With a broken wing... [Open!]

[Rhindeer]

Sitting at the edge of the shore, a spear laying in the sand beside her, Aolani grit her teeth and parted the feathers of her wing to check the damage.

It was as bad she had expected: broken. But it was also worse than she expected, for it was a bad break, bad enough that she could see the bone jutting up against the skin--though it hadn't pierced through the flesh, at least. Her stomach recoiled at the sight and she drew her breath in with a sharp hiss through her teeth. It felt bad enough, but seeing it added an extra layer of awfulness to it all.

Spirits, it was bad. There would be no flying for her for a long time--if at all. She needed to get it healed, and healed quickly, and she knew just the person that could do it. Her brother, Tama, was a skilled healer. Something like this would be nothing for him!

There was only one problem.

One very big problem.

Aolani had glided off the main island to a smaller island a short distance away. It was well within flying distance, and well within view of the main island--but to get back would mean either flying, swimming, or boating.

And none of those were options.

She had no boat, she couldn't fly, and she certainly couldn't swim with this damaged wing. Spirits, leave it to her to injure herself in the most idiotic fashion! By slipping at the edge of a tide pool and landing badly on her wing!

Sooo stupid! Really! Couldn't she have gotten injured hunting some dangerous beast?!

Nope. Not Aolani, the bold hunter, the feared blood mage. No, Aolani had to go slip in a tide pool!

With a groan, she buried her face in her hands. Spirits, what now? The sun was starting to set, her stomach was growling in hunger, and her wing hurt something fierce.

It was exactly how she wanted to spend her night.

[pookakin]

That storm had really thrown her off course. Prism was... very far from where she wanted to be.

The setting sun highlighted a distant chain of islands. Prism beat her wings listlessly. Maybe she could rest on them. They looked innocuous enough, and she hadn't seen a beach in a few seasons. And there might even be some interesting animals to chase.

Well, it wasn't geometry, but it would do. Sighing, she tilted her wings and descended, reaching the islands in a matter of minutes. Her chest began to burn uncomfortably as she drew close enough to make out details.

Wait, what was that?

She peered balefully at the form on the sand. It appeared to be some winged creature... a human? But also a winged creature...

How odd. But, it looked pretty cool!

Over her initial befuddlement, Prism began to circle. It did look really cool. If only all humans had wings! That might make up for how bad they smelled.

Her wings appeared to be damaged, and her weird flat head rested in her paws. Wasn't that how some humans acted when they were sad?

Worried, Prism dove, whipping sand everywhere as she beat her wings to land. It wasn't ever day she saw a weird winged human on a beach. She had to say hi.

Doing her best impression of a grin, she skipped up to the human, then paused, frowning. Her wing looked funny. Why hadn't she noticed that before? She'd been too caught up in how they were present in the first place. Maybe that was why this human was doing the weird face-in-paws thing.

"What's wrong with your wing?" She squawked.

[Rhindeer]

Aolani didn't see the dragon approaching.

Because with her face buried in her hands, she'd been far too absorbed in her own self-pity.

She did, however, feel the sudden rush of wind, and the spray of sand that hit her skin afterward. Surprised, she lifted her head to look--

Just in time to see that monster charging up to her with its sharp teeth bared!

"WAH!"

With a terrified scream, Aolani snatched up her spear and leaped to her feet, brandishing her weapon at the beast--and crying out again when her sudden, jerky movement tweaked her broken wing and sent pain raging through the limb and clear into her shoulder. She dropped the spear and stumbled, then gasped and grabbed it back up again, clutching it tightly despite the pain.

But the beast was so big, she knew there was no way she'd be able to take it on. Not like this.

"Stay back!" she shouted in Yoreiqi.

[pookakin]

Prism squalled, reeling back as the winged human flailed around. What was with these creatures? They always screamed and make weird faces. Maybe her smile hadn't been good enough?

She scrambled several steps back, tail lashing. The human was pointing some thing at her- a spear, if she remembered human terminology correctly. It didn't look nearly as dangerous as most other weapons she'd seen.

She shouted something in some language Prism didn't understand. The noise startled her, causing her to flutter even farther away.

