I stare at the wound on my leg in a mixture of dismay and amazement. My blood is purple? How can that be? When I was a Lemur my blood was red, so it must have changed colors when I became a Lithan. Curiosity briefly overwhelms the sensation of pain, inviting me to reach my head in low for a closer look. But pain wins out in the end, causing another jolt of pain to lance my leg.

My painful growl jolts Kuro back into the moment. “Frope!” she snaps. “Fetch some clean moss! We have to stop the bleeding!”

“R-Right!”

As Tomcat bursts away to search the area, Kuro gets to work and rips up a few mouthfuls of underbrush with her jaws. She leans in close to the wound and murmurs through a clump of dry foliage, “This may sting.”

“Can’t be any worse th— AH!” I hiss in pain as she compacts the wound with the makeshift gauze. When the stinging subsides, I open my eyes to find the green and brown plants quickly staining purple.

“It’s not slowing down,” Kuro announces staidly. Without flinching, she closes her wing halfway so her flight feathers slide on top of one another, then pushes them into the wound. Expecting the worst, I grit my teeth, but the wave of pain quickly subsides. Kuro’s soot-colored feathers begin to turn black as they absorb more blood.

Ugh, that fweghing rusting junk! I let my guard down for just a second, but now I’m paying the price. Big time. What’s going to happen to me now? I’m stuck in the middle of Felra without any modern medical care. It’s clear Kuro has some rudimentary knowledge of first aid — she knows she has to stop the bleeding or else I’ll be in serious trouble. But will feathers and moss be enough? What happens if I don’t stop bleeding? Or if I’m too injured to fly?

Just then, Tomcat reappears with a long strip of moss dangling from her jaws. She carries it towards us and drops it to the ground. “I can get more if this isn’t enough. There’s plenty of moss growing around here.”

Kuro nods and releases her wing from my leg. She grabs the moss with her jaws and quickly compacts it onto the wound. Once it’s securely in place, she raises a foretalon against it and pulls her head away. For a breathless moment, we watch the moss, waiting to see if it changes color. To our supreme relief, it stays green.

“The bleeding has begun to slow,” Kuro announces, relaxing her fathers. “Asha, you’re going to be alright. But you need to rest here a while.”

“A while?” I echo hesitantly. “How long is a while?”

“For a wound this big, a few hours at least. Maybe overnight.”

Frope’s wings stiffen. “Overnight? Are we going to be safe from prey here?”

Kuro looks away and stares through the trees beyond the ship’s frame. After a silent moment of contemplation, she says, “We may need help from the Grandfather Tree.”

The Grandfather Tree? Kuro mentioned that place during my introduction in Flat Rock, but we haven’t flown there yet. Still, if Kuro believes we need help, then this is a far more serious situation than I thought. So far, the prey we’ve hunted in the forest was nothing that me and Tomcat couldn’t handle ourselves. What feral lurks in the dark of the night that could make even fierce Kuro concerned? I prefer to remain clueless.

“Kuro,” I say, trying to shift into a more comfortable position. “If you let go of the moss, will it stick? I think I could fly if we have to leave before sundown.”

She shakes her head. “It’ll slide off. Someone has to hold the moss in place until the bleeding stops. No matter how long it takes.”

Damn it. Argh, this is so unfair! I had the best medical care in the Kingdom back in Vaercia! Am I really going to be defeated in the middle of Felra over something as trivial as not having a bandage?

…

Wait a second.

I’m a botanist, damn it!

I sniff the air and gaze around the crash site, examining the trees as best I can from my position on the ground. I smell tiliacae beyond the ship’s frame, a few sequoioideae south of here… Ah! There’s some pinaceae to the north, just beyond the edge of the wreckage! I’m not sure how effective it will be, but maybe the sap from a bilea spruce could act as a rudimentary adhesive and hold the moss in place, just like a real bandage! It’s certainly worth trying!

Seeing as I’m in no place for field work, all we need is a willing volunteer. “Tomcat, I need you to do me a favor.”

“Huh?” Her ears perk up. “Oh, of course, Asha. What is it?”

“I need you to find a certain type of tree called a bilea spruce. The leaves are green and sharp, kind of like the leaves that fall around Kuro’s den. But the best way to identify it is by its reddish-brown bark. It’ll break off into little flakes if you rub your claws against it, and none of the other trees around here do that. When you think you’ve found it, I’d like you to use your talons to tear off a few strips of bark and bring it back here.”

Tomcat blinks, and her muzzle drifts agape. She gives Kuro a sidelong glance and asks, “Is her head full of sparrows?”

“Trust me,” I say, trying to impart confidence. “There’s something in the bark of those trees that’s useful to us. I can smell them nearby — it will only take you a few minutes to find one.”

