War of Djinn and Men Part 1.

With the lycans and wolves inside, Aoife gets a few books from the shelves on canine physiology, medicine and surgery. She looks over the leg briefly, and thumbs through the 3 books studying the info she wants. Angela had grabbed a few bowls of water for the dogs from the kitchen for all the wolves, then an individual bowel for each lycan. They all take to the water quickly, and the wolves are already affectionate to Angela like domesticated dogs. Meanwhile Aoife talks to Louve about how she feels. “Boys, the leg is broken and healing wrong, and it looks like she's got a bit of a bone infection as well.” Conri stares at Aoife and then looks up at me and paws my left leg. “ She's not ok, it's getting serious.” He looks down at Louve and nuzzles her neck.

“She says it's even getting hard to feed the pups and they will need her for another month at least.” Aoife continues. “So we need to break her leg again to reset it, Timous dear. Get some henbane and opium for her into some animal fat. Angela baby, in the kitchen cool room is a vase of goat's milk. Please heat some up and then put it in a bowl to keep the pups fed. Please don't boil it, just get it warm for them.Mark, I'll need you to re-break and set the bone, then we can immobilize the leg.after that we need to keep her comfortable and work on the infection.” Conri perks up and speaks. “Pups will not drink from louve?Louve is too sick?” Aoife turns her body to him like she's acknowledging him.” Her milk might hurt them while we treat her. So when she's better they will take her milk then.” Conri nods.

We all set up and prepare to treat her, Angela and Sassaba take the pups into the cave. Conri holds her front paws, Timous pins her good rear leg to the ground with his magic, and I prepare to pull her leg apart. When Aoife gives me the ok, I pull hard. The re-brake of the bone is audible in the room. Louves yelps. Which puts the wolves on alert, and they rush around the main room inspecting for threats. We splint her leg and start giving her the opium, henbane and animal fat. In all my training with Timous and Aoife I learned quite a few things. In very small amounts, the poisonous henbane triggers an immune response and makes you sleepy. With opium, small amounts are a pain reliever. We leave her and Conri by the fire to rest. The rest of us go into the cave and help with the pups, which isn’t hard since they sleep hard.

For the next few weeks, we let Louve rest and mend. Her meds, per Aoifes instructions, are to be given every 4-6 hours. After a few days, it really seems to be helping her immensely. Timous spends a great deal of time talking to the Lycan’s, getting their stories and strengths. Turns out lycans are captured and bred for slave hunting or animal and half breed hunts. The slavers traders who do these things and are involved in spice trades, live in the desert sea’s. Which sounds like a combination of harsh and mild deserts on the opposite side of the mountain range. They used the Lycans to hunt runaways, or even trade to royalty. Conri happened to be one of the lycans who hunted runaways, Louve was his prize for years of loyal service. His sister Sassaba, was meant to be traded off. When he found out, he alone developed a plan to escape with them. He released a few dozen lycans and half breeds. He grabbed them and took off, and was even hunted for some time.

There isn’t much depth in their stories and conversations from them not being able to speak in plain sentences, but you understand their meaning.And Timous takes most of his days speaking to them and getting their stories in a blank book, just trying to get all the facts straight. We all take turns feeding the pups, literally as often as Louve gets her medicine, usually with Conri and Sassaba or just one of them. At almost 3 weeks of healing, Louve starts putting pressure on the leg. She still has pain, and obviously she’s weak so everyone looks out to help her.

With the pups here, Angela has been getting a first rate education in canines, and their physiology. And she has been loving the wolves and pups. But she and Sassaba have been damn near inseparable. So with Louve getting better, at dusk we’ve all been going out for long walks to help her get better and to get the wolves exercising but strangely enough. The wolves start following commands from the rest of us. In short, it only took roughly 3 weeks to go from strangers to damn near family and get Louve to the point she can walk.

