[PRP] Doctor's Orders (Ea x Asami)

[Mimsey]

Ea was in a mood. Ea was always in a mood, but this particular mood had the distinction of not being one of the two emotions Ea most often displayed: mad, and extra mad.

Today, she was actually a bit down.

The new year had begun with little ceremony, other than Elcca running around the wards the day before, going on about the positioning of the moon or some other sort of nonsense. Apparently it meant something for heathen cultures. Ea had sent her packing about as soon as it had started. The wards were already full of their own brand of insanity- spirits help anyone who thought Ea wanted more.

But beyond that, it had been quiet. Other than a few injuries sustained during training drills, Ea had been enjoying a relatively uneventful month. The downside to this was that she had been spending an awful lot of time harassing her family. As much as Ea loved to fight [and she loved to fight], she didn't like bickering with her daughters. Particularly Kiowaa, not when she had been trying to make an effort to be a bit more sensitive to her.

It hadn't gone well.

Now, Ea sat perched on top of the small outcropping of rocks that made up the wards, observing her domain through those strange wild-eyes. Which were narrowed. She might have been down, but she'd be damned if she was going to be nice about it.

"We're going to need to have some of the sentinels bring back more koma root," Ea said curtly to Vlam, who obviously could never hope to deliver this message.  

[Kaelyndra]

Just another day in the medical ward to Asami.

The lioness had not been with the Firekin long enough to catch onto tiny inconsistencies. Patients still filtered in. Rogues came in, lost, and in need of direction. Ea still demanded.

"I can do that," the lioness responded automatically. The nature of Vlam's muteness had never occurred to her--she'd always assumed him quiet--and so it was not out of brotherhood that she stepped in to save him face. Rather, she had heard the word sentinels and had pieced together enough details to know that heavily dunned legs were characteristic of a single family line.

The black and white rogue had never come in for a second checkup. Had Asami stopped to think, she would have found it odd she was so concerned a Firekin would die of a minor head-wound. She did not, however, stop to think.

"If that's okay?" At least she remembered her manners.  

[Mimsey]

Kaelyndra

Ea scowled, more as a matter of habit than anything else. Actually, she quite liked people who offered to do things for her. In fact, one might go as far to say that it was a very dangerous thing to offer to do things for Ea! Given the opportunity, she had no qualms about working a poor medic to the bone.

"Asami, isn't it?" she said curtly. As she did, she hopped down from her perch on the rocks, stalking past Vlam in the process. Vlam seemed quite content to have the matter over. He nodded his head in approval at Asami, and then reclined back for a nap.

Ea didn't pay him much attention as she appraised her. "If you're looking for something to do I have a couple of things on my list that need to be sent out," she said. "We'll need to get the Sentinels an updated list of foreign medicine to look out for, but our stocks could use a good inventory."  

[Kaelyndra]

Mimsey

(( What do the Firekin use for title-recognition words? My brain is failing me now! ))

"Yes, ser." Asami was so concerned with avoiding eye contact that Vlam's nod of approval was missed. The ground was dusty and blurred out as she looked down to it. It took every ounce of her willpower not to fidget.

It was times like this that Asami found herself regretting every life choice she had ever made. Winning her battle had been an absolute fluke. She wasn't the disobedient child. She didn't run away from home, so why was she here?

To swallow at Ea's voice and aide the Firekin in an impending war. Asami braved making eye contact.

"I'll do my best." Then, when no answer presented itself within the fraction of a second it took her to be worried, Asami added, "What's the list?"  

[Mimsey]

Kaelyndra

[[ Like ms/mr? Safi would be lord/lady, but simo probably have done away with the system altogether. Ser sounds fine to me! ]]

Ea saw none of the self doubt as her wild-eyes looked over her. Perhaps it was because Ea was just naturally used to people avoiding her hawkish glare. Or maybe she just wasn't as bitter as she liked to project. Either way, she simply walked alongside her and started towards the small alcove where most of the herb stocks were kept. Ever since a group of hyenas had infiltrated the ward, Ea had been particularly fanatical about securing what little stock they had.

"List is as follows-," she started. She got about halfway through the first order [which was koma root, as if it needed to be repeated], when a sudden shout echoed in the distance. Ea immediately tensed. She did not like surprises. Particularly the sort she didn't see coming.

In the distance, the familiar black form of Hraga came barreling down one of the slopes. Long gone were the days where Ea could tower over her younger brother. He arrived in a shower of sand, which was not appreciated in the slightest. "Ea!" the guard gasped.