Tomcat’s face twists slightly. It seems like she’s still not convinced. “Riiiight. Kuro, do you have any idea what she’s talking about?”

The soot-plumaged Lithan stares at me a moment before swiveling her gaze onto the pure white. “No, I don’t. But I think you should do what she says. We’re going to be stuck here for a while, anyway.”

“Oohhhhh-kay. Hunting for tree bark! Mom is never going to believe this…”

After giving her directions on where to search, Tomcat tips her wings and trots off toward the northerly tree line. As she disappears beyond a patch of dense thickets, Kuro settles down next to me, deftly balancing herself as she maintains pressure on the moss.

“Frope could stand to trust you a bit more,” she sighs wistfully as if she was somehow at fault for her behavior. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay!” I smile, trying to raise her weirdly dour spirits. “I broke my arm once working in the garden, and this isn’t half as bad as that. I think I’ll need to rest my leg for a little while, but I’ll live!”

Her face curls into a half-smile. “Mmh. That’s good. We should take you to the Grandfather Tree once you’re fit to fly. There’s someone there who can look at your leg and make sure it’s healing right.”

“That’s a good idea! We haven’t flown there yet, anyways.”

Kuro’s smile fades, and she looks away without adding anything else. My attempt to cheer her up failed, and it’s obvious something’s really bothering her. Something deeper than just Frope’s behavior. I tilt my head closer and ask, “Is everything alright?”

“Asha,” She responds promptly as if mom had addressed her, and with a face just as serious. “You didn’t ‘talk’ to the airship-prey, did you?”

Oh.

So that’s what it is.

I release a long sigh and regret fills my chest. I knew she would eventually come to this conclusion, but not this quickly. Revealing the truth about airships was simple — reckoning with my lies won’t be.

“No,” I say, staring at the ground. “No, I didn’t. All I had to do was threaten the airship and avoid it when it tried to attack. All that talking I did was just an act so you would understand.”

I pause to gather my thoughts and keep my head low. The memory of our first encounter and how furious she was resurfaces — I can’t stand to see how upset she must look now. After a few seconds of silence, I’m able to relocate my voice. “There wasn’t enough time to explain the nuances of Farlander politics or how airships aren’t living creatures. And I’m certain you wouldn’t have believed me even if there was. I had to do something to get you to trust me, and claiming I could talk to the airship was the first thing I thought of. I’m… so sorry for misleading you.”

I force myself to raise my head and meet hers. Kuro is staring at me with a complex expression I can’t quite decipher, one that surely belies her disappointment.

“Listen, Asha. I—“

RAARR!

Tomcat’s call splits the air like a falcon’s cry, startling Kuro and me from our intent conversation. We crane our necks in unison to see Tomcat stepping out of the grove of trees with a stack of bark wedged between her teeth. “I got it!” she announces, galloping forward to deliver the sticky clippings of bilea spruce promptly.

But as she approaches and drops the bark near Kuro’s flank, she has no trouble recognizing the massive mood shift between us. “Ohhhh-kay. Not sure why you’re acting like a bunch of wingdraggers, but you could at least be happy I found this tree stuff. It’s so sticky, I can’t get it out of my mouth!! Pweh!! Pfft! Pbbbbtt!”

I chuckle a little to myself. I can always count on Tomcat to improve my mood. “I’m sorry, Tomcat. Thank you for finding the bark. I promise it’ll be useful to us.”

“So, what’s your plan?” Kuro asks me without a hint of malice in her voice. It catches me by surprise.

“Well,” I say, checking my own voice to make sure it sounds equally as amicable. “When someone gets cut in the Farlands, we place something called a ‘bandage’ over the wound. It’s kind of like that moss you’re holding, but with one key difference: The sides of the bandage are covered in some sticky stuff that secures the bandage to your fur. That way, you don’t have to hold it until the bleeding stops.”

Tomcat stares at me like I’m speaking Lagoran. “So…”

Suddenly, Kuro’s face brightens like the sun. “You’re going to use the tree’s sap to hold the moss in place!”

“Yes! That’s exactly right!”

“Oh, wow!” Kuro looks like she just caught prey. “I didn’t know sap was useful for anything!”

Tomcat gives her chest a quick lick and flicks her gaze between me and the bark. “I still don’t understand what you two are talking about.”

“I’m sure it’ll all make sense once we show you. Kuro, could you remove the moss from my leg?”

Kuro acknowledges with a swift nod. I don’t know what she was trying to tell me before Tomcat interrupted us, but all her animosity seems to have vanished into thin air. I… I think I can relax a little.