“Dad, Uncle Mark. Can we take the puppy’s to the river so we can all play by the river?” Timous smiles and looks to Conri, “What do you think old boy? Would you like to spend the afternoon by the river?” Conri, who is laying next to Louve by the fire, looks to Louve and then the wolves. “Let’s try.” He responds shortly after in his deep voice. Excited, Angela walks up to him and kisses his forehead. Even though they aren’t dogs, they’ve been very patient and gentle with all of us. But even more so gentle with Aoife and Angela. It’s early morning so we plan the day. We grave extra steaks for the wolves and lycans. Steaks and zucchini to turn into grilled planks for the rest of us.

Closer to noon we take our time going down our little hill, both for the pups we have in a backpack and Louves leg. The wolves start charging around and playing without a care in the world. We walk through the woods, slowly for Louve and keep an eye on Angela who is carrying all 7 pups. “Someone’s getting a lot stronger…” I say smiling at Angela. She smiles back, walking the trail intelligently placing each step with thought. Not to mention she is carrying 14-19 pounds of lycan pups on her back. As we make our way to the river the wolves start playing loudly. Barking, growling and rough housing each other. Louve finds some shade and drops to her side and in her soft growl says “ Here’s. Fine.” Coming off opium for pain management I can only imagine how exhausted she is.

Timous and I gather firewood and as the girls start feeding the pups, Louve needs a few days to get the medicine out of her body before she can nurse the babies again. Now I’ve been keeping this a secret. But since we started helping the lycans, I’ve been charging my Ki. Sending it through my body and just practicing in the house not going to the next step which would be using my Ki. A few times a week though, I sent the Ki to my head. The result was intense. I could see everyone in the house distinctively via the Ki, mana or the lycans cardiovascular systems. And the oddest part was from my room, I could see the individual pups, back in their cave and even tell who was who.

I get back to our group with a good pile of wood before Timous and look at mom. “Wanna make the announcement today?” Aoife smiles and nods, Angela, who is feeding 2 pups looks up. “Are we having a party?” Aoife smiles, “Don’t you worry yet baby… we’ll tell you.” They both smile at each other while caring for the pups as I start breaking down sticks and branches. Timous makes a ton of noise as he approaches caring just a little too much wood. “Should be a good start to some nice cooking…” then he drops several larger branches.

He and I begin working together to make a fire, the girls chatter together. As we finish building up and processing the sticks we gathered, the wolves go quiet. Conri comes up from behind me and seems agitated. He turns his body around like he’s trying to watch my back for me. “ Being watched. Not human.” Timous stands and stretches, masking his looking around. “ How many and where?” I ask the on guard lycan. His eyes go up to a large hill behind me. “Take the wolves and circle behind them. I’ll go straight up. Girls, get home.” I finish saying as stand, “Sassaba dear, a ride please?” She nods and we all start moving. Most of the wolves go with Conri up river, Sassaba, Timous and 2 wolves go a little down stream to head up the hill.

I charge dead onto the hill. It’s no joke 100 feet up, and I’m starting to wonder how I make the incline climb. I start strong but start getting hung up and slowing down halfway or so. I keep moving as hard as I can, but an idea comes to me. I remember a ninja cartoon back home, he sends his energy to his feet to walk on water. Could that help? Getting slower with every step, I start charging and channeling my Ki to my legs and feet. The first step has no change to ease or distance . The second feels lighter, like I’m being assisted. Each step gets easier as I find myself leaping what should have been several steps. As I approach the top I charge more Ki for whatever I may need. I prepare myself to summon the sword from my armor…

I reach the top of the hill with one last leap to clear the top of the hill and see a small figure in a cloak looking up to me. I land within 2 feet of him. The thing stumbles, whimpers and pants as it tries to get away from me. I wonder if this is a Djinn I’m meant to kill. Some random thing working for a djinn to find us? Conri bursts out from behind the cloaked creature and howls in its face, snarling. The creature shrieks, confusing me and making me question if it’s a threat at all. “Conri! Back off!” I scream. The other wolves join us, Sassaba and Timous are on site now. The creature pissed on itself, and continued to cry.

