Spiders: Does your muse squish bugs or put them outside?
Yuki tends to just squish them, she’s often busy with work and dealing with metals she cannot afford to time to take bugs outside should they show up in her forge.
So this started from a prompt on the Sha’tor’s website. We were supposed to write our characters taking in refugees from Teldrassil. It turned into Khaam adopting kind of a daughter/little sister figure lol
Panic. Reassurance. Chaos. Healing.
The Kaldorei were appearing faster than the draenei could keep track of. Far off in the distance, the world tree Teldrassil was on fire, and dozens upon dozens of refugees were arriving by boat, portal, or hippogryph on the shores of the Myst Isles. Khaamara had been helping her mother with dinner when she heard the commotion in the halls of the Exodar. They had peeked out the window and followed the other draenei up and out of the ship to see what was going on, only to find with horror the atrocity that was occuring.
Xunaara, an incredibly powerful mage, did what she could helping to keep portals to Teldrassil open. It proved to be difficult, however, with the fires raging and threatening to come through the portals. Still, she and many other mages were able to get civilians through, who were then immediately tended to by draenei with expertise in healing.
One of those draenei was Khaamara. Though she was more skilled in healing the land rather than people, she wasn’t completely clueless, and worked hard to get cuts to stop bleeding, consciousnesses returned, and panicked victims calmed.
“Help! Somebody, this girl is hurt! Help!”
Khaamara turned to the source of the cry to see a Sentinel dragging a young draenei girl off a tired hippogryph. The girl was unconscious and badly burned. As Khaamara jogged over to help, she curled her hand into a fist and punched down into the air. As she did, a small crater of rock appeared next to the hippogryph. It startled it, until it noticed a swirl of blue appearing in it. Khaamara had filled it with water, and the hippogryph gladly began to drink.
“Hello, soldier, are you hurt?” Khaamara asked the Sentinel as she approached, kneeling down next to her and the girl. The child was small, her dark purple hair fashioned into a low ponytail. Even singed, it still was quite long. Khaamara was more worried about her light blue skin, however, and the darker blue that indicated burned areas.
The Sentinel shook her head. “I’m fine. I need to tend to the others. Can you handle this?” she asked.
“I will do what I can,” she promised, and the Kaldorei took off. “What is your name?” she asked the girl as she assessed her, unsure if she would even respond. She didn’t think any part of her wasn’t burned. It didn’t look good.
To Khaamara’s surprise, however, the girl’s eyes fluttered open.
“Tuulia. My mommy is Hyaala,” the girl said. Her voice was weak and raspy, and she coughed after she spoke. There is still smoke in her lungs, Khaamara assumed.
The shaman flashed a short smile. “Tuulia and Hyaala. Beautiful names,” she commented. She pulled her water totem off her belt and it grew to the size of her torso. She forced it into the ground and watched as it began to glow and pulse healing waters around the area. Khaamara directed them to Tuulia before conjuring her own healing water, blanketing Tuulia’s chest and forehead in an attempt to fix any damage in her vital organs. As she worked, Khaamara tried to keep the girl awake. “Where is your mother? And what happened to you?”
“We were taking a tour of the world tree,” she explained in a whisper, speaking slowly. “When the fires started, we ran to Darnassus for safety, but when we got there the city was on fire, too, and part of a building fell…” Tuulia choked up a bit. “Part of a building fell on us,” she finished. “I don’t know where my mommy is.”
“You’re very brave, you know,” Khaamara said, her arms and hands waving back and forth as she worked the water all over Tuulia’s body. “And very strong. Not many could survive something like that.” She stopped, realizing the implications of her statement, especially when the girl’s mother was still missing.
Tuulia watched her face, which made Khaamara a bit uneasy. “What are you doing?”
“I’m using water to heal you,” she explained. “It should cool you off and mend your burns.” She looked at the girl. “How do you feel?”
She took a deep breath, coughed harshly, then sighed. “Better.”
Khaamara smiled and gently brushed her hand over Tuulia’s forehead. “That is good. I will stay here with you until you feel one hundred percent better, okay?”
Tuulia did not answer, just closed her eyes. She was exhausted, Khaamara knew, but she would rather she stay awake rather than fall unconscious and possibly never open her eyes again. “Tuulia,” she said softly, “can you tell me what your favorite part about Teldrassil was?”
“Ah...the wisps,” she replied. “They are so pretty. And magical. I want to live in the forest with them.”
Khaamara chuckled. “When this war is over and you are all better, I will take you to see even more wisps. Would you like that?”
“Can my mommy come with?” Tuulia asked and coughed.
“Of course she can.” Khaamara’s totem stopped pulsing. It had run out of healing properties and would need to recharge. She placed a hand on it, silently thanking the water for its help, and attached it to her belt again as it shrank down to the size of her fist.
“Then yes. I would like that…” She fell unconscious again, this time with a smile on her face, no doubt thinking of the wisps.
***
Tuulia awoke in a bed. For a moment she thought she was home. And then the memories flooded back to her. The orders of the Sentinels to get to safety. The first rumble of the tree that indicated something was wrong. The smoke. The terrifying glow of fire everywhere. Her mother’s hand in hers. Running. Collapsing. Pain.
Tuulia’s eyes filled with tears. Her physical pain was better, but her emotional pain was something else entirely. Where was her mother?
“Ah, you’re up!”
Her head snapped to the source of the voice. It was not her mother. Rather, it was the woman who had saved her.
“Here, I brought you some food in case you were hungry,” Khaamara said as she set a plate of buttered rolls on the nightstand. “So...how are you feeling?”
Tuulia sat up, carefully, bracing herself for any pain. There was almost none. “I’m kind of sore,” she said.
“That’s normal. You had a couple of broken ribs. A priest was able to set the bones back in place but it will take time for them to mend together again.” She stopped, seeing that Tuulia could not be less interested. “Your mother…”
“Did they find her?” she asked, her eyes searching Khaamara’s frantically.
She nodded. “They did,” she said as she went to sit on the edge of the bed. “Tuulia...she didn’t make it.”
“What?” The girl’s heart sank. Was she hearing this correctly? No...it had to be somebody else. They got her mixed up. She was still out there. She had to be.
“I’m so sorry,” Khaamara started, but she barely finished before Tuulia spoke again.
“How do you know it was her?”
“She told them. The Sentinels who got to her. They said that she wants you to know she loves you. That she’ll always be with you. You are her katethi.”
Her katethi. Her everything. Her mother always called her that. Tuulia laid back down, staring at the ceiling. At that moment, she felt nothing.
“Tuulia?”
“Yes?”
“I know how you feel. I lost my father for the second time a few months ago.” Khaamara carefully placed a hand on hers, unsure of how she would react. She didn’t. “It is...unbearable. But I am here for you. To talk, or to hug, or just to sit with.”
It took her a minute, which felt like ten to Khaamara, but Tuulia sat up and threw her arms around the shaman. She began to cry, but not because she was sad. She still felt nothing, but one is supposed to cry when somebody they love dies. So that’s what she did.
