Nightingale Palisade four days to hitchhike

Sahalie, you've caught a nasty cold! for @Gent on 12/31

"Ahcoooo!" 

The sneeze had such a force that it sent her whole body rocketing backwards, slipping in the snow a little as she tried to get her footing. All the stress of leaving and the sleepless nights of wondering what to do, the lack of food and the overwhelming cold had finally pushed her small body to its limits. Sahalie had never really gotten sick before, normally she got her recommended dosage of sleep and didn't eat things from the cache that had too many flies on them or looked a little green. But now her nose was dripping unrelentingly, and even if snot or juices or she didn't even know what was flowing freely from her, she could not seem to get air to get in or out when her mouth was closed. It was awful. Constantly, she stopped to rub the slime on her leg—she had tried wiping it on the snow but then her nose just felt cold and even wetter. Breathing through her mouth made her cough, but she had little choice. She and Alastor were supposed to be headed for the lonely stone mountain they had left Spieden at, but she was just so tired and her joints ached. Not wanting to get Al all covered in her germs, the girl decided to keep to herself a little and had wandered off for the day, hopefully to find another cave in the rugged slopes of the riverbanks that she could sleep in. But if she kept on sneezing she was just going to fall right off the edge of her narrow pathway.

"Guuuuuh," the girl groaned, wondering why feeling so shitty physically needed to coincide with such a trying time in her life. And even though it was freezing and raw outside it felt like steam was radiating from her body. Without thinking, the girl arched her neck down to dunk the top of her head in the snow. It was a small relief, letting the cold seep into her body. "Mmmm," she groaned again, resolving just to stay here with her head in the snow rather than move on.

There was much that Gent would find on this trip he was setting out for that he had no reason to expect.

The first of which, came in the unsuspecting shape of a rather... plump little girl who was making a racket with her illness. Something about her smelled vaguely familiar, but he didn't worry about it too much. Sometimes things like that just happened. Deja Vu, or whatever you wanted to call it. Even Gent knew that not every little coincidence meant something. Usually.

Always the helpful wolf (when it was convenient, of course), he altered his intended path slightly to meet up with the noisy girl. The closer he got, and the more he saw of her, primarily the dried snot clumping the thin fur along her foreleg, he could guess at what was ailing her, and it was pretty benign. Enough so that he didn't feel the need to steer clear so as not to bring in back home to his children.

"You're gonna get a cougar's attention carrying on like that," he spoke up once he was close enough that his words would reach her without shouting.

"You taken anything for that cold?"

There wasn't really anything he could without backtracking to the Notch and dipping into Sylva's stores, but he supposed if he really needed to it might be worthwhile.

"Eh?" she barked, lifting her head from the snow to see a dark man down the path ahead of her. Sahalie did not come from a part of Relic Lore that had these cougars, and she honestly had never heard the word in her life. It sounded like something bad. But in the end, she shrugged, and through her muffled nose, "Caught your abtenshon insteab, so I'll be okay." Her head tipped as she cracked a smile, possibly her first genuine grin in the last few weeks. He was a big guy—as most guys were, to small little Sahalie—and his body was toned and he seemed like he might be well practiced in the art of throwing cougars off cliffs, whatever they happened to be.

"Achoo!" Another sneeze that threatened to throw her back out.

Her ears swiveled backwards. "Ah uhm..." Sahalie had not even realized it was a cold, and she was beginning to feel a little silly. But Quentin had never taught her any remedies to deal with colds. All she knew—all she could remember for sure right now was that sweet grass was good for wolves in labor, and that would not be helpful right now. Colds were not a summer illness, and Quentin had been a summer wolf. "Well, no." She laughed half-heartedly, "Ahm uh prebby boor excuse for uh healers abbrentice, if youb-believe it. Ahdunno anything abou colbs." It frustrated her to sound that her voice sounded so silly, as if there were balls of something fuzzy jammed up her nostrils.

"What's a coobur"

There is a rabbit's nest nearby. +1 Health

Man, her congestion was bad. Gent's ears cupped forward to better catch each word. Her joke earned a smirk from him, but he got the impression that she wasn't just being flippant: she really didn't realize what a reckless situation she was in. An ill side effect of her youth, he was sure. This would be confirmed when eventually the girl would ask him what a cougar was. Regardless, she was a friendly little talker. It wasn't often he ran into a wolf with such a casually loose tongue. When she said she was an apprentice to a healer, he wondered briefly if she would make fast friends of @Sylva.

"Cougars live in the mountains. Big predators, all muscle. Just as hungry as wolves this time of the year."

And more vicious, truth be told, but this wasn't a ghost story and he wouldn't carry on. Instead, he was more interested to know why she hadn't been given anything for her illness. Sure there was something off about her scent, but it still carried clear evidence of being with other wolves, and she had just said she was tutoring under a healer. So why hadn't they treated her?

"Your pack didn't do anything for it?"

Maybe they considered treatment coddling. Maybe that was why she was out here, to get over it on her own without infecting the rest of the pack. Or maybe they hadn't been properly prepared and their stores were gone. Whatever it was, there was an opportunity present for the Notch alpha to garner some good will.

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when the man said "big predators" and "all muscle"—he was all muscle—and briefly she looked around, almost expecting one to pop out at any moment. Serach's description of beavers had been enough to freak her out, she remembered with painful nostalgia, but she tried not to let her imagination run away with her. Sahalie knew for sure that she did not like the sound of these mountain predators. She would give anything to be back home, dealing with the lynx that @Larkspur claimed was stalking him. Sure, Sahalie was about as tall as the silver-furred cats, but she figured she had enough heft packed into her small form that she could take one on. But if a cougar was big, if this guy thought they were big then Sahalie was probably no match. "Oh... Ahm nob frob here" she said, blinking rapidly and giving one violent sniffle to try and bring back the nose juice trying to slide out of her snout.

