Cayenne, for the most part, took a long look at Clover, nodded, and then began to ignore her. The giant was upset, and she would leave her alone to grieve, just as Clover would leave her alone to work.

With her sharp stone, her glittering finger lethal as a knife, she climbed gently all over the now softly asleep giant and started cutting away long strands of hair from all of the major cuts she could see, exposing them so she could see them better. After that was done, she rested herself comfortably over a moderately sized cut. It was still open and it had yet to scab over, even if it had stopped bleeding. She decided this was a well enough place to begin her experiments, leaving the face for last.

She placed her hands over the cut and closed her eyes. She had no idea what would happen.

Cayenne felt that same flare she had felt before, with the seeds taking root in her skin, and her eyes flickered open. She watched as the plants that were rooted in her snaked their way towards the cut, and her mind went blank, stunned. Was she- was she doing this?

In her momentary lapse, the plants played free reign and dug straight into the cut, and the giant bucked and flinched in their sleep as the plants decided that more nutrients were easy at hand with this open wound. The plants, instead of healing, ripped it open and rooted like wildfire into the wound, and Cayenne found herself yelling, screeching, demanding that it stop!

She tore at the growing plants with her own hands as they reached into the wound from her arms, and she wrenched out roots inefficiently, panicking. The giant was still unconscious, which was a very good thing, but as she turned briefly away from the battle to ask for help, she saw that the white one was gone. The realization sat like a heavy stone in her, a bellyache she really didn't need at the moment.

"AaaAAAUGHH," She cried, and reached for that insane determination again, desperate to make it stop.

With shaking hands, covered in blood and plant debris, she saw that the light that flared in the stone in her finger suddenly went out, and the plants ceased. In fact, they all started to wilt on her arms, and she ripped them out of her skin, screaming as she did so, flinging them far away.

This was an utter disaster. Panting, looking at the wound that was much, much worse than it was when she had started, she felt like crying for the first time in her life.

She sat there for a while atop the giant, her head in her hands, sobbing quietly, feeling very very alone. She didn't want to hurt the giant, for surely it was the same as hurting Clover or Amalthea, and she wouldn't want that for anyone, especially not them.

But she had to do something. She didn't even bother wiping away her tears, her hands being filthy, her arms ripped open. She could....she could hurt for the giant.

With a final sniff, she looked around and clambered off the giant, whose breathing was becoming haggard and rough in their sleep, and raced to a nearby clear puddle of water, hurriedly washing off the blood and debris from herself.

Cayenne knew she was filthy from her travels in her jungle home, and was most likely covered in dust and small seeds. She could call them all to sprout and use as many of them as she possibly could.

It was better than the only other alternative she had.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, calming herself. She could...feel, see, understand - it was a weird feeling - all the seeds on her fur and nestled against her skin, even if she couldn't know what precisely they might become. Cayenne ground her teeth together and asked that they start to grow, and they all complied.

Together, they all began roots that reached and punctured her skin, and she bit down on her screams, clawing at the ground and hitting it instead - when had she fallen to her knees? - and tears formed unbidden as she sobbed. She felt so tired all of a sudden, and she knew they were leeching away her strength from her bloodstream to grow.

And grow they did. She felt like she was covered in a small forest, as they almost obstructed her view. No, she was a small forest. They grew much better than they had before, growing to adolescense and budding flowers, some of which she needed. She gave a weak laugh. Needed. All she needed to do was sleep, right now.

But as one grew, she panicked, because she recognized its pretty pink and blue blooms, and knew it was highly poisonous to consume. How did that even get on her? She didn't even - no that didn't matter right now. She grabbed it by its roots which situated itself in her knee and yanked it out without hesitation, biting her tongue, tasting blood.

She glanced back at the giant, feeling bone weary, and slowly walked back to them, reaching for her acorn and pebble in her satchel which was nearly covered by plant life. Maybe she could chew on some pain numbing leaves herself.

Hours later, however many she didn't know, she was mostly done with her work. Cayenne lost track in scouring the giant's body for wounds to treat, and it became methodical. Clear away the hair, clean the wound, create the numbing salve mixed with the anti-inflammatory leaves, cover the wound with it, then put some leaves on top of the sticky solution so that nothing would get into it. Move to another area. Rinse, repeat. At one point she had to go and search for a clean water source (other than the one she had sullied) to drink, because her mouth was so parched from spitting into the salve. She pondered whether her spit had anything magical in it, but whether she thought that would help any was ambiguous and kind of silly. Why would her spit be magical?

She was incredibly tired by this point. She ate some of the berries that had sprouted on her arms, but what she really wanted was some of that root that made her crazily energetic. But it's not as if she could run back and forth between this room and Eridanus over and over for everything she needed. So she gave a long sigh and continued.

At one point in her work, Clover had come back. Whether that was to check up on Vazi or just that she needed somewhere to go, Cayenne didn't know, because she looked stunned, as if in a trance. She helped her in turning the giant over so she could reach the other side of the body, but she never said a word, and only retreated to a crumbling shack of a building and slept.

If Cayenne thought she heard crying, she didn't say anything.

But now, now, the final task lay ahead. The face. It had been sitting peacefully in her solution for the entire time, and she knew there were two major areas she needed to focus on. The scar on the lip that showed the teeth, which was...awful, and the torn ear. She felt like if she only had some sort of needle and thread she could fix this without relying to heavily on that spell, but she didn't.