I take another step to it and kneel to remove its hood. It’s a child! Not a human but still a tiny pale black eyed child. He looks a bit like Timous, but the ears are longer, and his skin is paler. The thing is trembling with fear, I’m certain that we were wrong. I reach out to it with one hand, “Hey there. I'm sorry, we were scared you wanted to hurt us.” Looking like it wants to talk, all it can do is mumble and cry uncontrollably. I feel horrible for what we did to this child. I reach for it again, and pick it up. I treat it like one of my nieces or nephews. I hold him close and keep saying. “ I’m sorry, you’re ok, you’re safe.”

Timous walks over and looks up at my arms holding the child.” A halfling! Out here? So young. I’m sure that’s a leprechaun halfling… but. Whose raising him here?” Timous proclaims and questions. “We should find his family and explain ourselves… I think this little thing was just curious and we scared it to death.” I say when I notice it stops crying, I look at it. Its thumb is in its mouth and sleeping hard, I kneel to Timous. “He looks a bit different than you and Aoife.” I say to him as Conri sniffs him. Timous walks up further inspecting him, “Well most halflings are extremely different from human and non human. We aren’t sure why but some traits are exaggerated from one parent, others from the other parent. He looks pretty leprechaun to me.”

I channel my Ki to my eyes and check if he is a mana user or a Ki user… using Timous as a base comparison. His magic is in his gut, no campfire at the heart like humans. More like remnants of a campfire, just hot ashes at their guts bleeding mana to store in the leprechaun belly. But the kid I just can’t see it. I add some of my Ki to the child’s body, a sort of jump start. I see very little mana in his belly, and a small Ki fire in his heart. I tell Timous what I see, as I see it. “Interesting, he could have a lot of potential.” He tells us all. “We smell. His path.” Conri interjects. “Let's get him home before dark guys…” with all our little band in agreement we start walking down the large hill. Going further back behind the hills than we ever bothered going before.

“How far do you think it is to his home Conri?” I ask as we make our way downhill. “Camp fire, in the distance. We will find it before dark.” He answers while walking, but this time his voice is so much less guttural. I wonder if he feels bad for scaring a kid like that. “But we had to?” I ask myself in my own thoughts. “This became a family fast. As odd as we may be, If we dont look after each other anything could happen.” I glance back down at the kid following Conri as Timous and Sassaba gain pace along my side. “What if this kid is some kind of orphan? What if it's a group of orphans?” After thinking my thoughts to myself, I look at Timous and say “This could get really complicated fast…” He looks up to me from Sassabas back questioningly, I nod towards the kid. “Yes, Whether we meet a human or a fairy parent. We are gonna have some explaining to do. We continue down the path to the bottom of the hill, “How can she support your weight?” I ask Timous

“Elves and Leprechauns are rather light no matter our size, a hard wind could make us fly away.” He says sending me that famous smile of his. “For a little guy he seems pretty light…” I answered him. Timous answers back “No shock there,our babies tend to be lighter too.Ugh, do you want me to take him since he...” Timous bobs his head left and right. I wonder if he means since he's a leprechaun, and he answers my questioning face. “Because he peed.” “Oh, No. He's fine, Let's give him a chance to sleep after all that back there.” I reply once I realize what he was getting at.

We continue on a small established path, some one or animals must use it to get to the river. About 5 minutes later I look down and the kid is staring at me. “Hey little guy. We're gonna try to bring you home, are we gonna find your mom or dad there?” He stares at me and nods while he brings his hands under his chin like he's guarding his throat. “Ok little man who will we find when we get their buddy.” He just looks at me silently, I wonder if he understands. Can he talk, are you still that freaked out about what’s happening today? We keep walking as I don’t get a response and he rests his head against me. Conri speaks up, “his home. It's close.” As we continue down the path we clear some trees, and see a tiny run down lean to shelter.

As I looked at this thing while walking up to it. I saw it was flat out miserable. It had gaps in the walls, ceilings and could barely fit 2 adults. The walls were just blankets, getting even closer I can see the blankets are strung up yarn between trees. We stop a few feet away from it, I see a piss poor garden with dead plants. The soil looks more like clay than fertile land. Then I see some heavy mold on the top of the shelter blanket and more on the left corner I can see. I point to and say to the group “That mold is gonna make these people sicker than hell.” Conri walks towards it, Timous dismounts Sassaba “This is no place for a child…” Conri sniffs the mold and instantly turns “ What is that?” “It’s mold buddy, it spreads fast and humans get sick and even die from it.”