But only just a little. Even though the bleeding has slowed considerably, my leg is still quite tender from being cut open. As Kuro eases her pressure against the moss, I curl my talons into the ground, bracing myself for the same sensation as a bandage being torn away. Gently, she uses her jaws to grab the side of the moss as she releases pressure from her talon. With a quick flick, the moss is pulled away and tossed to the side. My body winces, and I hiss in pain, but it’s not as bad as I expected.

With the moss taken care of, we angle our curious heads forward to inspect my exotic-looking blood up close. No longer heaving in pain, It’s possible to make out some minor details I didn’t notice before. My blood is a dark, plum-colored purple, shimmering metallic against the overcast sky with a silver-colored sheen.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” I ask.

“Never,” Kuro answers slowly, awe reverberating in her voice. “Dragon blood is blue, and prey’s blood red. That is the natural order of things.”

I first noticed the blue blood of Dragons after preying on the Redaga that tried to kill me. At the time, I just assumed I was similar and thought nothing of it. But to be purple-blooded makes some sense: If you combine blue and red pigments, you get the color purple. The red blood of Lemurs and the blue blood of Lithans — A physical marker of what I used to be and the soul that lingers.

Kuro draws a wing forward and drags the tips of her feathers below my wound, collecting a small sample of drying blood. She examines it closely and says, “I think it would be best if we kept this between ourselves.”

“Yeah…” Tomcat trails off despondently, watching the blood drip from Kuro’s wing. “Asha, a lot of Kin are still suspicious of you because you’re a Farlander. If one of them found out you’re purple-blooded…"

“I understand. They would have another reason to think I’m not a real Lithan. It would be a terrible situation.”

Relmoon warned the elders there were others in the flock like him — those that disagreed with their decision to let me join the Snowfell Flock. I wonder just how many there are? If I made enough of them upset, could they organize and retaliate against me? Or worse, convince the elders to expel me from the flock? I have to do everything possible to avoid drawing the ire of those Kin. My blood has to be a secret from everyone.

Tomcat turns to Kuro. “What about her leg? How can we get her to Nakino’s den without anyone noticing?”

“Nakino?” Who’s that?

“A Brother at the Grandfather Tree who knows the most about remedies,” Kuro answers. “A wound this large must be properly cleaned to prevent infection. As for the rest of the flock, if Asha’s idea for a bandage works, then we’ll have nothing to worry about.”

It sounds like Nakino is the flock’s doctor. It may not be the modern medical care I got back home, but at least it’s something. Besides, I know better than to question the efficacy of herbalist medicine. Sofl would never forgive me!

But, um, there’s still a problem. “What about Nakino? If he treats my wound, he’s going to see my blood.”

“Let me handle him,” Kuro rumbles ominously. “I’ll make sure he’s quiet.”

I give Tomcat a sidelong glance and find her engaged in the same act of hesitation. What was that all about?

“Now then,” Kuro continues in a chipper tone as if Nakino were never mentioned. “Asha, how do we make your bandage?”

Putting the doctor aside as quickly as Kuro did, I give her instructions on constructing the makeshift bandage with a clean strip of moss. It’s as simple as it sounds: gather sap from the bark Tomcat collected and rub it into the sides of the moss. Then, hold it against my leg until the sap bonds to my feathers. After some sticky talons and a bit of patience, it was time to try standing up.

I place my foretalons in front of me and pivot my weight to the front of my body. Slowly, I try to pull myself up while putting as little weight on my hind talons as possible. I grit my teeth as searing pain overcomes my injured leg, but keep pressure applied and hold myself steady. I did it!

Tomcat angles her head down to examine the moss up close. “I don’t believe it! It isn’t falling off! Asha, how do you feel?”

I’m starting to get better, but the pain is still quite pronounced. Failing to contain a grunt of pain, I mutter an unsteady, “I’ll live!”

“You should rest longer,” Kuro suggests, taking a concerned step forward. “Just because you can stand up doesn’t mean you’ll be able to land.”

Taking her proposal as permission, I release the pressure building on my injured leg and return to the ground, not quite as nimbly as I left it I exhale in relief and shake my wings out. “Okay, yeah, I do need to relax a bit longer. But the bandage helps! I’ll be fit to fly in no time.”

“Good,” Kuro exhales, rubbing her face into mine. I press back in appreciation. “Frope, why don’t you stay with Asha while I hunt you both some prey?”

“Sure!” she says, settling in the grass next to me. Kuro dips her head in parting and bounds away, flapping her wings playfully as she darts off past the frame of the airships and into the tree line beyond, all of the animosity that existed between us dissolved into nothing. The kind and supporting Kuro I’ve grown to rely on has returned. We never returned to the conversation about the airship, so does that mean she forgives me? Or maybe she never held it against me in the first place?

Whatever the case, it seems I’ve bandaged more than just my leg.