She hadn't really thought this through, as usual. Of course some human on a weird island that she hadn't even known existed wouldn't speak any language she knew of!

She wanted to go pout - (how was she supposed to find her way back to the mainland now?) - but she didn't want to leave the human alone. The silly things broke like twigs all the time, and this one probably wasn't any different.

Trying to look as small and innocuous as possible, she crouched and slowly began to slink towards the treeline. If anything, she could make sure the human didn't run off and get herself hurt even more badly. Others would show up eventually (didn't they tend to live in really big, noisy groups?) and that would be that.

Then she'd have to try and figure out what direction to fly to get back to land, but that was a different issue.

[Rhindeer]

Aaand...much to Aolani's surprise, the beast actually...

Slunk away?

And seemed even...startled? Scared?

What?

Aolani stared after the creature as it crouched and headed away from her, looking oddly small and dejected. Slowly, she lowered her spear, but she didn't lower her guard, because one could never be too sure! There were all manner of large beast out in these parts, and Aolani hadn't met many that hadn't regarded her as a meal.

But this creature? Surely it knew that her little spear was nothing compared to it. It could have taken her on, easily!

If it had wanted to.

Puzzled, Aolani let out a slow breath, and let her tension flow out with it. Something strange was  going on here, and while she wasn't quite ready to decide she was off the menu, now that she was no longer terrified she was starting to become intrigued.

"Ah...giant winged beast? Can you..." Spirits, she was about to sound so stupid. Sure, her people had many legends about talking animals, but they were just stories! "Can you understand me?"

[pookakin]

Prism eyed the human doubtfully.

She didn't seem like she was going to start waving the spear around anymore, but Prism didn't want to take any chances. The last thing she wanted was for a desperate human to poke a hole in her.

The human started to speak more. Curious, she paused her treeward-crawl and lifted her head to watch closer.

Of course, it was still next to gibberish to her. She couldn't have been blown by winds into some human city? This language was nothing like the simple, widely-used human languages she'd learned. When they couldn't talk to each other, it would be pretty hard to establish that she didn't want to eat anyone.

"Sorry, I have no idea what you're saying," she grumbled, resting her head on her front paws.

[Rhindeer]

...Whoa.

The dragon spoke!

And she spoke Common!

While Common was a fairly new language to the islands, her brother Tama, who traveled often to Ainu, had taught her what he knew, and while she was still a little rusty, she knew enough to get by. And she knew enough to understand this creature's words! Eyes widening, Aolani took a cautious step forward and switched from Yoreiqi to Common.

"You can talk?"

[Erzon]

Kahl was laying on the beach when he suddenly saw that frightening creature fly throughout the sky and, after painting slowly some circles in the air, landing on the island right in front of him.
It wasn’t a Yoreiqi, it was too big, it just seemed some sort of beast, even if he hadn’t seen anything similar before.
But the thing that really frightened him wasn’t that strange beast that was flying there, but the other creature that was lying down on the beach. It was a Yoreiqi, there wasn’t any doubt, and even if it seemed to be one of them with wings, he wouldn’t be able to flee from that beast.

Quickly, without thinking about it for any second, he rose up and ran into the sea, starting swimming with all his energies to reach in time that poor creature and try to save her. Luckily, it wasn’t so far, with his abilities, he would be able to reach the beach in about ten minutes, but that was too much, the beast could make a lunch of her in less than a minute, he had to run.
Kahl never stopped for an instant, he swam to his limit without caring how painful it was for his chest and his arms.

Finally, when he was closer to the beach, he stopped to take a breath and started watching what was going on between the beast and the Yoreiqi. Now that he was closer, he could see that the situation was worse than he thought, since it was clear that the girl’s wing was badly broken and that she wouldn’t be able to fly away.
However, while getting closer trying not to be noticed from the beast, Kahl was very surprised about it and its behavior.