She swallowed hard, and it her bottom lip. Should she try it again? Hope against hope that it would work this time? Or, at most, if it failed, that it would just not work?

She reached for that weird feeling that would bring the plants to life, staring at her finger, but something in her just didn't feel brave enough. She was simply afraid of it butchering her patient, so it stayed dormant and quiet.

Cayenne frowned. This wasn't working, she needed to keep trying.

"Come on, come on," She muttered, staring at her hands, practically glaring at them. "If I can create life out of a seed and my skin, I can make them move as I want, can't I?"

She looked at the gaping wound on her knee, wincing at it. Perhaps....she could practice on herself? She swallowed. At least this way she wouldn't hurt the giant again. Why not? What could she lose? She could always treat herself later. Right? Right.

She took a deep breath, calmed herself down, and focused on one particular plant on her arm, one that stopped bleeding well, with its tiny little branching tips. She felt it, felt the roots in her skin, felt the life within, and asked it to help her, to be guided by her. It listened to her and softly reached for her knee, as if gently patting her, before its little tendrils grew much smaller and edged themselves into the ragged edges of her skin. She bit her tongue at this, the feeling of invasive pain, but losing her focus made the plant unruly, so she did her best to fight through it. She coaxed it to evenly sew the skin closed with neat, tiny stitches, breaking off the branches after it was done.

After that, she sat down on the giant, completely exhausted. "Clover," She called weakly, feeling the pull of sleep. She was hurt and tired and she had worked really hard. "Clover, I did it."

"

Clover came over, the sound of her hooves ringing on the hard floor of the star room. Her head hung low, and her eye, her usually bright and vivid eye, was dull. She came over to the both of them and silently looked them over, and looked closely at Cayenne's knee.

"You did it, Cayenne," She said, her voice a thin whisper, threatening to fly away with the slightest breeze. "You're very strong. I'm proud of you."

Cayenne was starting to fall asleep, so she went back into the crumbling home and picked up a fraying piece of fabric she had noticed before and draped it over the little one. "Go to sleep. You did amazingly today."

Cayenne smiled brightly up at her, and was sound asleep in seconds, curled up comfortably on top of Vazi's unconscious form. Clover took int he sight silently and laid herself down next to the two, watching over them, thinking, her heart shriveled in her chest.

"This is how I speak."

Blearily, she woke up some time later, and she sat up, the little blanket slipping from her shoulder. She looked around still half-asleep and her eyes half-closed, wondering why the furry thing underneath her was so warm. Then everything came back to her- the plants, the ripping, the failure, the weaving. She swallowed bile in her mouth, her face twisted.

She was surprised the giant was still asleep through all of this. Looking at all of the leaves all over their body, and shook her head. Fighting was stupid, if it caused this much pain, no matter the cause. Better to be peaceful and help others. And hurt yourself, rather than others, she thought bitterly. Pain was a part of life, but one could choose why they got hurt.

With a quick glance around, she saw that Clover was nowhere to be seen. This wasn't surprising.

Then she looked back to the giant's face, still untouched and ugly, the fresh burned skin truly a sight to see. The fur was gone of course, and the flesh underneath was angry and red and warped by the intense heat. It was bad. She took in a deep breath and raised her hand with her sharp yellow finger over the nearest burn wound.

The plant nearest to the wound, the one on her outstretched arm, shuddered and a tendril slowly moved its way towards the wound, as if reaching for the sun, a child's exploration. The movement stole her breath away, and she watched with fascination - but the sound of rocks turning nearby snagged her attention, and she looked, wondering if someone was coming.

The plant took this loss of focus to do whatever it wanted, and it wanted more nutrients - it wrenched apart the burn and rooted itself into the skin and she snapped her head back, screaming, ripping the plant apart with her hands, hearing the disgusting slick sound of the growing roots pulling out from underneath the skin, and she ripped it again from her own skin and threw it away, watching with a sickness in her belly as it writhed on the ground, dying slowly from the lack of nutrients and magic that animated it.

Cayenne panted, and grabbed fistfuls of the giant's fur and screamed into it, tears falling from her eyes from the pain and the stupidity of allowing herself to lose focus - it was just a stupid rock that fell from a building, nothing more, and she was stupid enough to think it important enough to forget about the traitorous spell she was casting.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" She yelled, staring at nothing, tears falling. "You're an idiot, worthless, you can't do anything right! Losing focus for a rock!

"

Clover leaned against a building, tears in her eyes, clenching the long grasses she had in her mouth to stop herself from making sound. Her body wracked with silent sobs.

She had just come back from getting food for her and Cayenne, leaving a while ago when both her and Vazi were asleep. She was sure that after all the powerful workings of magic, the little one would be hungry, and she had just turned a corner and stumbled, kicking a rock across the way, when she saw Cayenne working her magic on top of Vazi and suddenly swearing, ripping plants up and making sounds of tearing flesh, and Clover quickly backed out of sight, fear and anguish bubbling in her. She leaned against the wall, hearing Cayenne sob and scream, thinking it was her fault.

She dropped the plants from her mouth, sagging against the wall and falling to her knees, shaking, tears falling. Why? Why? Why should all of them suffer for this? Vazi, Cayenne, her, Leon - why did they need to fight and cause all of this pain?

After a long time, silently, she got up and left, stepping on the grass as she went. She was of no help to Cayenne or Vazi or Leon or anyone at all. Cayenne's angry screams should've been directed at her.

[exit Clover]

"This is how I speak."