, that does not desensitize her to the pain of others. As a medicine-cat, Meadowpaw knows it is something she will have to get used to. Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better, but in the moment, even the pain of a stranger wrenches her heart fiercely.

The deep carmine that stains her paws is alarming. Nausea slams into her full force, but she forces her eyes forward, nose wrinkled with determination. How she manages to keep from dropping the cobwebs is a mystery. Maybe some force is listening—if so, it's merciful. The bleeding slows, the cobwebs pressed firm against the gaping socket like a plaster. It still looks horrible, raw and gory, but it's better than nothing.

Meadowpaw knows she can't let her guard down yet. The tom being able to talk is a good sign, but he's far from in the clear. "Not with me, but back at my clans camp." If I can even figure out what he needs… Something to prevent infection but what else? How do I even go about using the herbs we have?

But there's no use worrying about that now, not when there's a much greater hurdle to cross. "It's a ways from here, but there's enough herbs there to treat you and somewhere to rest." A soft frown slips over her muzzle. She glances at the blood-soaked ground and then back to him. "Do you… think you can walk? I won't be able to support you very much." Admitting that outloud doesn't feel good, but it's the truth. If he collapses on the way, if he can't make it, there's nothing she can do. She isn't strong enough to drag him there, nor can she offer much to lean on with her condition... Still, the thought of leaving him behind to even fetch help makes her just as uneasy. Whatever did that to him could return. Worse so, what if she returns with help and he's already gone?

______________I believe that there is a courage ✿ but its burnin' like ash in the wind_____________

• "speech" - thoughts
  
• ​
• Meadow she/her & windclan
  ✿ Three-legged black and red tortoiseshell with green eyes.
  ✿ A light crisp-sounding voice
  ✿ Loves flowers and always has some woven into her fur
  ✿ Peaceful and healing powerplay permitted. All others DM.
  ✿ Fur smells floral and mildly sweet.
  
  
  penned by Scarlet​

 

[DIMMINGSUN]

And just like that, the stranger offers him even more—a place to stay, a place where he can get further treatment, a place that will not immediately doom him and send him to his death. What are the chances? As his head swims with agony, he reminds himself that this could very well be a trap... though the chances of it is unlikely; she had wasted an awful lot of time and resources if her plan had always been to kill him or let nature do her bidding instead. When her voice shakes, Bengt internally shakes away any further doubts. This is no act.

He stops touching the edges of the cobwebs, lest he accidentally tears it all off. He had, somehow, known that not everything would turn in his favor now. Whether he can make the trek to this Clan's camp is up to debate... maybe he will collapse again and not be able to pull himself up that time.

It's his only chance though. He has to at least try.

"I don't know,"

he croaks, honest. The deep inhale is audible; he gathers all the air he can muster into his lungs in preparation. Then, with all his muscles stiff, Bengt rises to his feet. It's slow and dizzying and stars, does it hurt, but he manages to stand upright. It takes him a moment to find Meadowpaw's gaze again, but when he does, there is determination grazing his every weary feature.

"Lead the way...?"

Thread pretty much concluded; continuation here!