He hadn’t seen anything like that, but he had heard stories about creatures similar to that, they were called dragons and, from what he knows, they were all but kind and gentle. However, that dragon was different from those he had heard about, he didn’t seemed so ferocious, on the contrary, it was almost like it was it the one who was frightened.
He didn’t had any idea of what he could have done against a beast like that, he had only his knife with him, but deep in his heart he felt he won’t need to fight against him, those maroon eyes were inspiring confidence to him.

Suddenly, while he was getting closer to the girl with the broken wings, the dragon started saying something incomprehensible to him, leaving him speechless for a moment. How in the world was it possible that beast could talk?
But then, when he saw the girl crawling toward the dragon talking in the very same language he finally managed to recognize as Common, he remained so shocked that, without caring about anything else, he simply said in his Yoreiqi language, the only one he knew:
“Hey, what’s going on here?”.

[Rhindeer]

Aolani just about jumped out of her skin when another voice cut through the air--and then surprise turned to relief when she realized the words were Yoreiqi.

Whirling around--and quickly regretting it, because the sharp motion jostled her wings and made her gasp in pain--Aolani's eyes widened when she caught sight of Kahl. She didn't know him well (who was she fooling; she didn't know many people well, as she kept her distance), but she'd seen him around before, and right then, the sight of another human was everything she could have ever hoped for.

"Thank the spirits," she breathed, switching back to her native tongue. "I'm, ah, I'm not fully sure what's happening myself! It's not what it looks like, though! It's not dangerous." She motioned at the dragon as she spoke, and added after a small pause.

"...I don't think?"

[pookakin]

(Sorry that I took so long to get to this. I feel a little shy about posting in such a large community.)

The human seemed really surprised. Wait, did she understand her?

"You can talk?"

Ugh! How rude!

"Of course I can!" She said indignantly, slapping her tail on the ground in frustration. What did she think she'd been trying to do before? She certainly hadn't been trying to imitate birdsong.

Her irritation faded as another human appeared. She arched her neck curiously to get a look at him. Her species of dragon, like birds, had few eye muscles for motion, so she had to turn her head to shift her gaze.

This one seemed to be uninjured. (Thank goodness- one injured human was more than enough!) But was he hostile? She squinted. The winged human and he were speaking in that odd tongue.

The winged human motioned towards her. Were they talking about her? Unsettled, she shifted her wings.

Well, since they could talk to each other, she mind as well get to the point. The winged human was obviously safe, now that she had another with her. From Prism's experience, they tended to take care of each other.

"Hey, um, sorry to interrupt, but... what's this place called? I got blown off course." Surely they'd be able to produce a map of some kind? She hadn't learned to read human maps for nothing.

[Erzon]

Seeing Aolani's reaction, Kahl understood how stupid he was screaming like that.
He looked at her with crying eyes, his wing was really badly broken, he hadn't seen anything like that ever before, neither during the period he spent training with his village's healer.
He had to do something for her, he couldn't let her in that state, but he couldn't stop looking at the dragon in front of him.

When Aolani tried to crawl toward him, however, she suddenly stopped with a grimace of pain in his face, quitting immediately from doing any other movement. Seeing such a pain in her eyes, Kahl forgot all his fears and run toward her without any other thought than try to help her.
Praying the spirits to give him the strength he needed, he started focusing on that broken wing trying to focus his magical power in his arms.
"Don't move, please." He started thinking back on those days when he trained as a healer, trying to remember everything he should have learned. However, even if he could feel the power flowing in his veins, he couldn't do anything for that poor girl, the spirits weren't giving him their power.

Demoralized for being so useless, he understood he couldn't do anything for the poor Aolani, it was too dangerous to carry her on his shoulders throughout the sea. However, when Kahl saw the dragon talking again in that language he couldn't understand, he finally realized that, maybe, there were still something he could do for Aolani, even if he would have needed some help.

So, praying the spirits it was really as calm as Aolani said and trying to look at the dragon with his most reassuring gaze, he raised his eyes towards the dragon in front of them and he finally said in a low voice:
"Please, you have to bring us to my village, she needs to be healed!"

[Rhindeer]

[Aww, no worries! <333 And no need to feel shy!]

