ORIGIN - [M] It all starts here

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There was a probing at the back of his mind, undoubtedly Willow and her way of speaking his language, but he couldn't - couldn't still, couldn't stop the bond from opening for a few moments, unleashing a torrent of what no-doubt would sound like fizzling nonsense to the owl. P̕r̟͍̻o̶̦̳̯̬̗̘͕s͏̙̟̳̬͎̗z҉̘͖ę̫̙̮̟̻͙̱ ̺̫͔̜͎͡b͚̳̖̪̫o͚̬l͉̗̼͉̫i̟͔̰̕ ̪͇͖̲͈̪͈͘z͕̻͕͉r̥̬͖̞̟̜o̱̫b̠͍̤i̶ć̴̪̪̲̝̦ ̷̫̤t̞͍͢o̘̲̮͕ ̡̠͔̺̙ͅͅp͞r̪̼z͖̥̣͍̬̣e̷̤̬̭͓̫s̼̻̦̥͘ṭa̢̰̫̹̻̪̹͉ć̴͈̦̱̟̜̪̮ ̺̖̥͉s͖̤͙͇͈͕͕͜i̻̣̻̞̹̻̣̕ę ̞͔͓̤i̼̳̟̥n̞̩̥t̻̣̖r̙̯̜̥̦̳̦͡u̶͕̻̲͕z͏ ̴͕z̢͔͚̫̗̦a͍̯̼̻b͕̰͕i̠̭̮ć̣͔͍̖͔̮̯ ̶̬̜̩g̘͎͈͓̟̖o̲͎̦͎͕̠͞ ̸͇b͏͔͖͍̼o͏̲̜̯͖̜̠͙ḷ͓̗̩i͉ ͔̣̩g̢͙̪͍o̫ u̟c̰͇̺̩z̸͖̳y̘̟̣̬͕͖n͖̖̞͈̜i̹̫̻̤̝ć̘ ̳̪̟̩̹̟͇g̨͚̻̣̜̭͓͚o̧̖̥̠̮ ̳̤̰̭̟̫͔c̡i̘̮̮͎ͅẹ̰̟̦̘̼r̬̖̦̯p̸i̻̯͍̯͍͝e҉̖̫ć̨ ̘͖̯̤̘̬ͅj͖͢a̱̤̣̜̲̯k̢̯̘͚̞̻ͅ ̨͉͍̝̗͍̮͓ś̹̣͍̭̦̯͠m̫̳̲̪̝͡i̭͍̳͖̫̗e̮͇͇̜͇̖̳s̩̼̠͢z͚͉̯͍̩̹ ̟͖̦̦̲͕̮z̟̦̪̻̼̞̞ab̡͚͕̜i̝͟ć̢͇͍̱͓ ̟̜B͡o͎̻̟̥̞g҉̥̗a͖͓̫͓͠!̻̖̫͖͜

The words were screeched, the dying call of a wounded God, and Czernobog shuddered as the bond closed, slumping further into the ground. If the owl said anything in her tongue-speech, his injuries muted it to another blip in the swarm currently residing in his head. There was a touch, preening, at his leg, and one of the boar's eyes crept open, enough to watch as Eve took off, following the intruder's path. He grunted, a grin cracking the edges of his maw. Even if he hadn't killed the cat, his family would. Glorious vengeance would be his.

The pig's gaze rolled to focus on Cayenne, snuffling at the strange thing she'd made. If he hadn't been slowly suffocating, he might have protested to setting his plant friends on fire, but as it is he simply inched closer, breathing in the smoke, eyes slipping closed when the lemur gently touched his mangled snout again. "Thaaaaaank youuuuuuu," he murmured, the sound almost unnoticeable.

Everything went... fuzzy around the edges, and for minutes he floated, half-asleep, accompanied only by the fading pain and the sweet smell of smoke. Whatever his tiny friend had done, it was working, and he was almost lost to the dark when Willow's voice broke through, as steady and calm as always. W͙̘̝ͅi̵̦ll͍̳̖͉̙̲̰o͇̠̦w̮̬̫̲̭͓̘͡?̶ ̳̬̳J̺͇͍̠̭͖̦a̷͍͖̹͇̫ͅ ͔̜̘͕́p̖̠̬̥o͓̰͖͕p̜̬͚͙͈̬̦r̙̙̘̰.̩̘̲̜̬̝́.̮̫̥. ̢ą̣̫̣̪̹̫ͅc̢̱̞̱̦͕͕h͟.͖̪..͖̫̳̩̲̱̩͠

Slowly, a flat, white plain formed around them, the setting for the only conversation he could hold with his ears so ruined. The black mist he'd been scattered into crept back together, finally coagulating into a huge black mass, hundreds of green eyes dimpling its shifting surface. Willow. I am... here. The eyes narrowed in unison. I cannot... my ears. They do not work. I am... afraid. The mass shuddered, tendrils peeking out of it before curling back into the black. The beast. I could not defeat it. It was... I tried. I tried to be Good. I asked if it was Hurt, but it... did something. Burnt me. As if on cue, the form shuddered again, every green eye wincing shut.