The medic grimaced, and gave Asami a knowing roll of her eyes. There was camaraderie in her suffering, after all. "Let me guess, there's been an accident."

"Yes, but its mom!"  

[Kaelyndra]

Mimsey

Since her juvenile encounter with fire and fear, loud noises no longer made Asami flinch. While her ears went back from the sound, her body remained perfectly still. Frozen, really. It was the perfect stance from which to listen.

Gradually, the red lioness moved her eyes from Hraga to Ea, just in time to catch the rolling eyes. Asami offered her a weak, shy smile for her plight.

Mom did not sound good. You could take the lion from the culture, but you couldn't take culture from the lion. Asami was no foreigner to strong family ties, and Firekin seemed as obsessed with blood lines than ever.

She cleared her throat, but remained looking at Ea for support. The medic wasn't a leader, never mind the fact she felt distinctly distanced from the current conversation. Asami wanted badly to ask what the accident had been, but knew better to so much as consider opening her mouth.  

[Mimsey]

kaelyndra

Ea felt a sudden, violent chill crawl up from her feet to her shoulders. Ever since becoming a medic some years ago, she had seen her fair share of calamities. Murders, sandstorms, nergui attacks- she'd weathered them with a kind of bitter tact that she'd made her own. But for a very brief moment, the idea of her mother being injured made her feel very, very small.

If only for a moment.

Then, logic fled in. If the situation was dire, and there had been another attack, the guards would be sounding the alarm. Her mother was still fairly young, so there wasn't much risk of her dropping dead unexpectedly. Hraga could be an alarmist. A few shallow breaths, and a course of action formulated in her head.

She nodded to Asami. "You're with me," she said. "Get some of the thornroot from the ward. Don't carry it in your mouth- unless you don't want to feel your tongue for the next six hours. There should be a scrap of fur or some hide to place around it."

Hraga looked a bit antsy. "I think she broke her leg."

"That would be your expert opinion?" Ea huffed. She knocked Asami on the side as if to draw her with her, and headed towards the storeroom.  

[Kaelyndra]

Mimsey

When Ea's order reached her ears, Asami finally jolted. Her body went rigid. A few seconds processed while her mind regained thought, and then Ea knocked her in the side. So, Asami spun on her heels to head for the ward.

"Fur, fur," she mumbled out loud. "Hide?" One of the piles was nudged carefully out of the way with her paw. That wasn't hide.

Asami searched frantically for the scrap Ea had promised. The lioness' gut churned and she stared at the pile. A nervous glance was cast towards Ea. Was Hraga over-exaggerating? Was that an appropriate question to ask?

Asami glanced back at the pile. "Ea, I can't find the hide for the root."  

[Mimsey]

Kaelyndra

Ea made a kind of strangled groaning as Asami reported her failure. Were it not for Hraga breathing down her neck- something which was decidably more irritating, it might have been enough for a tantrum. Instead, she shot a glare at Hraga and stormed across the room.

"If this place was kept a bit more orderly..." she growled out. This was Kiowaa's doing, wasn't it? Bristling, the large lioness started to paw through the stock heap, looking for one of the scraps of hide that was used for handling some of the more volatile panaceas. "VLAM!"

Thornroot, and the remaining koma went flying. Scraps of grey moss she didn't even remember collecting danced through the air. But no hide- just sand and stone at the end of the pile.

Hraga hovered beside Asami, in the same awkwardly close manner he had been doing with Ea. "Is this really important, Ea? Can't we just carry it like normal? How bad could it-"

His response was a root flying at the face- which he ducked. Which left Asami right in the path of the projectile, should she not engage some catlike reflexes of her own!
 

[Kaelyndra]

Mimsey

Asami regretted opening her mouth.

Even so, it was not hard to convince herself there was a logic to Ea's madness. It was impossible to work under the medical master without creating one's own false logic on how she operated. For Asami, it was that such brilliance made Ea's head constantly ache and therefore in a poor state of mind to calmly address situations.

It was not unlike the tiny throb beginning near Asami's ears now. She glanced pathetically towards Hraga. For a brief moment, her eyes lit up with the potential for compromise--it was a flame quickly squashed in the presence of a hurtling root.

Cat though she may have been, Hraga's large body had Asami's eyes, not the root. It appeared, like a flash, from nowhere, to hit her square in the side.

"It's okay, I've got it!"

