ORIGIN - Death, Decay, Despair

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Cetus wasn't a room she'd explored just yet, and she felt like this was a travesty she needed to correct. It was right next to her home in Eridanus, and she could smell the loamy wet earth all the way from the neighboring tunnel, and the waving breeze called to her. So she listened, abandoning her usual path for a new one.

This place...this place was as different from home as Monoceros was from Polaris. Sure they had the same rocky ground, but that's where the similarities ended. Here, the ground was wet, easily tripping her up and making her fall in ice cold mud. The roots almost moved under the treacherous ground, trying to grab her when she wasn't looking - at least, that's what it felt like. The whole place had an aura of dread, of ill-content...and she loved it. It was creepy, it was disturbing, it was dreadful, and it was new.

In Orion she kept her eyes on the ceiling, but here she had to keep them on the ground. She picked and chewed new plants she saw, patiently waiting for their effects to broil in her.

She liked this place.

@Czernobog

Hat, Tiny, and Hat-baby were okay, so Czernobog was on his daily patrol through Cetus, wading through shallow water and muck, the cool liquid and mud soothing on his feverish skin. His mind had been cloudy lately, overly hot and humid, like there was a sickness lingering and clinging to his bones. The hog didn't know what to do about it, though, so he continued on, his pace slowed even more than usual by the festering wounds littering his back, the pus filling them now more than ever.

There was a... something. A black fluffy thing. Czernobog lifted his massive head to snort at it, narrowing black-brown eyes at the intruder before stepping closer, stopping a few feet away, the weight of his hooves making the dirt indent. "Intruuuuuder. Frieeeeeeend ooooooor foooooooe?" If there was one thing Tiny had taught him, it was how to ask... well, maybe not nicely, but more efficiently. The wolf pup had been a good lesson, it seemed. The monster of Cetus stood silently, staring down his snout at the cat-rat thingy impatiently, wincing as a new trickle of bloody pus made its way down his side, matting his coarse black fur.

@Cayenne

She raised her head and stopped short, seeing this giant suddenly appear in front of her, snorting at her, glaring over her, and she swallowed. This giant was just as big as Caravaggio, except a lot older, and she knew instinctively that she should tread lightly.

"....Friend," She said calmly, her raspy voice filling the eerie silence of the bog. "I'm sorry for intruding."

Her eyes raked over the giant, and she frowned. They had 'friends' like Khloros, pus filled wounds and blood trickling down their fur, but unlike the plague-horse, this one looked like they were in pain from it. Her throat felt tight, and she gripped her bag. Having those wounds go untreated and walking around this bog could not have been good for the giant.

She bowed her head, her voice nothing but polite. "I can help you, if you like. Make your wounds stop hurting."

@Czernobog

Friend. Sorry. Czernobog blinked, before letting out a slow, long breath, air rushing out of his nostrils and rustling the leaves of the swamp's plants, posture relaxing as grinned down at his new friend, trotting forward the last few steps to stop just in front of her with a happy snort.

Help. Hurting. An intrigued snuffle, and the boar flopped down onto his belly in the mud, lowering his head to come face to face with the cat-rat-black-fluffy-thing. He didn't know why, exactly, they were hurt, but he was a guardian after all! "Frieeeeend. Huuuuurt?" His massive nose twitched as he sniffed at the girl again, but she just smelled like swamp and plants - no tang of copper or gut-turning stink of infection.

Still, injuries weren't his thing. Need a dragon gored? Definitely his thing. Taking care of others outside of aggressively cuddling them? Not his thing. It worked for Czernobog, so he squirmed forward just enough to tap the end of his snout against the cat-rat's chest and huff. "Saaaaaafe?"

@Cayenne

She watched them release their aggression she didn't realize they held until it was gone, deciding to trust her suddenly, lowering themselves down to look at her level, touching her with their big snorting nose. She wanted to laugh and step back in fright at the same time, the fur on her shoulders on edge.

Still...she got the feeling that the big giant wouldn't hurt her. They were a simple thing, she felt, and she petted its nose, one hand on her satchel. For some reason they misunderstood her...so maybe if she spoke simply, that would work better?