It still felt really weird and awkward, talking to a beast like this. Aolani certainly couldn't say she'd done it before! With another confused look Kahl's way, as though to communicate with her eyes that she knew what was going on no better than he did, she looked toward the dragon again and switched to her crude Common.

"You are on Yoreiq," she said, and, looking back at Kahl, decided to translate his words for him. "My friend ask, can you taking me home?" She winced, hating the sound of her clunky words, knowing she was nowhere near as eloquent as Tama, who could speak both languages beautifully. He'd always had a knack for things like that.

"It is not far. Ah...sorry for offense." Because clearly, she had offended the dragon by assuming she couldn't talk, and the last thing she wanted to do was offend something that could bite her head off!

Looking back to Kahl, she switched back to their native tongue. "I asked if she could help," she said, rubbing her arm a little nervously. Pain had made her forget her usual wariness of other people, but it was starting to creep back up, like spiders up her spine. "But, ah, if worst comes to worst, it'd be really helpful if you found my brother, Tama. He can heal. He should be back at the village!"

Though it would be a bit of a trip back and forth, and in the dark, no less.

And meanwhile, the tide was coming in.

[Erzon]

The dragon keep staying there, watching them without doing anything, it seemed to Kahl that it wasn't going to help them, he needed to do something on his own.

"... it'd be really helpful if you found my brother, Tama. He can heal. He should be back at the village!". When Kahl heard Aolani's words, he turned his eyes to the sea, scared.

The tide was coming and the waves were getting stronger and darker every minute, abandoned by the last rays of sunshine of the day. He couldn't obviously bring Aolani back with him at the village, her hurt could get worse and the stream was too strong for Kahl to swim with another one on his shoulders.

There were only two things he could do for her, swimming back to the village seeking for his brother or spend the night with her on that little island, providing her a shelter and maybe even a dinner.
But what was best for her, he couldn't say at all.

Looking at her wing, however, and noticing her moving so slowly, he understood he couldn't leave her alone there, he didn't know what kind of beasts lived in that little island, but even a small predator could be dangerous for Aolani.

"I can't leave you here alone, we must find for you a shelter for the night, so that you can rest while I'll go and find something to eat." With that said, he extended his arm trying to raise her gently, cursing again for how useless he was.

[Rhindeer]

Aolani grabbed onto Kahl's arm and hoisted herself up to her feet, slowly. The rest of her body was fine, but moving too suddenly jostled her wing, and that hurt horrifically. With a grimace, she steadied herself, and took a deep breath in and out through gritted teeth.

Then she let go of him, and took several steps back to put distance between them. In her pain, she was forgetting her wariness--and that was dangerous for the both of them.

She didn't want to hurt him.

"Well, then, we'd better move inland. The tide's coming in," she said, stating the obvious more to have something to say than anything else. She wasn't too good at striking up conversation. Touching her wing lightly, she winced.

"Do you know how to set bones?"

[Erzon]

Kahl helped Aolani to stand on her feet, but it seemed to him she didn't want his help, since she quickly move backward as if she were frightened of him.

'Of course she fears me, how stupid, I didn't even introduce myself!'. But when he was going to introduce himself, Aolani froze him with that question: "Do you know how to set bones?".

"I..." started to mumble Kahl, looking frightened to Aolani's broken wing. He remembered his master's teaching about how to set bones properly, of course, he had also trained helping some hurt animals, but he never dealt with nothing similar to a wing, neither on a human being.
On the other hand, he couldn't let her suffer such a similar pain, she was sweating copiously and her amber eyes were full of sufferance, he had to help her and stop hesitating so much.

"Of course, sorry, give me just a minute." Crouching near Aolani, he slowly raised his hands and, praying the spirits with all his hearts, he slowly tried to remember carefully all the things he had to do. He was so focused in the task that he was barely aware of his hands' movements, but luckily for both of them, he succeeded in his task.
While he was wrapping up Aolani's wing with his own cloth belt, he finally felt relaxed and started again to act as usual.
"It's not too bad, a good healer would fix it up without any problem. Oh, yes, sorry, I didn't even introduce myself, I'm Kahevuel, but you can call me Kahl. You're Aolani, right?".