Reunited with her parents and promptly scolded, then hugged, then cried over and scolded again for it, Cheri felt a burgeoning sense of normalcy returning to her daily routine even if everything else had changed around her. Pappa Yan had been fighting a horrible infection from his cut when he’d fallen on the mountain, which Cheri could not be certain (but was also pretty sure) had turned into something foul that was traveling through his blood, that needed serious attention and a good bit of her energy to restore. Healing him had not been like healing Targaryen; in the first instance, her magic had been sucked out of her unwillingly. Healing her sire had been harder, much harder, and required uninterrupted focus and several attempts before the worst of it was burnt out of his flesh. The wound would need more than one dose of her magic, because Cheri couldn’t have hoped to mend the damage in one sitting.

That frustrated her.
Why had the two scenarios been different? What sort of practice did she need to learn her blessed skill? She wanted to heal, loved that it was a part of her, but was just a fish swimming upstream against the current when it came to actually using the power. While the echoes had seemed to come naturally to her siblings, healing did not some swiftly to Cheri, and her parents (neither of which had the ability to heal) were sometimes at a loss on how to train or encourage her.

But she tried. Cheri knew through her limited experience that any and all practice would be beneficial, even if said work failed to yield the results she wanted. After all, she’d helped to mend some of the tears in mother’s butterfly wings fairly easily after struggling through Pappa Yan’s morbid knee injury, so that alone was proof.

Practice then. Practice was what she needed, and practice was what she went searching for in the hours while Yan, Ama, and Borderline slept. Her father seemed reconciled with the mare who’d kept her distance during Cheri’s early childhood, whether it was because of the eclipse circumstance or not, and Cheri was happier for it. She enjoyed having Memorie around, because then the girls outnumbered the boys. Her twin Reynard seemed indifferent so far.

Meandering toward the borders where Tephra clasped her hand in Taiga’s curving territory, Cheri came across (nearly stepped on, had it not been for the faint glow of her white leg markings) a fallen bird. No doubt the poor creature had been disoriented by the constant dark, the result of which had left it broken and battered here on the ground where the trees blended into tropical variants. The yearling girl lowered her nose toward the still-warm creature, marveling at its lovely feathers all out of shape. One of its wings was twisted; the poor creature couldn’t rise but it struggled in vain to move away from her, perceiving Cheri as a predator about to take advantage.

“Shh there, poor little thing.” She breathed, heartbroken. “Try to stay still and I’ll see if I can fix that wing up.”

Her focus and kindness had been for the little bird. Not for the creature that crept on jagged-clawed paws through the shadows, rising to come and greet an unsuspecting Cheri.

Just look at that mess, she thought with a frown, studious over her newest patient. She heard nothing; not until the manticore wanted her to, and when he did the sound of his voice piercing the quiet startled Cheri out of her skin. Her little head rose and her eyes widened in fear, reacting the way instinct had taught her to. She clenched her jaw and bit back a scream, but the way her neck and head jerked, (and how quickly her legs moved to shuffle her away) betrayed the truth.

A smarter filly would’ve run. Cheri - though she thinks of herself as clever - only bounded a pace or two away before stopping.

“You really shouldn’t sneak up on horses.” The white-spotted pegasus huffed, bent out of shape over the unnecessary pounding inside of her chest and how much she hated herself for spooking. Of course she was terrified, but she didn’t want that thing knowing it. She didn’t want some stranger taking advantage of her, out here in gray territory between lands.

But for all the trouble a talking beast could give her, the manticore had also asked something to give her pause. Exhaling, the taigan mare gathered her legs together again and shook her head, trying to rid herself of every unwanted nerve before she answered him. “I’m not sure, honestly.” She told the half-lion, half-demon. From the corner of her narrowed eyes she watched him settle in beside her. “I’ve never tried to heal a wild animal before.” She admitted.

Her voice softened at the thought.
Thus far, everything she touched and made right again had been the flesh of their kind - Equus in some way or another. The bird? Healing it was a challenge she set for herself. The pressure had been minimal with no one around to watch; if she failed and nothing happened, then the sorrow would be hers to bear. Now she had an audience, and for some unspoken reason Cheri felt an invisible weight settle over her shoulders that was not her wings.

