He could see the swirling Maes patterns, black as oil, running down its face from forehead to neck, continuing past to where ripped fabric covered its body. He knew how they flowed, how the ribbons circled the skin; he saw them on himself in his reflection in the water. It was proof of his birthright, that he was a child born from the earth. It was proof of his heritage, as much so as the blood in his veins.

This thing had the same Maes adorning its body, but its face was not the same as his; its form was not the same as his. Where he was strong with scale and muscle, it was smooth and hairless, with fair skin that that was not native to these lands. Long hair covered its head, not black but a brilliant red that was not unlike that of the stars in the sky. Its forehead was hornless and coated with a sheen of sweat, its arms thin and weak. Its clothes were different from those of the kuluk, those bandits that roamed through the edges of the Outlands occasionally to pick off the weak and the stragglers. He claimed a few of them each new moon when they wandered into his lands; their flesh was sweet and their blood thick and savory. This creature was not like them; it stunk of death and decay. It was frail and broken, the fragile skin torn and pale in the light.

And it was bleeding. A ragged cut ran from its lower stomach up to its sternum, opening up the entirety of its chest to the sky. A mortal wound, by nearly every measure.

Cautious and still reeling from the mindless fear that had shook his mind, he prodded the body with a claw, expecting nothing, but received instead a light moan and twitch in response. Shock ran down his body, a cold sliver of ice shooting down his spine. Feeling her forehead, her temperature was normal, there was only a light sheen of sweat. He did not know what to believe, what to think. The creature’s stomach was cut open and the stench of death filled her, but still it was alive. It was a blow that should have been fatal, and yet it was not.

Sniffing at the body, he decided that it was female. He noted the wrinkles that lined its face and the bone-thin arms, evidence of a hard life—it would be shorter than him if standing upright. Its breasts were small and he only faintly smelled the heat on it, proof enough that it was not yet mature. Young, perhaps the same age as him at most, more likely only ten-and-few years. If it was born of the earth like him, then they were related.

He flinched at the thought, the concept foreign to him. All his life, he had never seen another like him, had never seen another with his Maes. Born of the earth, much as him. His own kin. He searched his mind for the word, one that he had never used before. One that he never had need for before. It was coarse and dry as his tongue moved crudely, uncertaintly.

“Sister.”

The thought rolled through his head, foreign, and uncertain. There was another one like him, one of his kin. He was tempted to leave her; in the Outlands, the weak were killed. That was the law, that was his law. But he hesitated. She was the same as him, born from the earth, and yet she could not be killed. She did not die. He wanted to know why. He wanted to learn how. And perhaps just as importantly, she was his sister. She was his pack, the only family that he knew. She was his blood, and perhaps his only blood. So he decided that just this one time, he would let an intruder live.

Making up his mind, he bent down to look at her closer. She was light, and her body did not feel like that of a hunter. Her flesh was weak and soft, her skin thin like grass. It would be a simple matter to rip through her neck. Her legs were weak, her eyes were dull. She had no fangs to bite with, nor horns to gore. No hair to protect herself, no claws to strike her prey. She was not from the Outlands; she would not have survived a day here, no matter whose lands she was in.

And yet, she was not dead. Her stomach was opened up; her torn chest bared itself and its innards to the sky, but she was still alive. Blood did not flow, the wound did not clot, but her heart still beat unsteadily and her lungs still breathed ragged, shallow breaths. The liquid in her veins still flowed, stopping abruptly where her vessels severed. It was as if the blood ignored the gaping hole in her chest, skipping over the cut and continuing to flow to the rest of her. As he looked closer, he saw that every so often, perhaps every tenth breath that he took, there would be a small crackle. A faint purple, much as those from the Fells, would dart out from her flesh and arc into the air before sinking back into her once more.

There was no smell of rot, no stench of decay, yet the presence that it gave was the very same. His hairs stood on end, his muscles twitching as his instincts and his body reacted to the wound. It whispered of danger. It whispered of death.

With caution, he slowly extended an outstretched claw to press gently against the side of the wound. The talon touched ever so slightly, but still a thin line of red appeared, bright against the dull pink of her innards. When he looked at the cut, however, he saw that the blood did not drip. It did not bead, it did not even respond, flowing ever so slowly as if it had yet to realize the opening.

As he waited, the blood flowed ever closer to the cut that he had made before finally oozing its way out, finally noticing the wound. What normally would have taken an instant for the blood to well up in a cut took for her over a minute.

It was clear to im then that she had not died, that she had merely prolonged her death in this unnatural state. What would have killed her in minutes would now take longer, perhaps even days. The true time, he did not know, but he did know what would come at the end. No matter how slowly, she would die like this.

