Gwen
The quiet had been nice, just being able to lay there and stroke her soft fluff without dramatics or complaints. If she hadn’t been in the cage, it wouldn’t have been hard to pretend I was cuddling my pet. No screaming or violence, just a relaxed morning.
Unfortunately, I needed her to wake up. She had moved around in the night, her bowl had been empty and I had to do my best to clean up an… accident in the far corner of the cage without opening it. Something that wouldn’t have happened if she had behaved.
I wished she could see that her stubborn struggle did nothing but make everything harder on both of us. It made it harder for me to be soft with her the way I wanted.
Pulling my hand out of the way as those jaws snapped, I couldn’t say I was surprised. It was hard to imagine her handling it any other way.
"If you're not going to let me look, can you at least change back?" I asked the growling wolf. "Then you can tell me how it is. I could give you the things to help fix it yourself if nothing else. I did my best to stitch you up last night, but it needs attention."
Tori’s soft, extended whine was heartbreaking. She inched closer to the bars, rolling onto her side with the bandages pointed up - and as I expected, there was more blood soaked into the bandages that I would have liked. She’d disturbed it, possibly even torn the stitches, and the dressing needed to be changed.
I was betting it hurt too much to shift. But she was willing to work with me, which was something at least. Her chest heaved in a big, very canine sigh. Not bothering to hide my smirk while out of her line of sight, I knelt by the cage. She had certainly done something last night after I had fallen asleep.
I also needed more room to work than the bars would allow me. I wasn’t great at first aid, but I knew enough to be dangerous, as Granddad would have said.
Grabbing the kits - both the medical kit and the sewing kit, I walked around to the front.
“I want to help you, but I can’t work around the bars. I need to open the door. I don’t want to hurt you but I will defend myself, Tori. I’m taking a risk here after you played sick yesterday.” I looked down at her, at the pain in her eyes. It was so hard to see her hurting. “I need to be able to trust you to help you, will you let me?”
Those blue eyes closed for a long moment, I could only hope she was considering it seriously and not bluffing me again. If she wouldn’t work with me at all, I’d have no choice but to knock her out and get her in a cage in the truck or something, drive halfway across the country, and give her to Where the River Crashes Upon the Rocks myself.
If it looked like only one of us was going to survive my attempt to help her, I’d give up.
I didn’t want to.
Ice blue appeared again, and she gave a soft whine, dragging herself closer to the door, facing away from it, her bandaged leg pointing up once more.
From this angle, even with the cage open, she’d have a hard time getting at me. She’d have to twist her body quite a bit, which I doubted was possible with her leg injured the way it was.
“I’m opening the cage door and I’m going to be telling you everything I’m doing before I do it. No surprises from either of us, okay?”
Tori, of course, said nothing.
“I’m about to start. I’m going to be using a pair of scissors to cut the bandage off.”
Tori began growling softly as I worked, a sound of warning, one low elongated note but she didn’t move. The bandages fell away, tossed behind me to keep them out of the way.
The stitches were torn. Thankfully the fishing line I used had snapped before her flesh tore.
Before I could sew it up again, I’d have to remove the bits of line that were still in her.
“Oh Tori… “
I ached for her. I had ached for her so much since I found her. I wanted so badly to protect her, but I was constantly making things worse. Now she was really hurt - it took a silver wound as long for a wolf to heal as it did for a human. Their accelerated healing just didn’t work against silver, it disrupted some magical connection.
“I’m going to remove the broken sutures. I’m not sure what you did last night, but my work didn’t hold. I’ll go quickly so it hurts less.”
With tweezers, I began pulling. Every so often, her growl would grow in strength, in pitch. It was honestly helpful, it let me know which spots were the most tender. Sterilizing more fishing line, rubbing it down the length with alcohol before sterilizing the needle with a lighter, my hands with sanitizer.
“Next I’m going to have to stitch the wound again. This is going to hurt more and I can’t go quickly this time. I’ll try to make it hurt as little as possible.”
This had been hard enough, emotionally, last night while she was unconscious. Now, with her growling and whimpering as I worked, it really hurt my heart. “Shh, I know. I’m sorry.” At one point her growl turned into a snarl, her head lifting.
