Tame

As fast as Dawn possibly could, she was collecting all the supplies she needed from the back of her cart. She always stocked up generously with long-life varieties of painkillers, antibiotics, and anti-inflammatories, but Dawn also had a habit of including a little bit of everything on hand. Even if it was something rarely ever dispensed, she liked having the raw ingredients accessible so she could whip something unusual up in an emergency, if the need arose.

Although the knowledge was there, Dawn had not treated a poison of this kind before. Which was not surprising as she had not ever treated a shapeshifting person at all. Wolfblight was a unique poison and someone would have to be well adhered to how it was formulated to concoct it correctly and not poison themselves in the process.

Dawn would be far better equipped if she had access to her full apothecary range at home, but with a poisoned victim every second counted. The faster she could administer something to fight the neurotoxin and decrease the possibility of his organs shutting down, the better.

All the concoctions, medical utensils, and materials were gathered into her folded-up dress, using it like a big pouch. It barely even passed her mind that Dawn’s undershorts were probably well revealed as grasped at the cloth and dashed back into the bushes.

With the man still uncontrollably seizing and beginning to transform shape, Dawn’s first priority was to calm the patient down from that unintentionally hyped state. Transforming into his Theron form now would only aggravate the poison circulating within his body.

She dug what she needed out of the pile of supplies. Trying her best to steady his head with one hand, and with the other Dawn carefully raised a tiny bottle of a specialised sedative to his mouth. With minimal control of his limbs, he was unable to push away. But as soon as the flask touched his lips he flinched again, began to snarl, and bit down onto Dawn’s clasped fingers.

His jaw was still able to clench tensely enough to cause a significant amount of bite force. The puncturing from his transformed upper canines gouging into her phalanges caused Dawn to clench her own jaw. But Dawn pushed through the pain of her snared digits and forced the theron’s head backward enough to allow the liquid to seep into his throat.

It didn’t take long for the sedative to affect and gradually his threatening, gurgling, growls dulled into silence. His eyelids drooped closed, his vacant and clouded cyan-green eyes now concealed. The man’s jaw slackened and Dawn was able to free her poor hand from his hold.

Her index finger had taken the brunt of the battle and she was left with a deep wound into her proximal interphalangeal joint.

Unable to retaliate against the sedation, the man’s head lolled against Dawn and eventually fell into her lap. Dawn patiently waited, not daring to move and keeping her fingers clear. Although still struggling helplessly through the seizures she could only stare down at him and wait as the drugs took enough effect to medically proceed further.

With the beginnings of transformation now reassuringly reverted back to the shape of human, Dawn carefully lifted the man’s weight off of her. He groaned as she cradled him, struggling to place him gently amongst the fallen leaves, shed bark, and plant fodder of the forest.

She loaded an antique syringe dispenser with a special brew of antidote serum. As it clicked successfully into position, she silently prayed she’d remembered the recipe correctly. She then pushed the needle of the concoction straight into his thigh, through his pants, and pulled the trigger.

Barely a minute had passed before the man’s body finally became mostly still, and relief washed over Dawn. Every few seconds there was a slight twitch of his muscles as Dawn’s medicinal cocktail fought furiously against the poison’s effects. But she was satisfied the antidote was currently working successfully.

Dawn tugged his blood-soaked shirt upwards to expose the stab wound. It was fairly deep and there was a generous amount of bleeding, but she was certain nothing vital had been nicked.

Dawn tucked some loose strands of her fine brown hair out of her face and let out a long breath to mentally prepare herself. She slowly poured the small remainder of the medicine, the leftovers after dispensing the injectable dose, directly into his open wound before doing her best to suture the wound closed. Dawn was fairly confident in her sewing skills, but sewing flesh was far more nerve-wracking than fabric. She carefully tugged the severed skin back together with neatly tightened knots.

Theron were renowned for their impressive immunity and healing abilities. If he could survive the damage caused by the poisoning, it was likely even a wound like this would heal up with little to no scarring.

Next Dawn replaced the makeshift sundress bandage with a fresh cloth and then wrapped that in a long bandage around his torso to hold it in place.

Once she was happy with her patient, she took a moment to clean up her own injured hand. It was very likely to also need a couple of stitches but she opted for mopping up the blood and wrapping it up tightly for now. She would see to it more thoroughly once she was home. With the light fading fast, Dawn was keen to hurry this misadventure along.

Dawn discarded the medical waste into a neat little pile and stuffed the reusable equipment into the pockets of man’s slacks.

Griping his underarms as best she could, she then hauled him upwards, wincing through the throbbing pain from the weight against her wounded right hand.

When Dawn finally emerged onto the small road, what would have been a sigh of relief, turned into a sigh of discouragement. Mack had wandered further up the road with the cart in tow, following a lengthy cluster of some tasty shrubs. When Dawn called out to him he eventually looked back at her momentarily, but then flattened his ears and went back to busily plucking the bushes bare. Apparently it was no longer a scary situation if there was something delicious in front of him to investigate.

It was probably a good thing he was distracted given his previous reactions, and successfully reversing on such a thin passageway would be difficult to manoeuvre. So, Dawn took a brief break to stretch her aching back out and slap some stray foliage from her raggedy dress, before going back to dragging her unconscious Theron patient towards the cart.