A whole day had passed when Astir emerged from his slumber. Gwalarn was close to him, sleeping soundly. He couldn’t see the path where they were before. It seems that he was in a small cavity, covered by bushes. Some water was dripping close by. He couldn’t see it but at least he could hear it. The floor was covered in dry moss. Gwalarn had probably taken him here in order to protect him. He was covered in the criollo saliva and was hurting all over. His limb was badly injured, some piece of wood had pierced him when he was rolling down. It was dark outside but Astir had no way to know if it was actually the night or due to an eclipse. After groaning in pain, he tried to sit to attend to his injuries and see if Gwalarn was hurt like him.
Just sitting took him a whole hour. When he was done, he was panting soundly. A grin appeared on his face, his pain was greater in this position but he needed to do it to be able to bandage himself. After touching around him, he noticed that his bag was still with him. A stroke of luck in this situation. He opened it hastily and started to pat in it to find medicinal herbs and bandages. But due to rolling around the mountain he loose a lot of stuffs and could only find some of his medicinal herbs. He choose to use what was left of his clothes to make bandages and to look later, when Steredenn would be up, to gather and evaluate what he had left. His whole attention was on two things : bandaging himself and avoiding collapsing again. Chewing the herbs and spreading them on his wound took him around thirty minutes. He wanted to take a break and think about the situation before attending to Gwalarn but the pain was to great and apart concluding that it was not the first eclipse due to the time lapse, he fall into slumber again. Without having the time to look for Gwalarn. The only thing reassuring was the breathing and the warmness coming from the criollo.
Astir completely lost track of time. His days were rythmed by the pain he was feeling, the movement of Gwalarn next to him and his poor attempts to stand up. When there was light he had observed how the place they were staying was like. It felt like they were inside a tree but not only as they was some rocks and sand on the side. The cavity wasn’t that deep and was slightly curved. It was approximately seven meters long. If you stand at the end of it you can’t see the entrance anymore. Some water was forming a small waterfall, it was rolling on the wall made of wood. Some excavation was forming small niches were it was possible to stock stuff or hide meat and fruits.
Approximately five days had passed when he was finally able to sit normally and walk a bit. Gwalarn wasn’t as hurt as him. He only had small bruises all around his body. That was probably due to his thick fur and skin. Thankfully for Astir, Gwalarn could take care of himself and had a strong enough bond to him to not abandon him as a dead weight. So instead of running away, the criollo was taking care of Astir by bringing some prey, well more like some part of the prey since he would usually eat at least one half of it by himself. And Gwalarn was licking the leontopo daily in an attempt to clean him. That was very comforting for the teenager since he was lost, far away from the last living person he knew. And he wasn’t even sure that Septem was still alive. She might as well have been killed by the lumoks or had fall somewhere too.
He was frustrated because he didn’t have any way to verify that she was fine. He wasn’t even capable of taking care of himself right now so how could he’ll be able to help someone else. Astir ruminate his thoughts at every conscious moments. He was trying to improve his health to wander around and go down the mountain to try to join the others in Commelina. Which was their destination with Septem. Little did he know at this moment that finding a clue of what happened up there would take him seven years.
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