"Uhmb well, ahm kinna betweeb backs right bow," she said with an awkward shrug and another smile, "Der wuz kinna a fallin out ah guesh." Which explained, in a round-about way why her pack hadn't done anything about it, but it still remained the fact, "We dibent really hab a healer though. We hab one for a libble bit but den he lef." Quentin had been there only for a few months. Unbeknownst to Sahalie, the woman had been a healer, but Sahalie would have rolled in deer poop before she asked her for medicinal advice. Aponi seemed knowledgeable, but by the time Sahalie had realized this she'd all but given up attempting to heal Larkspur.

"I know aboout sweeb grass?" she grinned sheepishly, tilting her head because really, what else was there she could do about it.

Alright, that made a lot more sense. As he deciphered her snot-ridden words, the pieces fell better into place though he still had to wonder what exactly this falling out had entailed. After all, she didn't scream insubordinate or malicious. Maybe it was her naivety that had gotten her in trouble? Or, of course, maybe two minutes of knowing the girl wasn't giving him an accurate picture at all. Anything could be lurking behind those sunshine eyes.

Still, the more she talked the more relaxed he became, and the more inclined he was to offer her kindness.

"That's a start," he mused with a smile. "My pack isn't too far from here. I could take a jog and get you something to help, if you'd like."

And if she wanted to stay and help hunt, well that wouldn't be so horrible. The prey was thinning at an alarming rate, and they would need more bodies so that hunters could travel farther without the territory being left empty. Of course, he wouldn't pressure the girl, much less hinge his offer of help on such an exchange. Those acting on force could never be trusted as much as those who willingly offered their utility.

"I'm Gent, by the way. What's your name?"

His smile was so encouraging she found her own deeping, though really she knew her medicinal knowledge was paltry and laughable at best. The girl was not sure if was something she should continue to pursue or if it would just get in the way, especially now that she had to focus on just plain surviving out here. Besides, the girl was usually more interested in healing others in a less physical way. This was something that healers, or Quentin at least, did not really dwell on. More and more lately the girl figured her efforts were better spent learning about leadership, learning how to take care of her pack mates and how to prevent disasters like the one that had set fire to her home forest. She did not want to be a part of a place that was constantly unbalanced by the shift of leadership. Sahalie wanted something stable.

The girl gave a little startle when she realized that, apparently, she was very close to a pack. But hell, how was she supposed to smell anything at all the way she was sniffling? The girl was trying her best not to wipe more snot on her leg in front of him, but god it was just as bad to be sniffling and snorting like a wild pig. And the guy seemed so nice, too, offering to help a strange, gross girl like herself even if she didn't know what a cougar was and could potentially infect everyone he loved. "Oh that sounds— "

"Gebt?" she parroted dumbly, staring back at the man, "Dib you... you saib Gebt right?" The dark girl laughed nervously before falling silent. Sahalie was so sure she heard that name wrong, because she had only heard it a few times before and it had never been associated with anything good. Only very recently had Sahalie learned that Alastor had been born to these northern lands, but she had not expected, never even dreamed that there would be a possibility of running into anything from his past out here. Her ears peeled back, "N-no," her eyebrows wove together. The Gent that Sahalie knew hit children, had possibly murdered Alastor's mother. The beating heart in her chest threatened to jump right.

Things shifted quickly, and it left him rather confused. Something about his name struck a chord in the girl, and that unsettled him. She repeated it in her snot-choked voice, and he couldn't be one hundred percent that she'd even heard correctly because hell, maybe there was a wolf in her past named 'Gebt' and it was just a really weird coincidence. Like that familiarity in her scent? He exhaled a thick cloud, brows knitting. Whatever had triggered her, he needed to know. If it was all just an odd misunderstand, that was fine, but every bit of him screamed that it was something more and he would not let that rest. Not anywhere, but least of all so close to his home.

"Gent," he said again, with as clear a tone as he could.

"... do you know my name? How?"

And why the hell did she look so horrified about it? He hadn't been a saint, but there was truly nothing he could recall doing that would've made for a fear-inducing tale. Maybe... if she was from Kingsfall? Would they really tell cautionary stories about him? No, that didn't make any sense either. If anything it would, 'that Gent guy is an ass' not 'that Gent guy will eat your eyeballs,' which she definitely looked like she was afraid would happen.

Obviously her reaction was going to cause some confusion, and the man was staring at her uneasily. He repeated his name and put the final nail in the coffin, and she twisted her neck as if to look for an escape. The way she had come was clear enough, albiet slippery, but she did not trust herself in these parts. When she had come up here with Al she had nearly fallen down into the ravine—Alastor. Sahalie, shrinking a little, peered back up into the icy blue eyes that Alastor had accused of murder but saw no murderous intent. The man had offered to treat her cold, after all. Was this part of his charm? Alastor had not really explained much about what Gent was like, and the girl had no reason not to trust him, Al her best friend. But did she trust him more than her own eyes and her own intuition?

It helped that she had never met a murderous wolf in her life before.

"Ah uhm... Ah...a little," she whispered, being quite for absolutely no reason beyond the fact that she was grappling with her own fear and confusion. But if this—since this was Gent, the Gent, was she supposed to lie about how she knew? Sahalie didn't have a lying bone in her body. And why should she lie? Wouldn't it be better to confront him, here and now, about the things he had done and let him know that, in spite of everything he had done that Alastor was alive and well? She stood a little straighter, shuffling her shoulders and coughing a few times. "K..Kino," it felt so weird to say that name, "He tolb me what you dib to him. So...so..."

"Ahm not gunna be," sniffle, "Sareb ob you. In fabt, I'be wabteb to gib you a beice ob my minb for the lonbest time now."