Lucifers Gorge Can't Hold Back the Tears

All welcome. Overcast Clouds. 55.4 ° F, 13 ° C.
RE: Neko, after walking through a strange, leafy bush your eyes won't stop watering.

Neko wished she hadn’t waited so long to explore the mountain, as it was rich with useful plants, some of which would remain intact through winter. She also found remains of some plants that had already died off, but they would grow again in the spring, and she would make sure she returned to harvest them. For now, she was making her way along a creek that cut through the mountains, but the trail was rough to say the least. On several occasions, she had crossed the creek on log bridges, having forgotten about the time she nearly fell off of one when talking to Reyes a few months earlier. She had also jumped over several boulders and fallen logs, and she had managed to squeeze through a few bushes as well.

Her tail wagged with enthusiasm as she crossed the creek on another log that spanned the gorge. After crossing the log, she crouched at the bottom of a boulder and jumped onto it. Finding a narrow path on the other side, she jumped down and continued on her way until she came to an unfamiliar bush. Not seeing a clear path around it, she pushed herself through it and continued down the path on the other side. It wasn’t long before her eyes started watering and her head and neck started itching.

She wiped her eyes with a fore-paw, attempting to clear her blurred vision. She assumed she was having an allergic reaction to something in the bush she had just walked through, so she turned around and went back to it. By the time she reached it, her vision was blurred again. She tried wiping her eyes, but she couldn’t see clearly enough to even try to identify the plant, and with her nose suddenly congested, she couldn’t identify it by smell it either.

This place was kinda dangerous and was easily putting Thuban on edge. He hugged the rock walls, staying far away from the water that cut through the mountain. Some places were narrow and left his heart racing like a herd of caribou when he had to maneuver the skinny paths. A stone slipped loose from underneath him and dropped into the water below. As soon as it hit the water it was gone from sight. That was only solidifying his reason to keep moving on out of here. Wherever this path led to better have been worth the dangerous travel.

He spotted a dark figure up in the distance, standing in some sort of plant that was blocking the path. Instead of seeing this as a new wolf to meet he saw it more as an obstacle. Awkwardly he shuffled ahead closer to the dark figure. "Hey! What're you doing?" He hollered over the sound of the water. Thuban stopped a few feet away from the smaller gal. Yellow eyes peered out from a dark face with a hint of annoyance but mostly curiosity. Surely she had a good reason for stopping in such a dangerous place. Or maybe she was a little crazy...if she was it was likely too late to save his own hide.

And then he'd never see Elias again.

The thought alone was more horrifying than the water off to his side.

Neko shook her head vigorously and tried to blow her nose. Her nostrils cleared for a few seconds but were soon congested again. She wanted to bathe in the creek, but with her vision compromised, she couldn’t see well enough to find a spot calm enough to actually swim in.

Between the tears in her eyes, the congestion in her nose, and the roar of the rapids, she did not notice the stranger’s approach and was not aware of him until he spoke to her. She turned towards him and blinked her eyes and saw the blurry form of a wolf, larger than she and maybe not quite as dark.

Through her misery, she tried to answer his question, though she didn’t speak with her usual soft, pleasant voice. She tried to talk and breathe through her mouth at the same time, resulting in a higher pitched, nasally voice (think of the old telephone operator stereotype). “I must be allergic to this plant,” she said, pointing at it, “I walked through it, and now my nose is stuffy and my eyes won’t stop watering. Now I can’t even tell what it is ‘cause I can’t hardly see it or smell it.”

She sniffled and continued, “I think this is worse than the reaction I had to the holy water.” She remembered about half a year past, she had waded in a pool of what she believed to be holy water. She would not soon forget the sharp pain in her foot or the rash around her legs where she had walked around in that pool.

But that was from another time and another place. Right now, she needed to find a safe to wash herself off. She scanned the creek through blurry eyes, trying to find a calm spot to bathe in.

"Oh,"

Was all the young Selwyn managed after her first sentence. He wasn't sure if he had ever been allergic to things. Sure he sneezed a lot if he stuck his nose into spring flowers but he didn't have it as bad as this gal. She sounded kinda bad even if that was rude of him to think. A brow raised above a yellow eye. "I'm not gonna stick my face close to it." He said in order to make that clear. If she needed help identifying it she was going to need someone else or wait till she was better because Thuban was keeping his face far from that plant.

"Holy water?" His eyes widened and he took a cautious step backward when her gaze moved towards the water. Thuban was slowly deciding that she might actually be crazy; his clues being the plant situation, whatever holy water was and her eyeing the aggressive water next to them. Were they the best clues around? No, probably not but they were what he had to work with.

His weight awkwardly shifted from side to side. Thuban would much rather be back in the blackberry fields with the scarred lady or at the riffle with Summit. Better yet he wanted to be back in the Yukon.

The young male wondered if offering advice would be worth it. Yet he couldn't stand to think about her going into the rushing water all blind and congested without him saying something. "I, uh," His brows pinched together. "Don't think you should get too close to the water. Doesn't look very safe. You might find a smaller creek when the trail ends." Thuban quickly shrugged his shoulders with the end of his words.

The holy water incident happened when I played Neko on another site. She had stepped on a sharp stone while prancing around in a stagnant puddle that she believed to be holy water. The puddle was covered with a layer of pollen, but she didn’t know about the pollen and had concluded that she must be part demon.

Neko turned her attention from the creek to the blurry form of a wolf when he asked her about holy water. She was a bit surprised at the question, thinking that surely everyone should know about holy water. “You don’t know what holy water is? It’s... well... just that. It’s usually a small body of water, like a pond or a fountain, that’s been blessed by one or more of the gods. It’s a healer’s dream ‘cause it can cure disease and heal injuries and even cast out demons. I found a pool of it once, but I couldn’t use it ‘cause it hurt my foot and gave me a rash, so I might actually be part dem...” She suddenly stopped, realizing that she had just spilled a secret she had kept even from her alphas.

After catching herself, she quickly gave a response to the stranger’s suggestion to not get too close to the water, mostly to change the subject. “You’re quite right. I was hoping to find a still spot to wash myself off, but yeah, wouldn’t want to get caught up in that current. Probably wouldn’t make it past the next rapids, huh?” She squinted and tried to look down the trail, but it was still blurry. “It’s just a little hard for me to see where I’m going right now.”

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

Thuban's brow cautiously raised as his hackles danced up. Her story sounded like something straight from the mouth of a crazy wolf. Water curing diseases? Part dem? Whatever all of it meant was not the boy's cup of tea. The little wolf could keep that mojo to herself.

His lips pulled down. It would be cruel for him to leave her to find the stream herself. Worries of her slipping down into the rapids or simply getting lost plagued his mind. The act of leaving her behind would be awful. Thuban Selwyn was not an awful wolf.

"Maybe uh, just stick close to me - away from the rapids - and I can help get you to a stream." The thought of the crazy wolf being so close was concerning but he did his best to swallow down his worries. Helping out was important. It was likely what @Elias would have done too.