Preparation to Lose

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Sitting there, with the cub sleeping on the bed behind him, he accepted again what he had thought he'd accepted long before. He could not be indignant for himself or for the bypassing of his rights-because he deserved nothing.

And so, he turned his thoughts instead to what the cub deserved.

He determined at last to be at least a part of what he had once been, until the cub's struggles were over. Cub deserved that much, if nothing else; not to die lonely and uncomfortable with a sour old hunter who was nameless even to himself. If Cub was having to die, he deserved to die with someone who had the ability to sympathise. And he became Rowan again.

Rowan was the name that his sire had given him when he and his littermates were born, and it had been put aside with the rest of his former life when he left his tribe, like a magic word which held in its few syllables everything that he had been and was no more. There was no one here to call him by a name, just as there was no one to care about or make an effort for, and the taking on of his old name felt like a silent acknowledgement that for the moment, there was just such a person. And, though it was not very much, it was something. He was not the free, loving, careless Rowan of his cubhood days, but he was someone with a name and an identity, who could think and feel and be companionable to a point.

He would not become deeply involved with the cub and its dimming life no matter how hard the gods plied that on him, but he could be good to it and let it have its last moments of peace. He would not love it, but he could care for it, as a generous man may care for a stranger. He would give it what it needed without taking hard-won security from himself.

Having thought his dilemma out into the most careful of details, the new-remade Rowan let himself turn to planning for the days and nights of nursing ahead. He had gathered what hardy winter herbs he could find during his hunt for the rabbits, and now, he sorted through the thick wad of leaves and set them into bunches according to their use. One would be helpful with congestion if that was a problem, while another would encourage the fever to be productive in sweating away whatever mysterious poisons had invaded Cub's small body; still others were only useful for small, unimportant things like coughs, and these plants Rowan laid by and ignored.

By the time all of the greens were sorted and laid in rows in the niche where the stores were kept, the cub was beginning to stir. Rowan, used to sleeping for up to a day at a time in the boring, drab winter months, was surprised until still another unwelcome memory pushed its head up, of long winter days spent playing with his littermates. Filled with the reckless energy of youth, they had never wanted to go to sleep for more than a short nap. The cub must have gotten used to the same.

He quickly pushed the remembrance away.

"Cub," he found himself saying to the round, cloudy pair of eyes peeking from within the bed-heap of fur. "Did you sleep well?"

The cub paused to think before nodding, and though it was a silent reply, Rowan could see the smile crinkling its face. He gave it a nod in return.

"Good." Selecting a few leaves from the array, he pressed them into the cub's hand. "Eat these. They will help your body to fight, when the time comes." He explained himself better when faced with the cub's questioning look. "Your body must prepare, to have strength it will need for the illness. You know you are sick, do you not?"

The cub's expression clouded. It nodded sadly. For a moment it seemed to be deep in thought; then, its body's form submissive and meek, it made a little gesture towards Rowan and back towards itself, showed the herbs, and made the gesture again. Rowan, after some thought, decided that it meant to ask why he was caring for it. He snorted and put off a bit, trying to think of a suitable explanation.

"You were sent to me," he muttered finally, staring hard at the leaves in the cub's hand. "I would not oppose the will of the gods. I will take care of you until it is no longer needed."

At this, the cub nodded so hard that Rowan knew what had been done without looking up. It reached up a tiny hand to pat the side of the older Kindred's face. Rowan sighed, pushing the comforting caresses out into open air with a weary hand.

"I do not suppose that you would like to sleep again," he mused aloud, almost hopeful that he was wrong, but the cub shook its head agreeably and slid its bare feet out from under the covers. The smile it gave Rowan was wide and helpful.

Rowan's insides winced.

"Well, then..." he began slowly, his brain working rustily to find something to occupy the cub with. No hard work; not only was the cub sick, there was also none to be done. No cleaning needed. The bed had gotten rumpled, but the cub, having put the herbs in its mouth and begun chewing diligently, was already setting that straight. The only thing Rowan really did in winter was catch food and eat it... Maybe they could prepare something for the next meal? Rowan remembered vaguely that he had favoured certain foods as a cub; he wondered if the cub did, and what they might be. It might be hard to get the cub to eat as the sickness went on, he told himself, and it would be useful to know what things might tempt it.

"What would you like to eat?" he asked. "For the dusk meal?"

The cub looked immediately thoughtful. It rubbed absently at one of its bruises, making a face presumably of pain as it did, then smiled once more and rose on wobbly legs. Rowan trailed it to the storage niche, where it bent and took out an assortment of root pieces, mostly wild carrot and spider's-web (it seemed to favour these, Rowan noticed), and some wild sage.

Rowan shot it a glance of question.

Smiling still, it gestured at the rabbit skins on the wall, then to Rowan, making movement with its hands like a hopping creature and the hunter pursuing it. Rowan grunted his understanding.

"Are you very hungry?" he asked next, and the cub thought once more before shaking its head. It made a comforting cradle about its belly, as if to say that it was feeling the effects of the illness.

"Just two then." It was said half to himself; he was getting comfortable with his voice again, and using it didn't seem so odd. The cub tugged sharply at his furs, big green eyes questioning, gesturing in its familiar way, and it took him a moment to realise that it wanted to know what it was supposed to do while he was gone. Apparently, it had realised at some point after he came back that he hadn't liked it meddling in his things without permission.

His discomfort with the situation eased just a little more.

"Do as you did before," he said. "So we do not have to wait." He didn't admit that it had felt good, once the jealousy of his things had passed, to come home to a carefully made meal as other males of his age did.

So he went out alone and caught the meat for their supper, and when he returned, the cub had sliced up the crisp roots and the fragrant leaves into bite-sized pieces and arranged them neatly in the shallow bowl, prepared to be mixed with the chunked rabbit flesh that Rowan set immediately to work on. They ate together in silence, the same as they had that morning, but the atmosphere was not the same at all. There was something nearly home-like about that meal; some understanding and companionship that had not been felt in the hunter's heart for decades of the empty life which stretched out behind him. And that night, when it was time to bid goodbye to another long day, Rowan found that he could almost forgive the gods for what they had done to him in sending the cub.

When he and the cub curled up under the furs in the bed and slept, Rowan's dreamless slumber was deep and undisturbed.

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