Book One: Onnu and Pannu

Tame and Tamer

Tan Cutter smelled the blood and flew to his side immediately. She didn't see the khagulo, at first, only that he was clutching his abdomen.
   "Are you okay? What happened?"
   He couldn't speak for a moment, simply pointed toward the trees. She looked, and all she saw was a ferredillo that immediately rolled into a ball with a squeak when her sharp gaze landed on it.
   "Aw c'mon, those claws are for digging. Did it fall on you, or something?"
   He shook his head. "Not my blood. Not ferredillo."
   Her head cocked to the side. He opened his arms enough to show her the wounded khagulo. Her nares flared. She had to fight the urge to gobble the small, easy prey, because Firmen was visibly distressed. He was obviously attached to the little thing.
   "It needs help?"
   "It does. Do you... Can you get us to Mira?" He hadn't missed the moment of predatory instinct.
   She turned her back and dropped to her haunches. "If I just don't look at it, we should be good. Just be quick, 'kay? I'll need to eat after that."
   "There's a young liala in there, if you get back here soon."
   An adult liala was a challenge for a gryphon, but a youngling was tempting enough to race to the Bowl and back. Tan made it in record time, and all but dumped him at the healers' feet before lunging back into the air.
   "That was... abrupt," Ginny said.
   "I told her where the liala who hurt this khagulo was. It's a youngling, and she's hungry."
   "Ah, that'll do it," she chuckled. "Wait, you said you've got a khagulo?"
   He opened his arms again, his shirt bloodied beyond a simple cleaning. The little creature was panting, eyes glazed over. A bloody swipe across its shoulders had just barely missed the jugular vein, but it was still going to take a lot of skill to save the khagulo's life. Liala claws were as large as a khagulo's head.
   "Ohhh, poor thing. Okay, let's get you cleaned and patched up, hey? It's okay, no, hey, we're trying to help you!"
   The khagulo clawed and hissed, and clung to Firmen like the tree it had lived its whole life in. He'd saved its life, but Ginny hadn't--yet. It didn't know what she was trying to do, beyond removing it from its new "tree-savior".
   "Can you do all of that with it in my lap?" Firmen asked, rather sheepishly. He was embarrassed that his new friend had behaved in such a fashion.
   Ginny resettled her shoulders. "I'll just have to try, won't I?"
   Firmen got the khagulo to curl around his arm, which he held out to Ginny. One eye warily focused on her, while the other fixed on him, to make sure he wasn't going to let her take him away again. He stroked the fur that wasn't torn, and made vague soothing noises.
   Ginny gently rinsed the wounds, which earned her a few swipes and hisses, but it was nothing she wasn't used to. She dodged the claws without seeming to notice, though they wouldn't have done much damage to her stony hide. It was one of the reasons she did what she did.
   She shaved the fur on its neck as best she could, though catkin or gryphon claws would have worked better. When it was as bald as she could get it, she patted one of their salves around the wound, but not inside, and bandaged it in such a way that she thought the edges might close. Tight enough to mend, but loose enough to allow for circulation.
   If they'd found an adequate thread, she would have stitched the wounds. Besides that, they had only managed to find needles in the form of bone or animal fangs. The latter only worked for administering medicines subcutaneously. They couldn't stitch anything, being wider at one end. The former were too thin to safely puncture holes in. She made a mental note to ask the gillnecks if there were any aquatic creatures with quills, as they hadn't found any on land yet. She thought they might hold up to puncture better.
   "Okay, little one, that's the best I can do, for now. Go see if Clay has any broth for you. I hear he's got bladder bags for feeding younglings, so if it... hang on, we can't keep calling you an 'it'. Let me look--now now, none of that. You'll need a name, and maybe some sort of collar if you can't leave your bandages alone, and what if he wants to decorate it, hmm? How shall he decorate you, eh? Fancy or dandy?"
   She managed to lift the scaly tail off of his arm just enough to get a finger into its cloaca, which he wouldn't have had the heart to do. He apologized, scratching between its ears and mumbling random nonsense until she declared that his new friend would be best dressed as fancy, rather than dandy.
   "Right, then, go get some food, young lady, and mend up nice, eh? And come back tomorrow for a bandage change."
   Firmen got up and wobbled in the general direction of the ovens. "What does fancy even mean? Everybody pretty much dresses the same around here."
   "Better'n saying 'girly' when yer talkin' 'bout a khagulo," Soot observed. "Really, didja 'spect her to say ye should gussy up a furry lizard?"
   He looked down at his new friend. "Pet" didn't seem to be the right word for such a noble species. "But she said fancy, and I don't know what that means."
   Soot stomped along beside him, fists swinging at his sides. "It means whatever ye want it should mean. Nuthin's the same here, 'member? You wanna put a bow on 'er head, then do that. You wanna swaddle 'er in some froofy fabric you think looks purty? Do that. Whatever ye take a fancy to. Now, if you'll 'scuse me, I got a forge to stoke."
   Firmen looked at the fabrics on display on his way to the ovens, and couldn't decide what he thought fancy was. He thought about it while he squeezed broth into her mouth. He also thought about what to name her, and came up blank.
   "What do I do with you?" he mused. "I know the basics: feed you, show you where the manure goes, help you drink, but beyond that, I haven't the foggiest idea."
   His little friend was no help atall. She drank her fill, and fell asleep in his lap.