[SRP] A cure (Parokakari x Gopala)

[Puhterodactyl]

Find the plant, find the plant, find the plant, find the plant. Parokakari looked around frantically for a rare, precious mountain herb. The healer that he had taken Gopala to was an ancient, greying leopardess who inhabited the peak closest to the Great Mountain before the Jini-msemi pride had moved in. She was a specialist on the area, and she told Parokakari that Gopala's ailment originated when she had actually drank a tainted, poison spring. The wizened old crone taught the lions seeking her help that the plants growing at that altitude in that type of clearing spread their roots into the water and poisoned it. The stink should have been a clear giveaway to Gopala. Parokakari still could not be sure why she had been possessed to drink it. But he could not ask her now, because soon after their arrival to the healer's, she had fallen into a deep but fitful slumber from which she would not wake. He had had to leave her with the leopardess healer while he went off to look for the herb. The healer promised she would do the best she could (not that she ever even favored lions, least of all the ones who had usurped her territory and resources, but she promised her that according to her morals, she would not allow her to let any life pass when she could help otherwise). But because she was so old and had to tend to Gopala, she could not go seek the herb she needed to cure the lioness, nor was it any she kept in reserve. It grew at an altitude too high for her to scale in her old age, and for it to be potent, it had to be fresh. That left the task to the only able-bodied amongst them. Parokakari.  

[Puhterodactyl]

Gopala stirred in her sleep, feeling as hot as the fires that had burned down the home she was born in, but simultaneously, she felt as cold as the mountains in which they now resided. Her body was stiff, she couldn't hardly move a muscle, her legs and limbs were so tight. But she twitched involuntarily. Her eyes shot open and she struggled to move, fighting against her body with all of the will she could muster. The sight of a leopardess who then tried to restrain her was only all the more frightening. Unable to make words, she cried out in guttural, panicked sounds. Where was Parokakari? Why had he abandoned her again? She hallucinated vividly, seeing him turn away as she had in her nightmares every time she blinked. Pathetically, she mewled, since her panicked calls did not summon relief. She shrank away from the touch of the healer. Any small touch shot through her like needles or like an entire colony of ants biting relentlessly.

"H-help. Paro… Parokakari…" She struggled to form words, her mouth was as dry as a desert and her tongue swelling in her mouth, choking her. Her body was killing her. This could not be love. This had gone too far. What… what had she done to deserve this? Was it a curse from the gods? She had heard of tainted bloodlines in the Jini-msemi. They were forbidden from breeding and others from breeding with them. Was it possible she was of a tainted blood line? Her fever dreams confused her more. How could that be so? Her parents were both immigrants to the pride and they had done nothing to upset anyone. Certainly nothing so terrible to bring the wrath of the swamp goddess upon their line… Right…? She had just wanted to find true love. And oh how she was being punished for it.  

[Puhterodactyl]

Parokakari felt like each second that passed was another moment off of Gopala's life. Her time was running short, and it was his fault. He was taking too long. To a lion's eye, colors didn't seem so vivid. Was the plant green enough? Was the flower maroon or magenta or pink or orange? Suddenly he did not know left from right or night from day. The healer said it would be growing in a tree with a vine hanging down. The tree would be thorny and tall and thin, the vines as plain looking as any other vines he had ever seen in his life. Well gee if that didn't make it any harder. The only way he would be able to determine the plant was by a little flower tucked under a leaf. He could find it. He had to find it.

What felt like hours elapsed in his frantic hunt. Exhausted, atmosphere thin and hope all but gone, he collapsed on the ground.

"Why?! Why find her just to lose her!? Why gods?!" He shouted his challenge and his cry to the heavens above to no response. But his eyes continued to search for an answer. Instead, it found a rather plain-looking vine draped on a scrawny, thorny tree, and some leaves atop all of that. Could it be? Exhausted and fearing to hope, Parokakari heaved himself to his feet and summoned his strength into a mighty leap, mouth open to catch the vines, paws outreached to push himself up the spiny trunk.  

[Puhterodactyl]

Gopala gasped for air. Everything was getting darker, everything was growing colder. The leopardess had abandoned her, or was it that she was hallucinating so severely that the healer had vanished from her waking senses? Gopala was definitely the wrong gal to ask. She felt her life slipping away from her, her dreams fading. No more Parokakari as her mate. No beautiful cubs of black and blue piebalds, no orange eyes or blue-green manes. And they would never give her grand cubs, she would never grow old with Parokakari. Her parents would have to suffer the loss of a child. The guilt and remorse filled her like the toxins that were killing her body. She had survived cub-hood, the fire in the swamps of her birth and the trek to the mountains.

[the end : 1002 words]