Timestamp: 45th of Fall, 520 A.V.
It happened so quickly. One moment Tazrae was kneeling carefully weeding the flowers of Kihala's Shrine. The next moment pain, sharp and concentrated, penetrated her hand straight through her weeding gloves. She pulled back, crying out, and saw the cause much too late. The snake wasn't big - not in the least - but was instead a delicate green thing thinner and more fragile than she would have imagined. Stark gold eyes stared at her unblinking. Its rough scales flared out above its eyes giving the impression of it having eyelashes. Its green hues blended it in completely with the plants it was coiled through. The snaked had gathered itself up, head up ready to strike again, defending its living space.
Tazrae acted without thought. She backed up on all fours like... well like she'd been bitten by a snake... then rose up cradling her injured hand with her good one. Tears filled her eyes. The pain was like nothing she'd ever felt before. Her lips parted and a sound came from her that she didn't even recognized as one she could make.
It was an agonized half cry half sob as fire burned up her wrist and well into her arm. She turned, instinct driving her, and ran. She left all her gardening tools at the shrine and pounded through the remainder of the shrine towards somewhere... somewhere a logical side of her brain told her there would be help.
There was no time though.
She'd been warned of snakebites when she first came here. Mostly they were supposed to happen out in the jungle, where one was vulnerable and everything was hostile. But they never talked about a snakebite here, in Syka proper, where everything was beautiful and people went about their business barefoot and often naked. One died out there in the jungle, bitten with no one to help. But here, in the settlement, it was supposed to be safer and there was someplace she could go. Her feet became a fleet jungle deer as she ran, swiftly in that direction like a dozen of those little delicate snakes were after her.
She was too young to die. Tazrae had just started building a life for herself here. But the pain felt like a death. It felt like she'd lit the end of her hand on fire and it was being consumed with flame. Tazrae headed south at a run, finding the cobbled pathway. Where she needed to be was thankfully just a short distance away. But that distance stretched out forever, her fear and pain turning the path before her elastic and strained as if it pulled away in her vision like taffy. Tazrae cried out again, a strangled sob, as the throbbing burn of her hand began spiking with the beat of her heart.
The Innkeeper ran like she'd never ran before. And as soon as she saw the sign to the pathway, she turned towards it, skidding to a halt in the middle of the rudimentary deck and open-aired treatment center of the Panacea. She careened to a stop, hitting one of the beds and grabbing it with her good hand to keep from falling.
Word Count: 530