He did not know how to help her. He never had need to heal a cut that large, a gash that deep. He never had understood that madness of the Fells, the same madness that seemed to be in her. The madness that drove the shadows to come alive—she had used it to stay death’s fangs. He did not know if anything he tried would work, did not know if he would kill her as he tried to save her. But he was certain of one thing.

If he left her here, even with the strange madness in her flesh, she could not survive.

Even if was slowly, his claw had still cut her. If it tried hard enough, if it was patient enough, anything still tear her apart. And he was certain that her madness had limits, that it would not staunch the bleeding should her head be taken from her shoulders. There was no way for her to survive if he left her untouched, if he left her like this. He had to do something, yet anything could kill her.

But if she was born of the earth as he was, then she had the same blood as him. When he was hurt before and forced to hide, the earth showed him how to heal, It had taught him how to lick his wounds and wait until his body mended itself. It had showed him which plants to eat, showed him what water to drink and whose flesh to consume. He trusted his body to the earth; it was the earth’s gift to him—his inheritance. She would have to trust hers to the same.

Letting out a harsh grunt, he made up his mind. He stooped low to try and move her, grabbing an arm gently with claws not meant for such delicacy. Her body seemed more plant than animal, more like a blade of dry grass than flesh. He took her to his den ever slowly, the distance tiresome with the awkward weight in his arms as he struggled not to tear her gash any further. Despite the long walk, the wound stayed the same, blood flowing past it as if the severed veins were still intact. Ever more frequently, he saw the purple madness. It jumped between the lips of the gash, crackling and darting into the air.

She made no sound as he laid her down on the rock. Were it not for the beating of the heart that he heard, he would have thought her a corpse. Her face was stark white now, utterly without sign of life. The madness jumped faster now, perhaps every other breath. He knew, although he did not know how, that her time was short. If he was to try anything, it would have to be now.

Searching among the stones, he dug through the dirt and undergrowth. Parting plant and flower, he overturned rocks as he peered into the vegetation. Yet, as the time passed and he still had not found what he was looking for, the frustration began to set into his bones. Every breath was one closer to death, and it had never taken this long to find before. It was rare, perhaps, but not outrageously so.

It was by the old fallen tree that he found what he was searching for: a thin, yellow-green grass with wide leaves and short, thick roots. It grew in small tufts where there was damp dirt under a rock. It tasted bitter and dry in the mouth, but he knew that it had its uses.

Collecting a handful, he took it back to his den, holding the bundle in his hand as he carefully carried her inside. Laying her down on the ground, he first licked the wound. His saliva would clean the wound and start to heal her. It took a while for him to clean out the gash and by the end the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. Taking the grass, he chewed it into a thick paste, resisting the urge to swallow. It burned his gums and stained his teeth a dark yellow, but he ignored it. Pinching the mouth of the cut together, he spat the glob onto the wound, smearing it into a line that covered and held the wound together.

The madness sparked as he touched her, fighting back like small tongues of flame in a roaring wind. When it touched his claws, the purple fizzled and guttered out, showering into the air like dust. Eventually there was no more madness left, and the gash began to bleed profusely. Scarlet and crimson slipped out of the bottom of the salve, trickling across her abdomen before puddling on the ground around her.

He worried that he had killed her, that without her madness she would be gone in an instant. Yet the bleeding seemed to end as quickly as it had come, and it dried into a dark crust on her skin. The plant salve had hardened quickly after it left his mouth, and it would keep the wound from going rotten. That much, he could do for her. If that happened, the only way to save her would be to cut out her stomach. Strange as she was, he felt that even she had her limits.

She made no noise as he did his patching, and she made no noise as he set the fire. He feared that she was dead in the mind—nothing but dead weight that he would never learn from. Trying to save her could very well cost him his life, for he had little enough resources as it was. To care for a weakness in the Outlands was to mark oneself as a living corpse.

But the potential she held was too great. She was pack, and she could evade death. For her and what she knew, it was a risk worth taking.

He thought as he ate, tearing eagerly into old meat. In the Outlands, to learn her skill would make all the difference. Yet, she had to be alive in order to tell him her secret. Should she live, she would need food. The Fells would come soon, and another mouth to feed would be all the worse for him. He needed to hunt. But his herds were thin already, and would only grow thinner from the Fells. To take more from them now would be to leave him with nothing after.

Resolution filled his mind as he finished his meal, cracking open the last of the bones and tossing the remains outside his den onto the ground. He would have to break one of the rules he had known since birth. He would have to mark himself for death.

He would have to take from another’s lands.