She had followed the soft sound of sobbing through a short patch of the territory, the sound unfamiliar but childish and assumed to be one of the puppies she knew had been found, but had yet to meet. As Anneliese pursued the upset little being, she was forced to face the fact that she had indeed been avoiding her pack nearly the entire time she'd called them brethren. She had sworn to Spieden that she could handle the threat Garmr and his gang presented, but she had foolishly expected the war to be like one which would have been waged by her natal kingdom. Anna certainly hadn't expected these new comrades to be so utterly controlled by their emotions. If the loss of one hadn't been enough, a storm had taken another, the fallen queen was nowhere to be found, and her orphaned children were pitifully numbered and left to depend on the inept Spieden to care for them. It was exactly the sort of mess Anneliese had been thoroughly trained to avoid.



Still, she could not ignore a crying child. Finally, Anna chased the small thing down to its burrow, the smell of birth and the poor thing's true mother long faded. Lowering herself to peer in, she wondered if perhaps the small creature was perpetually sad for no good reason, consumed whole by the flood of emotions her pack emanated. Made so thoroughly uncomfortable by the thought was she, Anneliese hoped dearly that this mournful racket had a more grounded reason behind it.



"What is the matter, princess?"

The girl, Sahalie she remembered as the name being spoken a time or two in her proximity, immediately stilled upon hearing her voice, the wailing subsiding into small sniffles. Nothing else happened, and Anna craned her neck in further, wondering what it was that was keeping the child from answering before she suddenly did. Given the seemingly random nature of the declaration, Anna assumed one of two scenarios must be true. The girl either was hurt and trying to hide it, or had recently been taught by some experience or another that being hurt earned you punishment and wanted to clear up the possible misconception before Anna could scold her.



"Then why don't you come out? I'd love to see you, Sahalie," she answered kindly before back away from the den, attempting to lure the whelp out into the sun so that she could better appraise the situation.



Anna reclined, musing over what else she had caught in the air; the little one asking what a princess was. She began to wonder if maybe this pack was backwards in hierarchy as well, though Darrah had seemed pleased with her reference to his title as prince. And it was their title, wasn't it? It's how it would have been back home, and thanks to her upbringing she couldn't quite envision what other sort of system would keep a pack going strong. Yet how could no one here show them enough respect to address them as such? Despite their absent mother, their distant father was still king regardless.



"Well, your father Triell is our king. Ah, another word for alpha or leader. As you're his daughter, that would make you a princess. A possible successor to the throne." Would she understand any of that? Anna had no idea, nor was she used to conversing with youth by any means.

Ah, there she was. Anneliese's gaze fell as a soft and warm beam upon the princess' dirty face, and had to fight the urge to reach forward and clean her off. Unknowing of the little girl's personality and exposures, she needed to be careful not to smother and scare her back into her hideaway with unwanted attention. Satisfied with just seeing her shadow-framed face for now, Anna chose to recline, watching as the little one mulled over her words. Clearly, they were giving her a bit to think on, and when the quick firing of questions hit the air, her grin turned sheepish. The woman was found to be too wordy by adults even when pursuing casual conversation. She wasn't entirely sure how to alter her words in order to make it easier for the child to understand, but as long as Sahalie was curious and willing to ask, Anna would do her best to answer her.



Before she could, however, the king's daughter thrust forward her paw and asked the woman to fix it.



"So you are hurt then?" she questioned, but not without a smile; it wasn't a scolding, but she did want to know why the girl found it necessary to lie about being injured. Now having been invited to do something, Anneliese felt comfortable to stretch her neck forward and gently clean the dirt from the miniature paw with her tongue. Only once clean was she able to inspect it, sliding her own paw beneath it and lifting it up ever so carefully. There was a swollen lump visible through the sparse black fur, and she could only suspect that the girl was bitten or stung by an insect of sorts.



"What got you, Sahalie? Was it a bug?" Did she even know? "I know just the thing to ease the pain, but I'll have to leave you here for just a few moments in order to fetch it, and then I can answer all your questions too. Is that all right?"

It was clear that she was hesitant about letting Anneliese go, and the woman found she couldn't blame the child for this. Having an absent mother and a distant father, siblings who had already lost themselves and pack mates drowning in grief who'd rather secluded themselves than carry on all factored into shaping this young girl's mind and the paladin found it an absolute shame that she had to grow up in such an environment. It was at this moment that Anneliese determined she would spend the rest of her day with the pup, so long as she'd have her company, and hopefully add a little sunshine to the child's life. As with Darrah, perhaps it wasn't too late to help.




"I promise I'll be back soon," she swore, touching her nose to Sahalie's crown briefly before taking off.



It had been a quick trip to the woman, though it might have seen far longer to the younger mind. She had been able to retrieve a small stash of green ginger leaves from her personal den, and carried them upon her tongue along with a scoopful of mud gathered from the banks of the river that quenched the pack's thirst. It was a horrible taste, but as a practiced medicine she was able to ignore the bitterness within her mouth and soon was back within Sahalie's presence.



She deposited her gains upon the forest floor in front of the little girl, licking her foreleg once to clear the rest of the mud from out off her tongue before going about her work. She seated herself, and smiled at the child.



"Sounds like you upset a bee," she informed her, recalling the excited information that the Tainn heir had given her earlier. "They get their food from flowers, and easily get angry when bigger animals come close. It's best to avoid them."



As she spoke, she was separating the leaves from the mud with her paw, and once it was all reorganized she once more took the green ginger within her mouth. She chewed upon them until they were but a poultice, before depositing the green pulpy mass upon the scoop of mud. As she mixed the two together, she began to explain exactly what she was doing to Sahalie. It still escaped just how little the child might actually comprehend, and all the same she thought it important still to expose the princess.



"This is a plant most commonly called wormwood, though why it has such a funny name I wouldn't know. It's medicine, which means it will help you to be healthy and pain free again, if used right. The mud will help cool the bite, and hopefully draw out the bee's stinger, which is what it hurt you with. Can I please see your paw?" she asked when the mixture was completely incorporated.