"Me safe," She said, patting her chest, nodding up and down. "You, hurt." She patted their nose again, and pointed to their back, which was bleeding, open and raw. "Me fix?"

@Czernobog

The cat-rat raised a strange, elongated paw, and at first Czernobog tensed, bristling - did she hurt, like the dragons? Like the dingo? Come to think of it, the bite wound in his haunch stung like the wounds on his back, though it wasn't quiet to the leaking-pus-everywhere stage.

The hand came down and the boar stilled, wincing - only to be... pet? His eyes widened, gaze darting from the cat-rat to her paw, before relaxing back slowly, one muscle at a time, until he was fairly purring, melted into a puddle of happy pig.

Me safe.

Czernobog squinted one eye open from his sleepy daze, before he played back the words, both eyes shooting open, ears perking forward and tail beginning to wag. Had she just... talked to him? In a full sentence? "Saaafe!" He grinned, obviously unaware that the full sentence Oh, you're alright? had been warped into one drawled word.

You, hurt. The massive monster's brow furrowed, and slowly, his head rose, turning enough to blink back at his own wounds, like he'd just now noticed them. In truth, it was the first time he'd ever understood anyone when they'd said he'd been hurt. "Huuuuurt?" I'm injured? Did the dragon do that? His neck whipped back around, and the boar jutted his snout forward again, gently booping the cat-rat's fluffy chest and snuffling, as close to returning the petting as he could do.

Me fix? "Fiiiix!" You can heal me? Please! It hurts...

@Cayenne

The gentle giant practically melted under her hands, and she couldn't help but smile. Despite the wounds and the simple words, they were just as nice as Amalthea, just as sweet and uncomplicated, and she wanted to climb onto them and give the giant a really big hug, if she knew it wouldn't hurt them terribly.

She saw their joy in seeing that she was safe, their confusion at realizing they were hurt, which was terrible - had it hurt so much that the giant just became numb to it? That was a bad sign, if that was the case. Then, when the giant nudged and snuffled into her chest, and laughed and leaned against it half-hugging their nose that was just as wide as her torso, feeling the warm snort ruffle through her fur like a heated gust of wind, making her squint and giggle at the experience.

"Me fix," She said, nodding up and down enthusiastically so that the giant could see it clearly. "Me Cayenne. You?"

She looked around a little ways, peering through the ferns, and saw a nicely tall rock that was just the height to see over the giant's back, and she looked back at them, waving her hands and stepping back through the mud, saying softly, "Come. Me fix."

@Czernobog

Me fix. Me Cayenne. You? Czernobog blinked, still a little startled at the prospect of actually understanding what someone else was saying, trying to commit the name to memory. "Caaaaay... Cayyyyennneeeee? Cayeeeeeenne," the massive hog settled on, contented with the repetition, tail swishing to and fro. "Meeeee Chuuuuuuuurnobog," he grumbled out, raising his head to puff up his chest with pride, ears wiggling happily.

And then Cayenne was moving away, with a quiet Come. Me fix. that he couldn't really ignore, not if he wanted the fierce, burning pain that lanced through his body to retreat. With a muffled groan of protest, the pig rose from the ground, wincing as his knee joints popped from the effort, slowly raising one hoof in front of the other and ambling after the cat-rat. "Cayeeeeeenne fiiiiiix," he yelped after her, following close enough to ruffle the lemur's fur with every noisy exhale.

@Cayenne

She heard them grunt and sigh when they got up, as if it took a great amount of effort for them to do so, and her mouth twisted. She shouldn't have made them move when they were so obviously in pain, but...she needed to have better reach without actually being on the poor thing. That would probably hurt a lot worse.

Churnobog? She thought to herself as she climbed up the rock. She wondered how that would be spelled. How would Tenn write that down in that book of his?

