The Hovering Ingress: The Hidden World

Chapter 31

Similarities

Two Sune Cycles Later

Xengu slowly trudged her way to the wooden shack in the middle of the modern town, spotting Lettie leaning against the selling cart. Bruises riddled her body and it made her sore and stiff, so, where else to go other than the healer's hut? The black labrador turned to look at the panther and perked up, cheerily waving to her. The panther stared at her for a moment before looking around. She didn't want to get caught being friendly, so she simply waved a hand before walking up to the hut's door.

She quietly pushed it open and peeked her head in, looking around through the natural light. Just before Xengu could utter a 'hello?', there was a soft blow in a corner of the room. The walls and shelves of potions and powder containers were illuminated by the soft glow, and the winged feline watched as Jordain came around the corner.

"Good afternoon, Xengu. Looks like you got yourself in a bit of a tussle, hm?" the elderly wolf hummed, walking over to a lamp and holding an illuminated candle to it.

"Yeah, training and all of that..."

The light gray wolf smiled and waved a hand to the panther for her to walk toward the bed in the room. Quietly Xengu walked over and sat down, grunting at the hard surface that bit back at her. She looked up and watched as Jordain headed over toward another lantern and lit it up. The panther stared at the dancing flame inside for a long while before glancing to the wolf.

"Why do you keep everything so... erm..."

The panther struggled to find the right word when Jordain walked over and chuckled calmly.

"Natural?"

"Yeah, that."

The wolf sighed and set down the candle on a table and walked over to a shelf, pulling a jar of powder toward her.

"It's because it allows the ingredients and solutions to work properly. The presence of electricity could screw up everything in so many ways," Jordain explained.

Xengu watched as the wolf set the jar down and walked over to another shelf, grabbing a potion and some gauze.

"How so?" she asked, tilting her head.

"The majority of the ingredients here need natural light, and the illumination from our modern lights might make them shrivel. They're quite strange from normal plants that way."

Jordain then walked back to the table with the jar and candle and took out a small bowl. She took a measuring spoon and dipped it in the jar of powder and dumped the contents in the bowl. Quietly she grinded down the powder to make it fine and then dripped some of the potion into the bowl. A small puff of blue smoke puffed in her face and she coughed, waving it away before continuing to grind the potion into the powder.

Once she was done, she had an interesting paste solution and took a spreading knife and put it on a strip of gauze. Xengu scrunched her nose as the smell of sharp herbs and tangy potion filled the air, making her sneeze.

"Bless you," the wolf chuckled as she took the gauze strip and wrapped it around Xengu's arm where a bruise burdened her.

Jordain repeated the same actions to put the paste on the bruises and scrapes before sighing as she set the bowl of paste to the side of a sink. Xengu sat stiffly on the bed, watching as the wolf put away the ingredients to the paste. The panther's fur felt weird with all of the sticky paste on it, and she felt restrained with all of the gauze. She knew it was for the sake of her own good, but man was it uncomfortable.