We sit around and look at this abysmal site, nothing is right or close to right. The wood is too green to burn, the fire is too close to the shelter and there is only a small pot to cook with. We set the kid down and he sits by the empty fire alone. “Let's get some fire going huh boys?” Timous asks the group. The wolves perk up, the lycans look in the same direction the wolves look. We sit and wait, Sassaba speaks up “One woman. Very sick.”

We all sit still and wait for her to come, all wondering who she is. The kid walks into the shelter and grabs a book. I watch him sit and start reading it. It’s worn in for sure, but out here it’s also got mold on it. I feel even worse for this poor kid. Then a woman stops just past the tree line and looks at our band of misfits, she tries to yell at us “Get…” she starts coughing hard and starts walking towards us, stumbling as the coughing turns violent. I glance at the kid to see if he shows us he knows her or gets scared of her, but he just looks at her. As I look back at her she drops to her face, vomits and continues to cough. The kid finally speaks up, “Mom… ”

At this point it sounds like a question Timous starts running to her, I follow. “Roll her to her side son!” I get to her and roll her “Shhh. Everyone’s ok. Just breathe”. Timous puts his head to her back to listen. She’s pale white, bluish lips and fingertips. She was sweating and cold. I know what Timous is gonna say. ''pneumonia, probably from the mold. We take them with us.” Get the boy dad.” I say as I start scooping up the woman. When I pick her up, I can feel how frail she is. She has scars on her face, neck and arms. All of them look horrible, like a bait dog who barely made it out alive. I carry her towards the group.

Timous tells the boy “Hey sonny. We are going to my home to help your mom. You're gonna come with us, I’ve got lots of books you can read there…" The boy looks at his mom and Timous holding his arms up to get picked up. Even in Timous’ arms the kid is tiny. Timous gets on Sassaba and we all start jogging the trail. Trying to get home as fast as we can, no one talks. The Lycans take point and the wolves trail us. We just fall into this line and take off, it feels amazing being able to help people. It feels better when the band of us simply come together to do it.

Through the woods we jog, getting darker and darker. I see the lycans and Timous look back periodically to make sure I’m still there, I return the favor and look back for our wolves. They are only a few feet behind me, and it reinforces the feeling like this family is functioning together like a well trained unit. We clear the hill we found the boy on, the river and the pile of sticks we gathered.

We make it to the house at the end of sunset, rushing up the hill, Conri gives a loud powerful bark. Announcing himself to Aoife and Louve, Aoife opens the door just as I get to the threshold. “Oh my dear! What is this you bringing another person here!?” Mom calls out, “She’s got bad pneumonia love, we need to help her. Take her son to the kitchen, Mark my boy!” I cut Timous off before he can finish “She can stay in my room.” I move to my room and lay her in my bed, I notice that she hasn’t bathed in a while. And then in the light of the house, I see a bit of mold on her clothes too. I make the decision to take them off her, I pull the bedding from under her and put it back to get her. I rip the shoulders of her cheap dress, and pull the clothes off her. Trying to respect her privacy. Mom walks in to see me roll the garb together. “ They are covered in mold.” I tell her as I walk by her.

I got to the living room, where Angela is feeding the kid. Just being nice to him. Her clothes go in the fireplace, I walk over and kiss her on the head “Thank you for helping sweetie”. She smiles back. The kid is too busy eating to care. I then walk back to the room, where mom is trying to wash the sick kid woman. “Where's dad?” I ask looking around, “Pneumonia needs complex medicine. He’s making it now, help me wash it will help.” I immediately start helping however mom needs me to. We even soak her hair and dry her off. Mom says, “If we let her sit in her own filth and sweat she’ll never make it…” dad finally walks In with a large alchemy beaker. “We will need to feed this to her slowly since she’s asleep…”

We start pouring the medicine in her mouth at a trickle pace. “Little bits at a time, just so she gets medicine but doesn’t choke.” Timous says allowed.