ReBirth Of The Primordial

She had been naive and hadn't taken the opportunity to evaluate herself. A gross overture. It was fortuitous she did not get Dagan or Sorcha killed. Io eventually made it to the route she taken to find the kids, her gate smooth and fluid to keep from jarring Dagan or Sasha's wounds and agitating them further as she returned to the sanctuary of the forest.

Io passedby a slew of places along the way. Each was tempting for them to rest in, but there were no alternatives for bandages. Io figured she would just need to backtrack to where she had rinsed off at the stream. There she had seen a variety of broad-leaf grasses, so hopefully, some of them would be a decent substitute.

Was she mad at herself? Yes. They were lucky that she had gotten there in time, but it was been her fault that she had scared the twins in the first place. The last time Dagan had been this injured had been the night that she brought him and Sorcha home.

Io felt a knot form in her stomach. She needed time to ȧssess their new reality. Things here were different. Io didn't think that she needed to worry about humans, which was fine with her. However. She had not expected that would be creatures that would try to eat her siblings. Nothing in her previous world prepared her for this.

Aside from the new world issue, Io had to re-learn her capabilities. It had the sun had set and risen and was now setting for the second time. That all the time that they had been in this world. Io was good at surviving, but this really threw her for a loop. It just wasn't possible to learn all the ins and outs of a body. Let alone one that was of a completely different species.

It was irksome that she couldn't control herself, especially when her instincts hijacked her rationality. Though admittedly, part of it was her fault. She was mistaken in the thought that her mind had healed more than it had from previous traumas, and her inattention had cost Dagan and Sorcha.

What concerned Io the most right now, though, was Dagan. Given the severity of his wounds, the boy would be lucky if she somehow got Sorcha to bandage the wounds well enough to do their job and not just wrap the boy up. As Io passed through the trees, she'd occasionally flick her tail around her, collecting a branch or two to keep Sorcha supplied with the makeshift bandages. It wasn't perfect because of the leaves burning, but Sorcha seemed unperturbed by the heat, and Dagan's shallow wounds were slowing down.

Once they reached the stream, Io gently lifted her sister and then brother off her back and settled them on its stony banks. While Sorcha held onto her brother, Io scoured the nearby area for anything that could be remotely useful.

What she discovered were strange-smelling juicy lumps when she broke open some head-sized hollow pods. With a slight push, Io split these pods. Not one to waste potential food, Io laboriously emptied the jelly-like substance into one half and filled the other with water. Once she'd finished the 3 halves, Io carefully wrapped her tail around two of them, grabbed the third with her mouth, and returned to Sorcha.

Sorcha sat on the stone banks, her hands keeping pressure on a grizzly wound on Dagan's back. Io could feel a growl forming at the sight of the wound as she drizzled the water onto Dagan's wounds. As soon as the liquid touched the wounds, a blast of steam hit their faces. Dagan grimaced, but his blood cooled down and formed crusts. Sorcha and Io left the crusts alone and just wrap them. Between the crust and the bandages, that would be enough. Once Io finished pouring water all over Dagan, his skin was more crust than not.

Where Dagan had scales, dents could be seen, but they had done their job in protecting vital and vulnerable areas. Io made waded through the waters to where the two-meter tall plants grew and grabbed a mouthful of stalks that were attached to the grass. The stalk itself was nothing to write home about, but the leaves were about half a meter wide. Plenty wide enough to bandage Dagan. Io dipped the two empty pods she had carried with her tail and made her way back to Sorcha.

Dagan was always there for Sorcha. Anytime there was danger, he would push his twin behind him, ready to keep his sister safe. Io knew that this directly resulted from what they, or rather Dagan, had gone through prior to meeting her. That if he had not been there protecting Sorcha, she most likely would have died. That driving instance to protect was one thing Io admired about the boy when she had first found the siblings, and it was certainly something Io could understand.

As they bandaged Dagan, the wet leaves did as Io had hoped and turned the crust into mud. This would allow Dagan to move without the crust breaking off. Once they were finished it was time to wrap Sorcha's wounds. Which was considerably more complicated. Where they could just water on Dagan and his blood literally turn to crust, Sorcha bled what looked and smelled like water. The difference lay in the type of bandage.

Where all of Dagan's bandages had to be wetted, Sorcha's bandages had to be dry-almost flakey plant otherwise her wounds just passed through, albeit slowly. The dryness of the plant when wetted created an almost plaster-like effect and stopped the blood flow soon enough. They managed it though and after Sorcha was cleaned and wrapped up, Io returned to the river herself and submerged her bloodied body once more to rinse off all the crusted blood.

If the twins weren't injured, this would be the most luxurious experience in their life. Wait, scratch that, it would have been amazing if the twins could have played in the water too. Io thought, then added 'swimming' to the growing list of things to teach her siblings. While this area was nice, it was not ideal. There was no place to put their backs against, and chances were that there would be a variety of other creatures and beasts that would come to the river in order to get a drink.

Finished with her hygiene, Io swam back to the bank. As she got out, Io noticed that one of the juice-filled lumps she had brought over before her bath had a small bite taken out, but nothing more. Io huffed at Sorcha and when she had the little ice cube's attention, she nosed the opened pod towards Sorcha.

"Yuck!" Sorcha answered, her adorable, fey-like face twisting in disgust.

'Great, just great. What do I fee-' Io's thought stopped midway as something caught her eye. She turned towards the river and saw something moving.. Whatever it was, though it was gone just as quick, she thought before turning back to face Sorcha, only to find that Sorcha had disappeared.