Hazel eyes swam over each new face as it returned, bloody and swollen from the skirmish they had been in. Fie Eoin had never been in any sort of war with any other tribe, but the occasional skirmish over hunting grounds and fishing rights would erupt with one of the tribes along the river Stratton and the warriors would go and set things right where the High Priestess could not. So far, no one had any news of who had won and who had lost, but judging by the defeat written on the faces of the warriors filing back into the village, Kindra guessed that the Seven Tribes would be hunting elsewhere this season.
The strength in her toes finally failed and she rolled back onto her foot with a frown. She would have climbed a tree but that was so high and she wouldn't be able to run to her father's arms right away if she was stuck up in a tree. Of course, she wouldn't be able to run to him right away if she was stuck behind all these portly women either.
Tapping on the woman’s shoulder before her, Kindra tried to push through. "Learn some manners," the woman scoffed and shifted her weight when she realized which of the sisters it was trying to get through.
Kindra stood back in blatant shock. "I was trying to be polite about it, but if you want to be that way I'll just force my way through." She elbowed the woman with her wiry frame just enough to get through and turned to smiled pleasantly over her shoulder at the other, whose face had turned red in anger. "Thank you," she turned to look again for her father.
The woman started to make an angry comment in her direction, but all sound was suddenly coming through cotton as Kindra recognized the face and frame of her father. Her heart was beating in her throat and her limbs seemed numb as she stared at the broken, bloody body carried between two other warriors.
"R..rabbit?" came out as a whisper. It wasn't her father's warrior name, but she had been teasing him since she was seven that his mark looked more like a fuzzy little bunny than the fennec fox that it actually was. Starting forward towards the warriors she spoke a little louder, "Fennec? Father?"
Hysteria was coming into her voice and movements as she pushed the closest warrior's restraining hand off her shoulder. "Father!"
One swollen eye squinted open as he drew a rasping breath. "My little angelfish," he smiled with cracked and bleeding lips.
Kindra's knees gave out as she fell to the ground in relief. He was not dead. Not yet crept into her mind but she pushed it out with her tears. He was not dead and the High Priestess could heal him.
~~~~~~~
"Most of his wounds are internal," the muffled voice from the other side of the thick deerskin hide hit Kindra's ears like sharp metal. "He's got broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and multiple minor wounds." There was a pause and her ears picked up a sob. "I don't know. If it doesn't get infected perhaps he will live to old age, but he will never fight again."
Kindra caught her own sob in her throat as her mother opened the flap of the tent and came in. Her mother... her mother must have looked like her sister when she was younger, but today she looked old. Old and beaten. If it turned you old and beaten Kindra was never going to love a man like her mother loved her father.
"Fennec?" Her mother cooed at the still form on the bed, "Andric?" He didn't respond and Kindra started to panic again.
"Rabbit!"
"Yes, little fish?" he breathed in pain.
Kindra closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Good."
"Are you thirsty Andric?" Kindra's mother and father had known each other before her father had become a warrior and been given the name Fennec. When she was worried or angry she still called him by his birth name.
Imperceptibly he shook his head and a wince that could only be seen around his eyelids followed. His breathing leveled out until he was sleeping soundly again and Loria, Kindra's mother, pushed her out of the tent to go find her sister. Kindra was dead set on staying next to her father's side until he was either dead or better, but Loria insisted. Kaye probably hadn't been told yet, she reasoned, and Kaye was the one person in the family who could make him most comfortable.
Most comfortable? She says it like he's dying! Wiping a palm across her face to clear away any tears that might have left a mark, Kindra left the tent and headed towards the cliff where the apprentice priestesses always trained.
~~~~~~~
Breaking out of the comforting shade of the tree line and into the bright grassy plain of the cliff made Kindra's heart race - the grass only extended a hundred feet or so before disappearing off the end. And there was her sister, sitting with her feet over the edge of the Eoin-damned cliff with a group of young priestesses.
Grabbing onto a young birch as her head started to spin, Kindra called out her sister's name a little shyly. Kaye’s long golden hair caught in the wind as she turned, and she showered her twin sister with a smile as bright as that of the sun as she pulled herself up from the edge of the cliff to jog over.
"Are they back?" Kaye asked with her bird-like voice, mistaking Kindra's fear of heights as the cause of her sister's pale demeanor.
"Yes," Kindra managed and turned her back to the cliff, her sister following the movement so she could watch the mirrored face.
"What happened?" She was alarmed now – her sister’s behavior wasn’t just from her fear of heights.
"Mom wants you to come home and make him 'comfortable'," Kindra let out sardonically.
"Oh Trina," Kaye covered her mouth with her slim fingered hand. Did Kindra really have to be so caustic? Why couldn't she just say, 'dad was hurt, he needs your help'? But now was no time to get in an argument over her sister's bad manners.
~~~~~~~
As days and weeks went by Fennec's cuts and bruises slowly melted away, back into his tanned skin until they were nothing more than another battle scar and a memory. He became alert, aware, and could sit up with some help. He talked, although not much, and his voice still had a raspy, breathy quality which had never been there before. He teased Kindra, and gave her pointers on fighting, and made sure to tell Kaye how proud he was of her.
Within, however, things were not healing. The High Priestess had slowed the process some, but his broken ribs, punctured lung, and countless leaking arteries were all festering in the summer's heat. Pneumonia struck him with large, heaving coughs that made the shattered pieces of rib rub together painfully. The blood that lie in his punctured lung came up with each cough until they thought he would bleed to death through his mouth. The blood that lie elsewhere in his body harbored bacteria from the dirty weapons, and soon infection spread to his heart, to his liver, to his brain. Slowly his skin turned yellowed with jaundice, his bloodshot eyes clouded over, and he could not tell the twins apart.
Kindra sat with him for long hours that she could have been practicing; she would not leave him for fear he would slip away without her. Many times he woke and called her Kaye, and she gently reminded him.
One day he woke with clear eyes and mind and turned to her. "Little fish," he rasped and she sat up and leaned over. "Little fish, you must promise me something."
"Anything father," she said with an eager smile. She would do anything to help him.
"Practice. Practice everything I have taught you. And when you are ready, go to the warriors and train, and become one of them. Promise me Kindra." His clear, painful eyes looked up at her and she could not say no, although she knew that it would be hard and they wouldn't want to let her join.
"I will Fennec. I promise, Rabbit." She squeezed his hand and he smiled as his eyes clouded over once again and he fell back into his dreamless sleep.
The next morning, he was gone.
Fennec Odion was given a proper memorial as a warrior fallen in battle. They burned him on the cliff where the smoke rose to Aleda to pronounce him one with the highest earth again.