At some point, the panic and terror that had left K'piru shaking and huddled amongst the rocks in the cliff rolled back. It had to, with so many dead, others caught in their own agonies as seared flesh peeled from muscle and bone, there was no time for her own fear, no time for her own grief. She would look at their strained faces and note only the degree of their pain, or if they had gone slack with death or, mercifully, sleep. The children were the worst, but she couldn't allow herself to see them in any different a light than the rest. The groans and ragged breaths of the wounded were swallowed up by the hide walls surrounding them, one of the few tents they could scavenge from the remains of their camp.
So few would survive.
A thin arm, skin an angry red and blistered, was stuck out in front of her vision, its small hand held gently in her own. As she smeared cool, sticky fluid on that arm, K'piru reminded herself that their supplies were low. She wondered if she could spare the hours it might take to locate more aloe plant, and without even realizing it, she began to organize those remaining by who was most likely to survive.
Her hands took a moment to run through the thin, short hair of the child with the burnt arm, brushing behind his ears, but she didn't linger. She tried to form a prayer for his healing, but the words that she had crafted easily for decades died before they could work past her throat. The child's strained, puffy eyes were not something she could bear to watch, so she moved on.
When someone came and whispered low in one ear that their warriors had returned from battle, K'piru tried to feel relief as she stood. The woman she'd been treating looked up at her, confusion briefly overriding her pain - she wasn't in quite as bad a condition as others - as K'piru wordlessly set aside her tools and moved to the tent's entrance.
So few would survive.
A thin arm, skin an angry red and blistered, was stuck out in front of her vision, its small hand held gently in her own. As she smeared cool, sticky fluid on that arm, K'piru reminded herself that their supplies were low. She wondered if she could spare the hours it might take to locate more aloe plant, and without even realizing it, she began to organize those remaining by who was most likely to survive.
Her hands took a moment to run through the thin, short hair of the child with the burnt arm, brushing behind his ears, but she didn't linger. She tried to form a prayer for his healing, but the words that she had crafted easily for decades died before they could work past her throat. The child's strained, puffy eyes were not something she could bear to watch, so she moved on.
When someone came and whispered low in one ear that their warriors had returned from battle, K'piru tried to feel relief as she stood. The woman she'd been treating looked up at her, confusion briefly overriding her pain - she wasn't in quite as bad a condition as others - as K'piru wordlessly set aside her tools and moved to the tent's entrance.
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"Song dogs barking at the break of dawn, lightning pushes the edges of a thunderstorm; and these streets, quiet as a sleeping army, send their battered dreams to heaven."
Hipparion Tribe (Sagolii)Â - Â Antimony Jhanhi's Wiki