She stood on the rock, nodding that the big giant was in the right position for her to just lean over and examine and oh lord of the caves it was bad. Her stomach immediately roiled. This wasn't Khloros bad, this was excruciatingly painful bad. Everything was pus filled and smelly and looking like no one had ever touched it since the initial wounds first appeared. Huge lacerations scraped across the giant's back, each one as big as her arm, and they had practically rotted in the skin.

She took a deep breath and readied herself. If she had sleeves, she would've rolled them. Time to get rid of the unwelcome houseguests of infection and disease.

Alright....first things first, get this mess clean. She had a big acorn strapped to her side that was filled with this weird rotten juice that had been gifted to her that had apparently been the by-product of some wedding or other? She didn't know. But putting it on a rotting wound helped immensely, like nothing else she could find. It just hurt like the devil. She had herbs to prevent infection, but not to cure it.

....how was she going to tell the giant that she needed to hurt them further with such simple vocabulary?

"....Bog?" She asked softly. "Bog, smell." She climbed over to the edge of the rock with the acorn exposed, letting the giant twist and sniff it. "This help. Help clean owwie. Owwie dirty. This burn. Burn is good. Okay? Burn is good. Then pain go away."

She swallowed, then dipped her mostly clean hands in the rotting juice....then took the acorn and very carefully poured an even amount over the closest of the lacerations, hearing the open wound hiss and pop, the rot in the flesh reacting violently. She stopped the flow as soon as she was done with the closest one, biting her lip.

@Czernobog

Czernobog stopped at the lemur's nod, snuffling curiously, watching out of the corner of his eye as she leaned over to peer at his wounds. The expression on her face was... not good. "Caaaaaaayenne?" It was more a mumble than anything, tinged with just a twitch of fear - was he really that hurt? Sure, his back felt like it was on fire, but he was strong. He was a guardian. Wasn't it his job to hurt?

The cat-rat was bobbing this way and that, looking at the divots carved into his flesh, and when she spoke it was... hesitant. Not good. Blinking, he twisted to stare at her, nose tapping into her chest fur again, more to comfort himself than her. ...Bog? Bog, smell. His brow furrowed, but the giant boar did as he was told, scooting his snout towards the offered acorn. Immediately, he startled back, snout wrinkling in disgust. "Baaaaaad!" Anything that smelled that awful had to be, he reasoned, lip unconsciously lifting to show his tusks, the unbroken tooth glinting.

This help. Help clean owwie. Owwie dirty. The boar let out a groaning rumble, flashing squared teeth, hesitating. If he was really hurt as bad as she said... wouldn't it be better to be fixed? This burn. Burn is good. Okay? Burn is good. Then pain go away. "Buuuuuurn?" Black-brown eyes flickered from the liquid to Cayenne's face, searching for any hint of mistruth, before slowly shuffling back towards her, flinching back every time a burst of the smell hit his nose. He finally focused on the lemur, staring hard, before, slowly, his lip lowered, teeth hidden and tusks sheathed, moving his nose to gently snuffle at her fur again in apology.

"Frieeeeeend."

I trust you.

He sidled close, close enough to watch as she dipped her long, strange hands in the liquid, lifting them to drip over the wounds and - blanked.

It didn't hurt, not at first. It was a little cold, and almost seemed to fizz, and then there was nothing but fire.

A screeching, ear-piercing squeal erupted from Czernobog's throat, and he kicked out, hitting the rock Cayenne perched on and managing to roll away, desperate to escape, get far enough away for whatever was searing, burning him from the inside to get out without hurting the lemur. The squeal turned into a scream, and then the sound of cracking, twisting bone filled the air, a cacophony of violence that echoed throughout Cetus like a death knell.

The boar's spine contorted, seemed to concave in on itself before a loud crack! broke through the barrage of sounds. In an instant, a spear of shining, bright bone, slick with blood sprouted from one of the exposed discs, accompanied by a freshly terrified bellow. A low, groaning sigh, and another burst through the pig's chest, cracked - an extension of the broken rib he'd gained from the fall, so long ago. A rasping screech, and a trio of short, curved spikes of calcium dug their way through healthy muscle and tissue, breaking out from a meaty shoulder.

And then it simply... stopped.

And the beast lay still.

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