Naya and Bu’umo didn’t stop to rest until they’d crossed the border into their territory, nearly collapsing from exhaustion. Naya laid Aran’s comatose form on the ground next to Bu’umo before dropping to the ground herself, panting. The humans had sent out search parties in all directions, not just following the trail they’d left behind. They’d been forced to take several detours to avoid the humans, and it had stretched their flight from a matter of hours into a full day of running. Naya let her breathing calm and her legs relax from gripping Bu’umo’s sides for so long, stretching out on the cold earth. There hadn’t been snow in some time, and most of it had melted beyond that in the shade, the ground was dry and firm, the perfect spot to rest a moment.

She sighed. True rest would have to wait. She rolled over, pulling the white ball of clothing from her waist. Slipping the loose pants over Aran’s legs, she looked away as she drew them over his waist, some part of her wishing to preserve his modesty. As she was threading his right arm through the sleeve of the shirt however, she stopped. The movement had caused the skin of his torso to draw tight, and what she had previously thought an old scar had started to open up. Starting just below his ribcage, a long vertical incision ran down his torso, ending just below his navel, held together by thin metal wire every few inches.

Naya frowned. If this wound was fresh, it would need cleaned and restitched. She glanced at Bu’umo’s slumbering form. Making the decision, she pulled a small needle of bone from her pocket, and some thin string. She always kept some on hand for just such an occasion. Grimacing at the somewhat gruesome first step, she channeled mana into her nail, a thin, glowing edge appearing around it. She carefully sliced through the metal securing the wound, starting from the navel and rising to his ribs. That done, she pulled the wire out of each suture, the skin losing some of its tension as she did so. Removing the last wire, she gently pulled the skin apart to look at the healing, and gasped, jerking back.

She stared at the long cut in Aran’s abdomen, before looking back at his face. He appeared to be dreaming fitfully, eyes rolling beneath their lids. His chest rose and fell steadily. How was he still alive? She’d felt the vast well of power within him, but she’d never heard of anything surviving this, not even the most powerful creatures. Swallowing thickly, she reached out again and gently pulled the skin apart. Grey muscle tissue separated beneath, to nothing. His entire stomach cavity was simply… empty. Muscles and tendons lined it, but there was nothing else. She could see the dark bone of his spine poking through the muscle at the bottom. She wasn’t extremely familiar with human anatomy, but she’d seen a few carcases abandoned by other creatures stalking the forest, and she knew they weren’t empty. Pulling the flesh further apart, she leaned closer, peering in. Now that she was looking, she could see where an organ had been severed and cut out, along with an opening farther up that had been sewn closed. Naya shivered. The human who had done this was a monster. Experimenting on Aran, one of their own.

She felt the warmth of a tear on her cheek, and leaned back, resting on her knees. Focus, she needed to focus. First, this wound needed new dressing. She wasn’t entirely sure if Aran’s could get an infection, but it couldn’t hurt. She went about gathering some firewood and kindling, quickly breathing life into a small fire. Without a pot, she’d be unable to boil water, but she could at least burn any potential infection off of the needle. She fed a bit of mana into the needle to keep it from burning, then placed it into the fire for several minutes. She kept a close eye on Aran the whole time, but he seemed stable enough. His wounds weren’t healing appreciably, but neither were they getting any worse. Removing the needle from the fire, nearly singing the hair on the back of her palm, she readied the thread. Starting once again at the bottom of the cut, she knotted the suture and worked her way up. His skin was surprisingly tough, requiring more effort than she expected to puncture, but she finished up within a few minutes. She glanced at the numerous other cuts along his body, and the gaping wound where his arm had been severed. Most of the others were superficial, but the arm…

She sighed. There was little she could do for that. Once they returned to camp she would pack it and close the wound, but there was little to do but wait for the wound to heal. The shard of dark, charcoal colored bone sticking out might hinder the healing process, but he’d have to decide what to do if it became a problem. She finished sliding the dirtied white shirt onto Aran before packing up the needle and thread, and clearing up the remains of the small fire.

She sat there, letting them both rest for a while longer, before rousing Bu’umo and continuing towards camp. This time she rode with Aran propped upright before her, arms around his waist to prevent any unnecessary movement opening up the fresh stitches. The sun was setting by the time they reached the camp, meager light dimmed further by the thick canopy of leaves.

A single, massive tree dominated the area, the base of which was thicker than Bu’umo was long, and well over 80 feet tall. Between the gnarled roots the ground dipped, and between the roots stretched an awning of woven branches and leaves, forming a warm, dry hollow, large enough for even Bu’umo if the need arose, though he usually preferred to sleep outside. Naya carefully lifted Aran off of Bu’umo and carried him inside, laying him on a bed of thick moss at the rear of the den. There she left him, taking a large clay pot outside to a nearby stream where she emptied the remains of a dinner before filling with the clear, cold water. Returning to the den, she built up a small fire getting the water to a rolling boil before removing it from the flames and allowing it to cool slightly. Dipping a small cloth into the water, she thoroughly cleaned all of the wounds on Aran’s body, before binding each of them with clean strips of cloth. His arm she inspected thoroughly, the cut wasn’t clean, but it was straight and the bone wasn’t chipped, so she covered it with a thin cloth, tying it around the stump, and covered him with a thick hide blanket, letting him sleep.

She soon succumbed to sleep as well, the night's rescue and flight through the woods had really taken it out of her, and she curled up next to the warmth of the dying fire, tail pulling in close, content with the small victory.