“I’m sorry, Tori. I know it hurts. I’m almost done, you’re doing great.”
I tried my best to be gentler and I breathed a lot easier when I was done, the wound closed again. I was glad I had put the bandages on so tightly last night, or she might have bled out. The idea of finding her dead in the cage when I woke made tears form.
I could hear them in my voice. “I’m going to clean this up and wrap it again, it’s going to sting and I’m sorry.”
It was a howl this time, keening, and I pressed my lips together as I worked, wiping a tear away with the back of one hand. When a fresh bandage was wrapped snug and fastened, I felt like I could finally breathe again.
I could have lost her. I could have killed her.
The thought was shredding my insides.
“You… did a good job, Tori. I’m- I’m proud of you.” I gathered up the discarded bandages and bits of old fishing line and carried them to the trash can. I paused there, resting against the wall for a moment, my forearm on the wall and my head against my arm, looking at the ground.
I just needed a moment to collect myself. It was stupid, the cage was still open.
When I turned back around, wiping away my tears, she was looking at me with those cold blue eyes. “I need to close the door, okay?” She made no movement, no sound, just watching. “I know that must have hurt a lot, and I am so sorry. I’m going to do my best to make sure it heals as quickly as possible.”
I wanted nothing more than to pet her again, but I knew she’d just snap at me. My breath hitched as I closed the cage, but still, she made no movement.
Wishing I could do more to comfort her, I continued, trying to keep my voice steady.
“You’ll probably need to stay in that form or you’ll rip the stitches.” I had probably lost a week of working with her if she wasn’t able to talk. I needed to work with her human form. “Are you hungry? I can go make breakfast.”
Shakily, she brought herself up on three legs, sending a jolt of panic through me.
“Wait, you don’t need to- “
A wolf bobbing its head as a nod would have made me burst into laughter in any other circumstance. “Alright, I’ll make extra. Try to rest, okay?”
I headed to the kitchen with an armful of supplies and my phone. I had slept in my clothes, which wasn’t my favorite thing to do, but I didn’t want to be away from Tori for a second longer than I needed to be. I had started the mattress inflating upstairs and did a solo Three Stooges act trying to get it into the basement afterward.
It was a wonder my fumbling hadn’t woken her, but I was glad for it.
While she was stuck as the wolf, we couldn’t really communicate outside of me asking yes or no questions. Barking would probably be easier for her to do than nodding or shaking her head, but I didn’t know if her pride was going to let her.
She clung to it so desperately.
It’s all she’s had for years, after all. Of course she’d cling to it.
And with that, I had made myself sad again.
I cooked mine first, eating it while cooking hers - bacon and eggs, minus the poison this time, with a slice of ham fried in the bacon fat as an extra treat. It was going to piss her off, but there really wasn’t much of a choice other than a plastic bowl for her food to go in. I wasn’t giving her anything breakable, even though she didn’t have hands just then.
I diced the ham, crumbled the bacon, and mixed it all together with the scrambled eggs. At least she’d get to taste everything in each bite.
Before I headed down, I reapplied the diluted rose potion - even if it wasn’t doing anything, it might not be awful to use it as a regular perfume, just to give her a scent to associate with me. For better or for worse.
I called to her as I climbed down the stairs. “Okay, breakfast is served.”
She growled at me as I pushed the bowl of her breakfast through the slot into the cage but she buried her snout in it just the same, snapping up the breakfast in three bites, licking her chops as she looked up at me.
“Well… “ I sat on the floor while she ate, watching the beautiful wolf-husky I had locked in the cage. My heart fluttered for her. "I think we're in a bit of a spot. Because of your little stunt last night, you don't have much of a choice but to stay put. You can't run like that. You're not gonna get far without collapsing from pain. I am, admittedly, also a bit sore after last night and I'm not sure I have it in me to go to work today."
I was silent, looking into those eyes that I was growing to adore. What should we do? We couldn't talk. I couldn't really work with her like this. I was half-tempted to call River to ask if she had any advice for dealing with a wound like this.
But that might just cause more problems.
"So... how about we relax and watch some movies?"