OOCOh my goodness, I'm so sorry for taking so long to respond. I somehow forgot that I owed you a response. I blame the season change for scrambling my brainIt was obvious that Balen was heartbroken. This situation was too horrible for him to deal with given his calling. It was sickeningly overwhelming for Waisana as well, despite the fact that her profession involved people instead of animals. Death was death and it was a sad thing to see, but this was death on such a grand scale that it was devastating. It didn't look natural yet it could be disease. The look on Balen's face stopped the girl's attempted examination using a blade of grass. It seemed somehow disrespectful to be doing such a thing as the veterinarian watched her. Ashamed of her actions and deciding that her method was fairly pointless, the teen dropped her grass blade and stood up, absently brushing herself off as she listened and watched her companion. She never imagined that he would have touched one of the creatures and when he did so she couldn't believe her eyes. She was momentarily stunned before she stepped forward hastily.
Do not touch! "If it is sickness, it could be inside. It might make you sick! Don't handle it," she explained frantically, trying to shoo him away before he did any more potential harm to himself. It was only as she was doing that she realised how ridiculous her gesture must appear. Here she was telling a man that was her elder that he was silly and her a mere slip of a girl! The birds were dead though and he wasn't, something she'd like to keep that way so she had to do it for his own good.
"I know you feel for them but you can do nothing for them now. I can do something for you so don't touch them or I might have to... have to," she floundered for a moment before continuing valiantly,
"get angry with you!" At the prospect of him endangering his life, Waisana had indeed become more irate, her tone taking on greater authority and force as she spoke. He couldn't determine their deaths if he couldn't examine them but she didn' feel comfortable with it just yet. Better that they see to the main bodies first, see if they could find other evidence before they went poking at the dead, whether human or beast. Before things could go any further, Olina approached them, clearly distraught.
The blonde took a step back from Balen as she eyed the petite Inarta woman. This was another one she could see trying to touch the birds in her compassion for them.
"No touching them please. If sickness then touching may be bad," she explained to the woman in Common. The others might handle them as well in a misguided attempt to get to the bottom of this. They might have a bit more sense though, especially as the watchman who rode up to them had covered his face; this one was no fool. A quick assessment of the others in the group showed that others had done the same and she was pleased with this show of caution. She hardly needed to be told to mount because as soon as she learned that the bodies had been found, she was itching to be off to look at them.
She favoured the veterinarian with a humourless smile as she set off to remount Drusine. She tapped her heels lightly against her Strider's flanks so that she moved quickly in to a trot and spurred her to a gallop as the group began a hard ride once more. This time the doctor held on for dear life, keeping her head bent low over Drusine's neck as she followed the others. Once they reached their destination, her heels were pressed against her mount's flanks with gradually increasing pressure so that the horse slowed by degrees before coming to a halt. As soon as they were at a standsill, Waisana swung her left leg over to lie beside her right and slid down the horse's side, keeping a firm hold on the yvas's hold until her feet touched down. She surveyed the area, taking in the various corpses but could see nothing to suggest how they had died. Something had caused them pain and then they had died. Pain could put enough strain on the heart to stop it but it seemed unlikely that they had all died from pain. Pain wasn't a disease, you didn't contract it, it was a symptom of something else. The sight of the Drykas bodies made her feel ill especially as there didn't appear to be a mark on their bodies, at least from what she could see. If they'd been attacked then such a thing would be quite visible from a distance. The twisted body of the Strider was also horrible to see and so she tried not to look at it too closely.
Despite warning Olina that the birds shouldn't be touched, the hunters started carving up a bird carcass. Obviously the message hadn't spread and what they were doing was worse than merely touching them. She would have told them to stop if Balen hadn't gotten there first, forcing them to stop what they were doing and get away from the bird they had cut up so carelessly. She gave them a dirty look before turning her attention to the veterinarian. As there was no other obvious evidence of why they had died, a physical examination was warranted and so she acquiesced with a reluctant sign before heading off to look at the bodies. Waisana led her Strider so that she wouldn't go near the water and it gave her rider the opportunity to take in the finer details of the area as she walked along. There were so many different creatures here and they all appeared to fan out from the water. The first thing she'd do when she got to the bodies was to see if there was any sign they had recently drank. She would examine their waterskins to see if they had been recently filled. If they were filled then they should be full, or close to it. Either they would have filled them, drank what they wanted to quench their thirst and refilled them or else skipped the second refill. The first was a far more practical way of doing things and so she wouldn't be surprised if she found them filled to the top. After checking on their water situation, the doctor would move on to the corpses themselves. The sight of the boy made her balk as she remembered the young ones who had died in her arms during the fever. Indecisive, she stood looking down on him, wondering if she should examine him now to get it over with or whether to examine the mother and hope she found something so she wouldn't have to touch him. She came to a decision and knelt beside him.
The teen did a visual examination first, checking to see if there was any sign of a rash, bites or anything else suspicious. The visible skin of his face and hands were examined first before she opened his shirt to look at his torso. Next, she rolled up his sleeves so she could see his arms before moving on to examine his legs and groin. As she worked, she kept telling herself that he was just a body, not a child or anything else, it became like a mantra. It helped her stay detached enough that she could work but tears ran down her cheeks just the same. Once she had finished a visual examination, she carried out a careful and light search by touch. She peered in to his eyes, checking the pupils and seeing checking the whites to see if they were bloodshot or yellow, looking for anything unusual. She checked his airways, both his nose and mouth, tilting his head back to make the best use of the light as she searched for blockages or swelling. Prying his mouth open proved difficult given the stiffness that was setting in so taking a deep breath, she positioned her hands on the right points on his jaw and broke it so it unhinged easily for her to see inside. She peered down his throat, looked under his tongue and then settled his jaw back in to position. It didn't look quite right as it had been loosened and the sight of it overcame the last bit of control she was holding on to. She turned away, trying to move as far as she could from the corpses before she started retching. Up came her breakfast together with the acid that had been digesting it. It took a few heaves but then she felt better, albeit still sickened by what she had done. She'd broken a child's jaw. He'd been dead at the time but it still seemed too terrible to contemplate.
It had to be done. You have to check everything so you can find out what this is and help others. Pull yourself together, it had to be done, she told herself repeatedly, trying to will herself to continue her examination. She moved away from the acidic mess she'd made and faced the child's corpse again, eyes closed. She focused on her breathing before she allowed herself to see again, starting a check of the glands in his neck when she finally convinced herself to continue. She felt behind his ears, working her fingers downwards along his neck and just below his jaw as she checked for swelling. She checked other glands, feeling in and around his armpits as she looked for more swelling before checking his stomach and groin. When she felt she had checked everywhere she was going to check, she fixed his clothing so that he appeared presentable before moving on to the woman that seemed to be his mother.
When she examined the woman, it would be a very similar examination with the exceptions that she did her best to shield the woman's chest from view when it was bared and covered it again when she wasn't checking there, as well as the fact that she examined the woman's breasts themselves. Once she was done, she felt drained and found herself sitting beside the corpses unable to move for the moment and wondering what Balen may have turned up.
