3/30/2026, 2:41 PM
Skill: Healer (bwp)
Elaine stumbled through the second door on Rivers heels: light‑headed, breath catching, paws skidding on the sudden shift of earth beneath her. Whatever tether had formed between them since her fall from the sky tugged tight now, an instinct older than language whispering stay with him, stay beside him, protect him. But the moment her mismatched eyes lifted, the world stole the breath from her chest. The Great Tree.
Alive. Ancient. Dying.
The air was thick with rot and grief, the kind that clung to the lungs and tried to crawl under the skin. Wraiths writhed like smoke made cruel, tearing at roots older than memory, sinking their claws into bark that pulsed with fading light. Each strike dimmed the branches above, draining color, draining hope. Elaine's hackles rose in a slow, deliberate wave. The whispers scraped at her ears: wrong, hungry, cold, but beneath them she felt something else. A plea. A heartbeat. A trembling endurance that resonated through her bones like a struck chord.
Stand fast.
Her gaze snapped to the hollow at the tree's base. Two skeletal guardians curled protectively around the tender gold‑flecked sprouts pushing through the soil. Gold Turtlehead, the cure, the fragile promise of life against the Parasite's ruin. And the wraiths were trying to rip it all away. Elaine's breath steadied. Her paws planted. The fear that had chased her since the skyfall burned away, replaced by something fierce and bright. She stepped forward, placing herself between the wraiths and the sprouts, between the rot and the roots, between death and the male she'd followed through the door without hesitation. Rivers' presence at her flank grounded her, but the resolve rising in her chest was wholly her own. "No," she growled. Quiet, but carrying the weight of a healer who had seen too much loss already. "You will not have this." Her white fur bristled, catching the dim light like frost catching fire. The Great Tree's pulse fluttered against her senses, thin but still fighting. Elaine lowered her head, teeth bared, stance widening. If the tree falls, hope falls with it. And she would not let that happen.
Not while she still drew breath.
Not while Rivers stood beside her.
Not while any part of her could still stand between the world and its breaking.
"Come then," she whispered to the wraiths, voice steady. "Try."
![[Image: 115855725_9X4DTC8VVVLkTXo.png]](https://f2.toyhou.se/file/f2-toyhou-se/images/115855725_9X4DTC8VVVLkTXo.png)
