Chapter Five: Hands-Free

No hands…the Fox would have to pull the thorn out with his teeth… Moonshadow cringed as those gleaming fangs drew closer and closer, the Fox's lips pulled back in a snarl.

The thorn was embedded deeply, and the Fox began chewing to get at it. But he was growling low in his throat, and Moonshadow knew with cold certainty that his intent was not to help.

"No…stop…" he moaned, curiously unable to move.

The Fox looked up at him, his eyes gleaming with all the primal ferocity of a wild fox. "The book is mine!" he growled. "Mine, mine, mine!"

"No!" Struggling to get away, Moonshadow awoke with a start — then cringed back to find a Fox's nose inches from his face.

"Easy," Rawlstow soothed. "I just need t'check yer temperature."

He wasn't snarling, Moonshadow realized, and again wondered if their earlier confrontation had been a dream as well. The Fox's voice was the same — but then all Foxes sounded alike to him anyway. And surely he would not be here helping him if they had truly parted on such bad terms!

He flinched only a little as a cool nose briefly touched his temple, and then the Fox was pressing a curious metal plate to his chest.

"Yer heart is poundin'," Rawlstow noted in concern.

"Dream…" Moonshadow murmured, and Rawlstow nodded in relief, understanding that the centaur had just waked from a nightmare, and was still experiencing the aftereffects.

"Are y'in any pain?" he questioned.

"Hoof," Moonshadow managed. "Thorn…" Even as he spoke, he remembered the sharp, gleaming teeth, and wondered if it would have been better to stay silent. But he did need help, and the Fox seemed friendly enough and of course only centaurs could truly claim to be healers, but surely all those Creatures wouldn't have spoken so well of him if his methods were truly barbaric…

His eyes closed as his thoughts moved in a feverish swirl, Moonshadow didn't see as Rawlstow tossed the listener around his neck and jumped from the root he had been standing on. Taking some herbs from the sporran at his side, he mixed them into a cup of water, then once more mounted the root. "Drink," he ordered firmly. "'Twill help with yer fever."

Moonshadow sipped slowly, finding the taste strange but not unpleasant, and the liquid cool and soothing on his parched throat. He finished the dose without questioning what was in it, and only then did the Fox healer move to examine his hoof.

There were no nerves and therefore no feeling in the hard material of a hoof, but the whole area was so inflamed now that the barest touch of the Fox's inquisitive nose sent fiery agony shooting up Moonshadow's leg. He kicked out reflexively, and only the Fox's own quick reflexes in jumping back saved him from a smashed muzzle. As it was, the tip of his nose stung where the hoof had grazed him.

Rawlstow looked up into the Tree's leafy branches. "Would y'hold h's hoof fer me, please?" he requested.

A root instantly emerged from the ground beside Moonshadow's hoof, growing until it could form a loop over the centaur's fetlock a scant quarter inch from touching the inflamed flesh, and then pierced the ground once more.

At full strength and with a better angle for leverage, Moonshadow could easily have snapped through the root — or caused the Tree to withdraw it in a hurry to avoid being hurt — but as it was it held his hoof nearly immobile, and the healer was able to examine it in safety.

"Yes, I see it," he murmured, his teeth uncomfortably close as he sniffed the injury. A shudder ran over Moonshadow again; when he lashed out involuntarily it had mainly been from pain, but also fear at the thought of gleaming white teeth, chewing his hoof off…

And even if the Fox wasn't angry as it had been in his dream, to use its teeth to remove a thorn that was so deeply embedded would surely involve some chewing. And the resulting wound wouldn't be any better than the thorn…

But sharp teeth never touched him as instead the Fox drew a sort of metal pincers from his sporran, holding them with surprising dexterity between his paw pads.

He looked up apologetically at the centaur. "This will hurt; th'thorn is in t'deep t'grab hold of."

But no matter how much it hurt, at least it didn't involve teeth.

Then the Fox pressed the tips of the pincers alongside the thorn, and Moonshadow clenched his fists and his teeth in agony, determined not to cry out but unable to help a low moan.

At last the pincers gripped the thorn and Rawlstow drew it out slowly, a nasty dark thing over an inch long and nearly a quarter inch thick at the base.

Its extraction was followed by a stream of fluid, and Moonshadow gasped, suddenly covered in cold sweat and collapsing limply against the Tree as the pain eased significantly with the release of pressure.

Rawlstow glanced up at him with concern, but had his paws full for the moment as he licked the area hard to get out as much as he could. Only after he had applied a thick salve and a bandage did he hop back up on the root to check the centaur's overall condition.

Merely half conscious, Moonshadow was dimly aware of a warm tongue licking away the sweat, and was vaguely surprised that it was possible to be dried by a Fox's tongue.

"Y'need a blanket," Rawlstow told him. "P'r'aps two," he added, glancing toward the horse part of the centaur. He looked around for some Creature he could send on the errand, but the forest seemed curiously still and empty.

"I'll have t'go m'self," he realized. "Try t'keep him out a'th'wind," he added to the Tree.

I wiillll… whispered through the leaves.

"Y'just rest," Rawlstow told Moonshadow, giving his face a last comforting lick. "I sh'd b'back in half an hour." And then he was gone, gliding off through the forest as the Tree cradled Moonshadow in sheltering leaves.

Next chapter coming next week!

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