She was focusing so intently on what she was doing - she'd only used the spell a handful of times, and her control over it was shaky - that when she was done and she opened her eyes to see this absolutely huge scaled mouth with huge fangs near her friend, touching him and talking, she startled and ran behind Bog's nose, staring at it. But the big dragon thing had a deep, rumbling voice, telling her that he'd speak with her later, and she nodded hastily, watching them leave.

She looked at Bog, whose eyes were drifting shut, and she heard them thank her, and she gave a hesitant smile. "Welcome," She said simply, putting her forehead against an uncut portion of their nose.

Cayenne wanted to help them, but she just felt so...young. Her small confidence felt like an ademption, a mausoleum, to what it once was just a few days ago. She didn't want to hurt anyone.

As she felt Bog drift off to sleep, she ignored everything. She ignored the bat, the owl, the dragon, the black thing running away, the screaming, everything, and just focused on caring about Bog. She closed her eyes and rested there, her forehead against their skin, and slowly saw the things that were wrong inside them. Slowly, slowly, she tried to fix the damage, sending her very small army she commanded with her magic to spend its forces in certain places - the places the electricity hit the most, the nerves nearest to the damage, and his hearing, especially - It wasn't enough, she knew it wasn't, but when she was done and she stepped away, feeling drained, she knew it was better than it was before.

She sighed. The next step would be to close the open scratches and tears, and she was prepared for that.

@Czernobog @Willow

Through all the rage that burned in his chest, Ghanyarah had not been able to pierce the cat's hide, though he wished to. His sunset eyes fixed on the image of the cat fleeing, but before he'd realized it, he was joined by the others. Ghanyarah stepped back and turned to see the entire group advance upon the jaguar, throwing every element at him. Meanwhile, the black lemur was tending to the pig. Ghanyarah huffed and stepped forward, neglecting the group, advancing beyond the ring of death to where the assailant had vanished. Eventually, he had heard Dragon's command to find the beast. Tal'at was meant to follow it. And they would slay it. He looked back at Dragon, nodding his agreement. They would find it and reap their vengeance for what it had done to Czernobog. The komodo charged into the trees, disappearing into the misty murk.

table and code © chelsea of ORIGIN

exit Yara

The linked faded as quickly as it had formed, and the internal, shadowy mass of horror that was Czernobog blinked out as well, leaving the pig stranded in a muddied wasteland between the void of sleep and the pain that surely awaited if he were to awaken. Still, he tried to grasp for the momentary flicker of the owl's thoughts as they whisked away. Willow..? Concern made him struggle from the bonds of oblivion, surfacing with a slow, lazy blink of an eye, hazily focusing in on Cayenne's blurry form.

She had done... something. Something he'd never truly understand, though the thought didn't bother him much. Whatever she did with her strange abilities, they made the pain lessen, and the boar groaned out a wordless thanks, moving to bump his snout into her chin, huffing. His throat was crusted by now, choking out any sound but the basics, effectively muting him as well as the still-lingering deafness.

Trapped. Helpless. The beast winced internally. Could he have failed any more spectacularly?

@Cayenne

She was still shaking, both from the tiredness in her bones and from the fear that she might once again hurt her friend. She bit her lip, setting down her satchel and taking out her acorn and her herbs that would help to numb the pain of his many cuts and tears. She didn't really trust herself to use her magic on those wounds, not now, not when she was afraid. She could, however, trust her hands.

Once she made them stop shaking.

She ground the red and blue leaves together with her honey and her spit to make it into a smooth paste that she'd made countless times before, to bring down inflammation, prevent infection, and numb. Even if he was asleep or half-asleep, even if her army was restoring him with its objectives she'd set, she still didn't want to leave any feeling to chance. Her needle was sharp, and flesh disliked the feeling of it intensely. She knew this personally.

She applied a very thick and generous application to every cut and tear and rend in his flesh that she could find. Then, once she was satisfied with it, she carefully threaded the needle, tying the ends together, and started to sew the cuts together. She made absolutely sure before starting that he couldn't feel it at all, and once she was sure, she moved with an efficient and confident speed, having practiced on soft supple leather and her own cuts before even daring to use it on anyone else.

She half-heartedly thought of using her magic on him, to assign more to the army working inside him....but shook her head mentally, deciding instead to use all her focus on sewing his skin back together.