The statement was likely to get as much notoriety as Hraga's suggestion had been. It didn't stop Asami from picking up the root with her mouth in desperation. They would leave now, right?

Asami ever so slightly nudged Hraga in the shoulder with the wet tip of her nose. The lioness had not lost her mind enough yet to even debate the idea of doing the same to Ea.  

[Mimsey]

Kaelyndra

Ea practically seethed at the sight of Asami with the root in her mouth, and Hraga standing there looking dumb. Did no one listen to her? Ridiculous! Perhaps striking it up to a lost cause, she pushed beside them with a grumble and started on her way out the door.

"You'd better hope she's close by, or you're not going to feel your mouth by the time we get there," she muttered.

Hraga seemed relieved just to be on the move. He nodded to Asami, and in a low voice added: 'I'll take it over halfway if you want. It shouldn't be too far.'

It might have been in a low tone, but Ea's sharp ears caught some of it. She snorted gruffly and motioned for Vlam to follow them. "Dare I ask what mother was doing this evening? Other than inconveniencing me?"

Hraga dropped his head as they started out across the sands. "I ah...think it was some sort of herdbeast..." Something by the way he said that, however, indicated there might have been a bit more to the story.  

[Kaelyndra]

Mimsey

In the present time, having a numb mouth seemed like a small price to pay. Taking it like an order, Asami nodded to the air. The moment Ea's tail had passed her, Asami began to follow.

When she looked over at Hraga, a smile stretched over the edges of the root in her mouth. Once again, she was bopping her head in submissive indication that she'd understood. However, once she turned her eyes back to concentrate on the sand in front of her, the smile persisted.

It only faded when Ea began to speak again, but the smile would reperk around her mouth at random intervals. It seemed to be well timed with a short stumble in the sand.

"Mmf," she said, when she heard news injury was from the animal. Everyone who had ever hunted knew that prey animals were far more vicious than jokes and stories gave them credit for. There was a reason Hunting was low tier -- you couldn't risk soldiers getting crippling injuries from the blow of a hoof.

"How?" she managed over the top of the root after a second try.  

[Mimsey]

Kaelyndra

Now he was on the spot. Hraga furrowed his heavy brow and attempted to think of something that wouldn't throw his sister into hysterics. He laughed, as thought that might make the story sound any better, and kept his eyes focused on Asami. "Well, you know...the horns, and everything..."

Ea snorted, her expression flat. "Not like her to get clumsy," she muttered. "If she's pregnant again..."

"Oh- no, no. It wasn't anything like that!" Hraga interjected. The small group was already halfway to where the accident had taken place, and Hraga knew it was only a matter of time before his good sense gave out. Maybe this would have been a good time to take that koma root from his sister's assistant...

But in Hraga's hesitation, Ea had already reached the top of the dune. Down below, the scene was roughly unfolding. No lay seated on the sands, the only outward sign of injury being her heavy panting. The fallen herdbeast lay not far from her, one horn snapped off and its throat punctured.

All of that was mostly typical. What Ea had not expected was to see Kiowaa meekly sitting beside her grandmother, her expression one of mixed embarrassment and horror. Ea didn't need to be a seer to figure out what had happened- all she needed to be was an overly critical mother. "KIOWAA," she shouted, not even within speaking distance of the group. "What did you do?!"

Kiowaa's shoulders noticeably slumped, even from a distance.

Hraga sighed, and turned towards Asami. "I suspect they're going to get into it. If you can, maybe see about looking over my mom?"
 

[Kaelyndra]

Mimsey

Asami was struck dumb, and not because the root meant she could no longer feel her tongue and the sides of her mouth. Hraga may as well have asked her to treat the Queen of the swamplands. While the Firekin may have had a loose-democracy, Asami had been raised with Kingdoms and Respect, and such teachings did not so easily leave a lioness.

Fortunately for her wobbling confidence, it did not teach them to hesitate when your leader needed you.

So, Asami bobbed her head, and rushed down the slope as though Hraga had told her No was dying. Sand spewed in all directions while she barreled over the dune, but she was kind enough to tiptoe the last few steps.

It didn't keep her legs from noticeably shaking as she neared the Regent. Inwardly, the medic was beating herself for not having remembered to bring something to set the root on. She held up the back of her paw and set the root on it, balancing it when she spoke.

"Dere does it hwurt," Asami slurred out as quickly as she could manage before she picked up the root with her teeth again.