"Ok, so to find better rabbits you have to go a little further south." Silver directed. "And if you need food for your cattle, there's a large patch of blueleaf near where the rabbits are - but don't take too much; I regularly scavenge there and it's taken 200 years for it to grow properly."
"Thank you, Prodigy." The doe answered, respectfully placing her palms together and bowing her head slightly.
Silver could only nod as the ranger turned and gestured for two others to follow - snatching up baskets and running southbound into the trees as the hoglet had spoken. Lucky for him, he had arrived shortly before the scavenging party had left to go find the morning meal. Had he been any later, he suspected the group might have returned empty handed. There was a reason that no one lived near the Gravity Fields. The barren wasteland was nearly dry of Chaos energy, leaving only the hardiest of plants behind to struggle in their dirtless cracks. Springwater village, the closest place where any form of society could be found to the lifeless landscape, was nearly a month's trek away. Only the most trained of survivalists could properly forage in the petrified woods. And fortunately, Silver was among them.
"Have they gotten any worse?" Silver spoke up, spying Shep emerging from his small tent with an empty water skin.
"No." The dog replied, turning to face the hoglet as he approached. "Their moans and cries were no worse than last night."
Silver raised his palm - fingers springing aglow as his aura surrounded the water skin. Surprised, Shep released the bag. It only took a mere moment for Silver to pull it to his own paws.
"Is this the last of the water?" Silver asked, turning the skin upside down and shaking it. "We need to try and get them to drink."
"We have more in the water barrel." Ria answered, jumping out of one of the wagons with a half-empty sack of grain. "But we're rationing out right now."
"Good." Silver nodded, tossing the skin back. "There isn't a water source for days."
"Does rain fall here?"
"Only during the winter months."
"Gaia have mercy on us." Shep muttered, holding his fingers to his chest and interlacing them. "Oh great Angel of the grounds below, grant us your favor and sight in this early morning hour…"
"Let's not bother him." Ria spoke up, catching Silver by the shoulder and turning him away from the praying leader. "Can you help me prepare some medicine for the ill?"
"What is he doing?" Silver asked, following the rabbit to the firepit.
"He is asking Gaia for mercy." Ria responded, grabbing a clay jar and uncorking the lid with her free hand. "We all have been…"
"People still pray to Gaia?" The hoglet gasped, jaw popping open as he stared at the rabbit.
"Of course." Ria responded, setting down the sack of grain. "Gaia is our patron deity, the guide to our lives and director of our ways."
Grabbing a carved bone from inside the jar, the ranger rabbit began to scrape the inside. Gently and carefully she scuffed at the clay. With every third scratch she swirled the vessel clockwise, letting whatever small liquid that was inside to splash around.
"You haven't met rangers before, have you." She smiled, tapping the bone against the bottom.
Silver merely shook his head.
"Fetch me some sugar, please?" Ria asked, gesturing to a small container sitting atop a stack.
With a wave of his hand, the ivory hedgehog seized the small object and pulled it towards himself. It seemed almost effortless to him now. A year ago he had struggled to control his power in this manner. Heck, he could only swing a stone about with great concentration. Now he could set his sights upon anything he pleased and just command it to his hands with an outstretched fingers and a pulling motion of his arm. Ria's surprised expression only stroked his pride as he set the jar of sugar in his palms. If only she knew how hard he had worked to achieve such minor feats.
"Wow you are very handy to have around." The rabbit smiled, taking a nearby bowl and pouring the contents of the jar into it.
Silver's nose twitched at the sour sweetness of the greyish liquid. It's strong scent was almost visible in the morning air. Rubbing his muzzle, the hoglet shifted.
"Here, stir this while I remake the broth."
Taking the spoon and bowl handed to him, the hedgehog began to mix the fluid about.
"We rangers have been roaming the globe since the days of the first fires." Ria spoke, dropping kernels of grain into the jar and grinding it about with the bone. "Our ways were the First ways - taught to us by Gaia after the planet was re-formed."
"Re-formed?"
"Every Million years, a great battle strikes our lands." The ranger explained. "The last time our Angel appeared to us was two hundred years ago. The crust of the planet split apart and the Demon of the Deep emerged. But as the cycle goes, Gaia purged the lands of its evils and restored the natural order of the wilderness."
"Woah…"
"As rangers, it is our duty to tend to the lands as if it were our own bodies." Ria smiled, grabbing a handful of sugar and adding it to the jar. "We roam the planet - seven orders for each of the seven continents."
"Shep said you guys were from the Apotos code." Silver recalled, tapping the spoon against the side of the bowl.
"Yes."
Adding water from her own waterskin, Ria gave the jar a final swirl before re-corking the lid. Standing from next to the fire, she gestured for the hoglet to follow.
"Our order tends to the air." She continued, walking towards the quarantined tent with the child on her heels. "We practice careful breathing and cleanliness of motion to respect the element that gives us all life."
Sweeping open the tent flaps, the rabbit held it ajar for the hoglet to pass through.
"However, many of our practices have been lost to the fall…" She mourned, seating herself next to her son and gesturing for the hoglet to do the same. "Most of our sacred herbs have gone extinct… their habitats destroyed in the great bleed of Chaos… We can no longer burn the ritual skyroot to cleanse the wind of its evils…"
Taking the spoon from the bowl, Ria held the grey liquid to her kit's lips. Quietly begging her son to drink, she poured the fluid into the youngling mouth. After the spoon was emptied - the ranger wasted no time in cupping her hands over his lips with great care. She sternly held it there until the protesting rabbit finally swallowed.
"There is another spoon on my belt." The ranger mentioned. "Take it and help me heal the others."
"What is this stuff?" Silver asked, taking the wooden utensil and scooping a serving from the bowl he had placed on the ground.
"It is Wool of Recovery." Ria answered, scooping a serving of her own and taking it to the next child. "Our kind have farmed it for thousands of years."
Prying open a pair of cold lips, Silver let out a brief hum as he poured it into the patient's mouth. Placing his paws over the pale muzzle, the hoglet felt the mouse attempt to spit the medicine out. Ivory fur stood on end. That was disgusting. Refusing to remove his paw until the ranger swallowed, the hoglet gagged on the feeling of saliva on his palm.
"I believe doctors discovered its medicinal properties too." Ria recalled, tending to another patient as Silver hesitantly retrieved another spoonful. "They have called it by another name though ... penicillin … if I am recalling correctly."
"It smells sweet and sour." Silver gulped, refusing to vomit as the next patient actively licked his marked palm in an attempt to spit out the concoction.
"It is grown with a mixture of grain and sugar."
"I see."
Silver wiped his hand on the nearest blanket with a shudder. Why did caring for sick people have to be so … revolting. Nauseating even. Grabbing yet another spoonful, the hoglet begged the next ill ranger to not lick his hand. Even though they did anyways.
"Has this even helped?" The ivory hedgehog asked, a contorted face and a twisted stomach gracing his features most un-elegantly.
"It has only slowed their decline."
"I need to figure this out soon…" The hoglet groaned, noting that the next patient was too sick to even reject the spoonful of spores.
"We need to summon the Hero's light." Ria mumbled, cupping her hand over another child's mouth. "That is what the doctor at Crescent city told us."
"Well… they're talking about Chaos energy."
"I don't know where we would be able to get some outside of a Chaos Emerald." Ria pondered aloud. "But you said you had your lungs burned?"
"With Chaos energy." Silver elaborated. "I can see why someone would call it the 'hero's light' though."
Finishing up the last patient, the hoglet finally allowed himself to dry heave over the ground as he wiped his palm for the last time. Gosh he hoped he wouldn't have to do this again tomorrow…
"Shadow can manipulate Chaos energy." The prodigy continued. "He's like a Chaos emerald in the sense he produces a huge amount of it - enough to get it to do whatever he wants it to."
"Really?"
"Yeah - I've seen him turn it into crystals."
"That is most unusual." Ria remarked, holding open the tent flaps to allow the prodigy out. "I have never seen that before."
"Probably why he survived the Chaos bleed at point blank." Silver shrugged. "He can burn their lungs and get Mephiles out without a problem."
"But he's not here." The ranger groaned. With a frustrated sigh, she placed the empty bowl of medicine with the other dirty dishes.
"I'll keep thinking." Silver promised, slapping his palms together in earnest. "I can't just leave you guys like this - there's got to be some way to get them better."
"Do you have a Chaos Emerald around?" Ria asked, a glimmer of hope sparkling in her eyes.
"No, their energy was gone when Shadow left." Silver grumbled.
Tapping his foot once again, the hedgehog began to think and think. There had to be some way to get Chaos energy. Shadow wouldn't just leave him without a source like that, would he? Or would he. It wasn't entirely out of character for the elder hedgehog to take both emeralds with him on his trip. In fact, he usually had both gems on his person at all times. Perhaps the child was naive to think that the elder would leave him with an emerald. What would the young hedgehog even do with it? Helping a pack of ill rangers was certainly not on Shadow's radar. He had explicitly told the hoglet not to interact with strangers anyways. How was he supposed to know that Silver would break that rule anyways. No usually came by the fields on a normal basis. It was sheer coincidence that the pack came along while Shadow was gone.
"Our only shot right now is if you know where one is." Silver finally spoke up.
"I heard rumors of one back in Crescent City." Shep spoke up, having been lurking in the background doing random tasks. "It's more than likely with the Royal family though."
Silver kicked a nearby rock.
"Well, I need more time to think." He grumbled. "Do you need me to do anything else?"
Surprisingly, they did. Having seen at least a taste of the prodigy's impressive power, they had need of heavy lifting around the encampment. One of their wagons had a broken axle, and the hasty fix of ropes and sticks was not going to hold for much longer.
It was fortunate that one among them was good with carpentry. Silver assumed that the rangers had a variety of skills amongst them, considering that packs could survive years out in the wilderness without seeking out villages or farms for repair or restock. The reputation of the ancient rangers seemed almost mythical when the stories Fliss would weave reached Silver's ears. It was almost a relief to the hedgehog that most of the rumors seemed to be true.
The tales of earning the ranger cloak was evident in the young ones that ran around hoodless with blankets and sandals as their only protection. The legends of the Ranger codes illuminated the wagon sides with carvings and pictures of elements and angels etched into the heirloom wood. Even as Silver suspended the wagon above the carpenter's head, he found himself enamored by the ways of the nomads. Had Shadow not found him, Silver found himself thinking he could have been adopted by these honorable people.
The sun was beginning to set as the rangers finished up their day's work. Holding his fingers to the horizon, Silver found himself itching to get back to home base once again. Lots of work and lots of help had been done, but yet it didn't feel like enough to the young hedgehog. The quarantine tent still sat in his peripheral vision, with the illness inside eating at the child's heart as he worried for the afflicted patients. Another day passed and no progress had been made.
"Come, eat with us young prodigy." Shep offered, gesturing to the fire where several roast rabbits were waiting for consumption.
The setting sun instantly fell from Silver's head as hunger immediately licked at his famished insides. Having been busy all day, the child hadn't remembered to eat lunch. Saliva threatened to drip from his mouth as he moved towards the firepit. Hastily seating himself, the hoglet held his fingers to the horizon once more. The measurement told that he had but an hour left before sundown.
He couldn't make it back home on an empty stomach though…right? Taking a plate offered from him, he began to tear into the roast rabbit.