“I’m certainly going to try.” She muttered, mostly to herself. For appearance sake she flicked an ear and kept it on the hybrid legend, (she was sure now that some magic was at play) and moving one step at time, Cheri folded her legs underneath her and came to rest near the bird who’d settled down again in the dirt. She gave the beast one backward glance - a warning, if he tried anything funny - and then she made herself comfortable.

“So,” The onyx mare asked her odd companion, a means of passing the time while she tried to summon her own strange powers, “are these your woods then? I’m sorry if my presence here… disturbed you.” Cheri assumed.

Cheri bit back the urge to blurt out, “I know that” when the big cat had mentioned something about attracting unwanted attention. The phrase sounded like it’d come right out of her father’s personal repertoire of catchphrases, and at first she’d had to swallow the words back down into the pit of her little knotted stomach. Of all the stupid things she could’ve done when confronted with another magical creature, Cheri wasn’t going to let ‘arguing to death’ be one of them. And he had looked at her some type of way right afterwards, almost amused, which prompted her train of thought to jump tracks.

Hmmph. She reserved her judgement for later, when she didn’t have a patient suffering while they worked out the awkward kinks of a first encounter.

The stranger paced his way into Cheri’s full view, and though the studious black filly refused to look up she could almost picture him anyways. He didn’t scare her—not really, not anymore—and she wouldn’t agree to his assumption that she was disturbed by him, no. Cheri felt, acutely, a sense of intimidation when he was nearby. When he’d passed alongside her earlier, her skin had tingled and the pace of her breath had quickened. Cheri had never seen a cat before and had only encountered a predator twice, but this… shifter? This shapeling male was something different altogether.

Leonine, articulate, soothing when he spoke to her but hinting danger whenever she caught him staring or whenever she did see him strut. The way his shoulders rolled and the wings he kept folded there, just shadows bumping and moving in the dim light of the jungle’s red haze.

She couldn’t even begin to guess at his real age, much less what he must look like in the natural form of a horse, but as she peered over the little bird with narrowed eyes Cheri could wonder. Her imagination was capable enough of creating proud cheeks and wizened eyes; she guessed wildly that he was a hardy dun color because of his feline pelt and then laughed softly, looking up in surprise to find him scrutinizing her.

“Disturbed? No.” Cheri couldn’t help but grin slowly. He looked so intense. Had she offended him? “You caught me in a vulnerable moment, that’s all. Like you more or less said: surprises aren’t typically fun situations these days. I’m not trying to overstep boundaries or invite more chaos into an already cluttered apocalypse by border-crossing.” She explained thoroughly. Cheri doubted anyone cared anymore, honestly.

For all she knew he could be a guard. He could be a … something, she didn’t know. All she was focused on in the moment was that ‘he’ was Tephran and he wasn’t going to eat her or the bird.

“Thank you for not killing me. And for staying.” She hedged. Apologies were hard things for young, stubborn fillies to do, but she was willing to trust him if he was willing to tolerate her. Truce? Her green eyes sparkled, demure even if her expression was most certainly not. “You can come closer and watch if you like.”

In the meantime, the bird had her attention again. Cheri tilted her head and puzzled over which method of healing she should use, noting the animal's small size and weight as she looked it over. Avian skeletal structures were made up of mostly hollow bones, meaning the break would probably be easier to mend, and while she wanted to simply zap it with a dose of magic Cheri knew nothing was ever that easy. There was always the risk of overdosing, meaning she could drain herself entirely and risk possibly dying in the process of trying to restore life, or in this case she might give too much to whoever was receiving—a fate she hadn’t even really considered until just now.

The pressure from earlier tapered to a point and Cheri’s anxiety spiked, but she didn’t spiral. Instead she inhaled, popping open her mouth to suck in the heavy air of the volcanic kingdom. Her lungs swam in the humidity, and Cheri wrinkled her nostrils in concentration. Think, she urged herself. Where did she usually start with her patients? At the source.

