Solo at the end.

[Ruari Darkwind]

58 Winter 515 AV

The day was new when the child came to Ruari as she finished the care of her horse, picking at Rhoswen's hooves and brushing down her coat and mane. It had been slow until then, the day idling by as she worked and socialised with her horse, periodically pausing to gather meaning from the language Rhoswen's body spoke in as if she could glean wisdom from her silence.

At the end of it, Ruari had begun to braid Rhoswen's mane, fingers fumbling over one another as they moved in a careful weave in the simplest, the very simplest, the most loose and frayed and misshapen braid. It was actually kind of funny, and it was while Ruari laughed that the child found her.

Although Ruari wanted to undo the braid and retry, it was the child's expression that gave the veterinarian pause, and she narrowed her eyes as she looked him over, from his puffy red eyes to his running nose, and underneath it she thought she recognised him.

"Ikana?" She took a step towards him; Ikana was a child from a neighbouring pavilion, specifically the Greenwood, an emerald clanmate and the son of a hunter Ruari once, a very long time ago when her mother liked to socialise with other people, was watched over by. "What's the matter?" Her voice was soft, and her hands even softer still, with the gentle signs meant not to interrogate with her intentions. She knelt before him and Rhoswen behind her turned a watchful eye upon them.

Ikana teared up again and shook his head, a bubble of snot forming at his nose. Although the signs of distress were ugly to her, Ruari tried to be considerate of him, reaching out to offer him an embrace if he wanted to take it. She murmured soothing noises to the young one, trying to calm him down enough to talk to her coherently. It took a tick or two to do so, but Ruari was rewarded when those wet eyes looked at her, so large and wide, and his hand grabbed hers in a vice.

"Muma." He said, very simply. Although the name meant nothing to Ruari, she nodded sternly and climbed to her feet, allowing the boy to squeeze her hand tighter and pull her after him.

[Ruari Darkwind]

Muma turned out to be a cat, a grizzled queen with spotted fur that was much smaller than the hunting cats used by Ikana's mother when Ruari was his age. Her fur was matted and mangy, her claws dirty and the white tinged yellow by poor grooming, something itself that may have been caused by old age or simply by being too fat, and Muma really was a large cat. Ruari, a person with the habit of assuming, thought that Muma had the look of wild cat once kept for companionship, and she considered the distress Ikana was in as the the heartbreak of a child new to pets.

He ought to find a strider soon.

Ruari placed that all aside though, because she was a veterinarian, and Ikana was a Drykas with an animal in need, and she needed to help him.

The cat was laid on her side in the flattened snow at the Greenwood pavilion, surrounded by other children, and when they neared her she lifted her head, just once, and let loose a loud, rumbling meow, before laying it down again. Ruari paused, placed down the medical kit, and urged Ikana stay where he was with his family and friend. She took the last step to Muma and knelt near her, careful of her long bottlebrush tail and the blanket Ikana must have placed upon her in the hopes it would keep her warm and comfortable. Ruari quickly picked it up and moved it aside, because she didn't believe it would help the cat.

The examination was a lengthy one, and the cat didn't move, and she didn't meow again. Her breathing was elevated and her mouth open as she wheezed, and the way the queen lay told Ruari that she had done so in order to breathe better. She touched the cat, the cat was cold, in the paws and under her legs, but that could have been caused by the snow under her and Ruari kept her mind open enough to consider that.

She looked at her eyes, and they were a lovely colour even when Muma herself was not. They were bloodshot, though, and the membranes were pale.

When Ruari moved to examine the cat's open mouth, the queen complained and moved away, slowly, before laying herself back down. Ikana, thinking that his Muma was better, stepped forward eagerly to take her back in his arms, but Ruari quickly and sternly signed stop, and followed his cat herself.

Ruari tried again to look at the cat's mouth, seeing that she was weak and unwilling to put up a fight. She was more insistent this time, and though the queen tried to get up and move again, Ruari this time held her down... afraid that it was at threat to the cat's health.

However, her gums were pale also, and a string of saliva had formed from her gaped maw. The discoloration told her one thing, and the heavy breathing told her another, but when she looked at Ikana she hesitated to lay it out for him. He was a child still, no older than his fifth winter perhaps, and she would have preferred his parents, or his ankal, tell him about the end of a life.

"Muma isn't long for the world," she told him anyway, as gently and poetically as she could. Maybe it would break easier for a child. She didn't think him strong enough to handle it.

"Muu is dying?" Ikana demanded, sharp despite the drying snot and the frozen length of his tears. He seemed to not like the way Ruari said it, because his hands were stumbling over anger and sadness. "Why is Muma dying?"


*I haven't written for a long while, so I'm a bit uncertain with my progress here. I forgot how to Ruari. D: