The Healer was working in the Order, high over the tree tops, practicing on a very patient, very tough young man who had cut his arm while playing around with his knife. It wasn't deep, it didn't need surgery, but it did need cleaning and stitched. A blue cloak with a stern face, and a beak like nose was watching the Healer work. The blue cloaked woman knew that her charge still struggled with her fine motor skills, and was being patient with her. She was not so well versed in ghosts, but she'd spoken with Qit'ria on the matter, and the ghost had been open about the difficulties.
Thankfully the patient was young and willing to prove his manhood. Which was good, because the Healer was struggling to get the sutures right, and the blue cloak was making her pull them out and redo them if they were done poorly. The Healer got frustrated tossing the needle and thread down.
The blue cloak stepped forward,
"Qit'ria. Slow down. Think about what it is you're doing. You're a ghost. That doesn't have to be a disadvantage. Now focus, do it again. This boy here will only last so long." She added that last bit in to further play on his manhood.
The Healer sighed, taking a deep breath. Then she stepped up toward the boy again. Her fingers felt like sausages. They just weren't fine enough to do what she needed. She needed them to be smaller. Skinnier. She didn't know how to do that with her fingers. She wasn't even sure if she could. All she could do was possess people, but she didn't want to do that, fearing the spark within her. All that was left was.. her eyes opened wide. There was something else she could do. Focusing hard, she summoned forth two tendrils, extending out of her ribs.
She held them up before her, knowing that they were invisible to the patient and the blue cloak. They tapered to a pretty narrow point. She had experience with tentacles with her old Mer form. She could make this work. She picked up the thread and needle easily with the tendrils, feeding the string into the eye with relative ease. To the onlookers, it was simply floating. Then she set to work. Her stitches this time were much cleaner and tighter, and she managed to sew them up in quick time. She smiled at her handiwork and the blue cloak nodded.
"Well done, Qit'ria."
The pair of healers walked the man out, just as a huntsman walked in. Qit didn't recognize him, but he frowned upon seeing her. As if he knew about her and didn't like what he'd heard. He spoke in a soft voice to the blue cloak,
"Hello Rem'lia. I've come to see if the Order has anyone to spare for the investigation into the Lori. Preferably someone with experience in the wilds."
Rem'lia smiled, nodding her head toward the Healer.
"This one here has more experience in those wilds than most of us. And she's more than capable of healing, as well as many other talents." The Healer looked at the woman nervously, going off on something like this on her own. At least back in Rharne she was paired with Oonah. But she put on a fierce face, as the Huntress spilled out.
"Yes. I will go with you."
The man told her the time and place to meet, and left. The Huntress stalked into the clinic, grabbing her baby from the man who was watching her, and strapped her to her back using the Vines of the Lori her daughter always wore. She urged the vines to be extra protective of her daughter, and they grew hardened leaves up around her, forming a turtle like shell that extended up and over her head. The Great Spirit of the Lori would protect her.
And so, the Huntress, with baby in tow, carrying her domain bag with her healer's pack inside it was ready, ghostly spear at the ready, standing around as the groups formed. She barely listened as the man, San'ka, spoke, finding that a woman who at too much was staring at her. So the Huntress glared back, with years of animal glares having been practiced.
And the more the woman stared at the Huntress, the more her ectoplasm grew annoyed. She was literally emanating the emotion, and her child was feeling it too, kicking roughly behind her, fists flailing within her baby pack. She'd fall asleep soon, it was nearly naptime and she'd been fed and changed just before the Huntress arrived.
San'ka took point on their three person group, and the Huntress took the rear guard, leaving the fat woman between them. A simple line formation, so that San'ka could lead the way, scouting for danger, so that the Huntress could guard the flanks, and so Dula could assist at either end quickly if needed. As they walked, Caza was quick to fall asleep, warm in the clothes made by her Aunt Faith. And the Huntress, still terribly annoyed, could not fathom why this fat woman had been brought on this trip. She was soft. Her butt bounced so much as she walked. There was practically no muscle on her.
What use was she out here? She was a liability. She would get herself killed. The Huntress already had most of a mind to not stop anything from eating the fatty if it came to that. Might be enough to tire the beast out and make it easy to slay after such a big meal. But the Huntress did her duty, watching, waiting. She saw up ahead as San'ka walked across some spongy, swampy ground between tree roots. The ground had sunk, but did not rise back up. Her eyes were quick to look from him back to Dula. The woman almost certainly had to weigh more than him.
Just as Dula was asking her question, asking it far too loudly than she should out here, the Huntress was rushing forward, on legs as tireless as a deer. Just as the ground gave way beneath the fat woman's feet, the Huntress' tendrils extended outward, wrapping around Dula's torso, beneath her arm pits. The huntress focused her mind to be as hard and as heavy as the great turtle she used to be. Her body solidified as much as she could muster, and she got her feet against a sturdy root, her invisible tendrils holding the fat woman up and over a sinkhole that had just given way.
But her strength was waning fast,
"San'ka!" Spirits this woman was heavy. San'ka was already easing around the hole toward the edge where Dula and the Huntress were located, trying to not cause further collapse. Wisps of ectoplasm were shredding from the Huntress' skin, disappearing into nothingness, just as the man laid down on his stomach, reaching a hand out for the fat woman.
Then the grip slipped and Dula was dropped into the darkness.
The Huntress didn't wait to see the outcome of that. With a bear's roar, the ghost, was up, jumping into the hole, her tendril lashing out to grab a root as she extended downward into the hole, right behind Dula, preparing to fight upon landing on the stone floor.
In Xanthean,
"Fat Dula. You alive?"