The source being pain, of course. That pesky firing of involuntary, emotional neurons Cheri liked to deal with before getting to the heart of more unsavory work. She typically gave a small dose at first to help ease the pain and make her subjects comfortable. Carefully, she poised her mouth just above the small bird and held her breath, calculating the weight of tension in the air before she quickly tapped the thing and withdrew. A fizzle of energy crackled like static over her lips and then disappeared, leaving Cheri to watch as the creature’s tiny legs clenched for a moment before finally uncurling.

She held her breath a second longer, then sighed.
“This might actually work.” Came a whisper, half-pitched with dizzy elation. She remembered her audience in a snap and her head rose, hoping to find a kindred sort of satisfaction there as well.

It was impossible to ignore how the beast was confident in his own skin. He spoke like a horse, like one of the inhabitants, only capable of so much more than the ‘regulars’ like Cheri. His skin was different, his mannerisms belying a strength and personality used to commanding others, and to Cheri this was all so vaguely familiar and yet not at the same time. When he spoke, the chimera reminded her of Reave - her cousin / uncle with a morbid fascination for adventure - but he was arrogant where Reave was clever. Still, young Cheri couldn’t find it in herself to take what he claimed so personally: she only half-laughed at the way he twisted her words.

If he was chaotic, then she was a ghostly vision. She could be spicy if that’s what he wanted, and she set her mind to the task while working over her little patient. “Whatever makes me less appealing to his appetite.” She thought humorously, watching the glint of his coiled barb flash underneath the Eclipse’s unholy light.

The very air of Tephra itself seemed intoxicating to Cheri. She felt it settle over her skin in a thin layer, making her hot where before she’d been pleasantly chill. The fog of her homeland was similar in feeling, but the redwoods had always been a damp sort of cold. The volcanic kingdom left one feeling feverish, and watching her companion wander closer felt just like a fever dream to Cheri. Her eyes did widen, but their intent was unclear: part of them displayed a macabre fascination with the mechanism of his body and how it might theoretically work, the other was tainted by an expression of quiet awe.

“That’s fine.” She whispered, glancing up to read his eyes like an open book. As he settled across from her, Cheri reminded herself that he’d claimed not to be a murderer, but it was hard to dispel the instinctual anxiety that came from looking so directly into a predator’s gaze. She felt herself growing smaller underneath that stare, clinging to the humor laced throughout instead of succumbing to her panic.

Besides, there was something else in great need of her attention.

Cheri looked back to the bird and zapped it once, experimentally. The result was instantaneous movement, a little jerk from the creature that meant she was probably on the right path. Her murmured thought about healing the thing was seconded by her companion, and she smirked happily. It was moments like the one they were experiencing that she needed encouragement the most, and though he looked entirely different from herself, Sorren’s cocky assurance felt better than anything her kin could’ve said.

“I wasn’t aware you were the expert here!” She scoffed quietly in the dark, exhaling an incredulous laugh. Her tone was pitched sarcastically; Cheri shifted her folded limbs in discomfort but smiled secretly. This close to the shifter she could smell his skin, the wild clinging to him like a calling card. In the quiet after her remark she could also feel the temperature of his breath on her nose. Cheri did not dislike it. “The wing is fractured in several places.” She explained. “When I touch a sick thing, I can almost sense the illness and what needs attention. I’m pretty sure it’s been suffering from infection as well.” She estimated, sighing prettily.

As much as she hated to admit it, her companion was right: she needed a much more gentle approach if she was going to mend this bird before her strength and power ran dry.

“Still…” She murmured, shyly refusing to meet her friend’s eye again, “You’re the perfect distraction, Chaotic or not.” Cheri lowered her lips to the soft-fluttering breast of feathers again, this time emitting more of a hum than a buzz like before. The light from her touch spread like a slow ripple, intensifying in the dark before receding back to the source of her contact. “Do you have a name?” She wondered, ears twisting as she watched for signs of improvement in the little creature between them.