@Czernobog

Hands, smearing something over his surface wounds, numbing the pain even further, until the main throb of hurt centered around his throat and chest, both still twitching from the aftereffects of being electrocuted. Czernobog slipped into a half-sleep, groggily blinking awake every few minutes to check on Cayenne, each time seeing her in a new spot, holding something sharp and glinting that did not hurt. Again, he knew not exactly what the lemur was doing, but he trusted it was something Good, so he stayed put.

The massive boar snuffled at her whenever she passed in front of his snout, and drifted between rest and the waking world. The shuddering black mass that made up his mental self slowly rolled from one edge of his mind to the other, searching for the link back to Willow, but it was long gone. Frustration made a slimy tentacle slap against the ground, and dozens of venom-green eyes glared, all twitching to stare in different directions.

Thankfully, no-one could see the pitiful display but the pig himself.

Cayenne tried to suppress her fear, her bitter fear of doing more harm than good with her magic. There were parts of him that she couldn't touch that needed her attention, and that hole...that hole she had ignored the last time was only going to get worse. From the last time she had seen it, had hadn't healed at all, and it scared her so much. She had to use her magic for it, and the idea terrified her.

Her hands were shaking so much when she looking inside him with her army of many eyes, and she saw his torn up throat. It needed her help, for if she didn't heal it, it would form torn and ragged and he might not ever speak again. The possibility was there of him being permanently mute.

But if she failed, he wouldn't have a chance at all. She could rip into his throat and his vocal chords and he would never be able to scream again and she would be a monster like that dark thing that hurt Bog and she would never forgive herself. And as these thoughts wound round and round in her head, she grew paralyzed with fear, and her finger flashed ineffectively, weakly, the gathered magick going nowhere at all as she was too afraid to act.

She swallowed, her whole body trembling.
Just do something! She screamed at herself.
But what if I hurt him? She screamed back.
And she had nothing to say to that.

Her breath was constricted, her arms couldn't keep still, her heartbeat was all over the place, and her breathing was shallow, and as she took a mental tally of all her symptoms, she forced herself to take deep breaths. She was suffering from intense trauma, some mental issue, and if she was someone else, how would she treat it?

She would comfort them, probably give them a soft, warm blanket she could find, and just physically be there for them. So that's what she did - she leaned on Bog, letting herself gather comfort from his presence and his softened breathing and his occasional, half-asleep nudges towards her.

She wanted to help him. She did. And there was no way she could help him without trying. Let her think of her patient, not herself.

And that's what she did. She looked inside him, full of empathy and concern, and pushed away all her selfish thoughts of her own consequences and fears and focused solely on helping her friend. She asked him softly, in one word, to swallow a seed she put up to his mouth, and as it traveled down, she awoke little tendrils that placed the small seed next to the lining of his throat, and send its tendrils all around, weaving the skin back together as best she could.

And when she stood back, just a step, she smiled, tears in her eyes. She did it. She overcame her fear and helped him.

Something warm leaned into his fur, and the drowsy pig's lips twitched up into a smile of relief. At least Cayenne was still alright - he hadn't failed entirely, he supposed. After all, only he'd gotten hurt; and wasn't that his purpose, as a guard? To take the hits for the others? In fact, the thought lightened the heavy rock in his gut, the one that braided guilt and pain together. Ears twitching, a murmur caught his attention, and a single beady eye opened to focus on his friend. None of the words made sense, still overcome by static, but his jaw opened at the touch of a strange object to his lips, swallowing it obediently.

It might have seemed incredible, to an outsider - a towering giant of a monster, marked by its own aggressive nature, completely submitting to a medic no bigger than his head. But Czernobog only knew that Cayenne was Good, a Friend, and that meant she wouldn't hurt him, not on purpose. The object slid down his throat and seemed to bloom, tendrils of something strange knitting his destroyed trachea back together inch by inch, until finally he could swallow without his heart skipping a beat from the pain.

Black-brown, murky eyes opened to focus on the blurry image of Cayenne, a relieved, exhausted grin lifting the boar's face. "Thaaaaaank. Youuuuuu. Frieeeeeeeeeend."

She wiped tears from her eyes with the backs of her hands, grinning and laughing as her friend thanked her slowly, showing her that his throat was okay and that he wouldn't be mute forever because of what some other monster had done to him. He was going to be okay, and that was all that mattered, and she shook with happy relief wishing she could just wrap her arms around all of him to give him a big, encompassing hug.

"Glad you okay," She replied slowly, sniffing.

She took a deep sigh and took out one more seed, a big strong acorn, and placed it just barely in the hole in his chest, so that it could start to take root.

She poured her magic into it, but she wavered, tears clouding her vision, and she wiped them away. The tendrils were too weak to start to pull his skin together, and they just broke, and she had to use a different approach to what she used for his throat. No weak, delicate little weaves for this, no, it had to be strong.

She pulled herself together. She had to do this, for Bog.