Phinuphus Tahnqin
-=-
Mid-morning-=-
The odor filled the tent in moments, making Phinuphus' eyes water. He squeezes his paw around the leather boot for strength, girding his gut, and then dropped it to the hard earth. The human foot he'd revealed looked so badly misshapen that Phinuphus wondered just what under the sun the young man was suffering from. Phinuphus ran a thumb gently against the skin of the arch, leaning in close to inhale deeply with his nostrils. No venoms or toxins wafting from the open sores. It looked as though the man's foot had been soaking in water for hours. Three of his nails had detached and would need to be cut away. How had the man not...
"How badly does it hurt?" Phinuphus asked, his head lifting to come face to face with the boy the foot belonged to, inches apart. Not a young man... a boy. Humans were hard to age. The lad still had soft eyes. No fierceness in them.
"Lessoren' yesterdae. I had scoeting." Phinuphus kept fingering various parts of the boy's skin, testing nerves. Not a twitch. "Beenemin t'see ye'er Franksott fera we-sodding SHITTING FUCK!" The boy instinctively threw a punch at Phinuphus' gut, landing weakly enough to redouble the Capybkin's concern. Phinuphus had barely begun to twist the boy's ankle. Boneblack. He pressed a huge paw into the boy's chest, forcing him to lie down.
"Cheed!" Phinuphus bellowed, his voice shaking the tent as he held the boy down, fishing in a pouch for a sedative. "Send for Franksodi! I am in need of apples!"
Phinuphus' free hand emerged from his dense robes with a small jug. He deftly removed the cork and fingered the jelly inside, his digit tingling with growing numbness as he leaned over the boy with his same inscrutable expression. "Open your mouth. We'll dull the pain while Franksodi gets here with some fruit." Need to slow his blood. The boy did as he was told, and found himself suckling a fat, leathery finger of Norijam. Strong enough that he was out in seconds. Each was precious.
The boy asleep, Phinuphus began rolling up the trouser leg. More sores, more sogginess that felt dry. Phinuphus pulled off the other boot much more gently, his stomach turned a whole sorrowful dance, stretching and twisting the moment like a noose.
One of his toes was gone, a blackened stump with flecks of white mold.
How is this boy still alive? Phinuphus just stared at the ruined foot, blinking. The boy couldn't have been more than fourteen years old. Where under His gaze had he been scouting that there was Boneblack in the ground?
He bellowed far louder then, calling for pitch and tinder to be set outside of the tent and for people to keep their distance. Capybkin couldn't catch Boneblack, but the camp was still mostly human. Live mold was deadly, and the morning clouds promised rain; no counting on the sun to kill it. He needed to be quick.
Too quick to ask after whether the child had any family.
-=-Late afternoon. After Szazah's success in council.-=-
Phinuphus sat in the mud and rain with his fur bare, the smoldering remains of his tent behind him. In front of him were all of his belongings that needed to be saved, his robes, and his various packs. Even seated, his head rose almost six feet. He gave the impression of a tamed beast waiting on a master in the middle of a strange town. It had been over a year since he'd joined what eventually became The Moving... but even now he still at times felt out of place. No time to mourn a child.
"Word from council," Cheed spoke softly, the young serving boy he'd been assigned coming up to stand beside Phinuphus, facing the embers.
"You got Franksodi's bonesaw back to him?" Phinuphus rumbled, rising to his full height and pulling on his sodden robes.
"Mmmm," the boy nodded.
"And he spoke at council about the Boneblack?" One rope here, the other there--To a stranger Phinuphus' pack harness could seem a binding puzzle, but it was as easy as breathing to tie loop by loop and pull taught for one sack after the next.
"Mmmm," he nodded again.
"And we're still not moving for two more days." One final large pack, what had been saved from his tent, strapped over his back as he fell to all fours with a heavy whumb, shaking the ground.
The boy sighed, unphased by Phinuphus' movements. Cheed held out a hand, still not looking away from the embers, and found a small flask was in it. He took a small swig, and handed it back to Phinuphus, who did the same.
"These lands have dangers your people are not inured to. Boneblack's a canny little shroom with few victims, but it eats humans and elves. Kills most land birds, too." And if you catch it before it blooms, they're as good as saved. Phinuphus did not say. It would do Cheed no good to feel bitter about that right now. Phinuphus rested a massive hand on the boy's shoulder, squeezing. "Your friend is at peace now. Had he come to Franks or I earlier... well." The Capybkin grew silent, and the two of them stood a while, the gentle roar of camp life paying them no notice as it buzzed and clanged and murmured through the dreary weather.
Phinuphus took another draw of spirits and then tucked his courage away in one of his many packs. "A god waits for each of us. I will help you collect our dues."
Cheed nodded, his expression brightening just a little. Phinuphus picked up the boy with a single paw and seated him comfortably on his back. Dusting Cheed's ginger curls affectionately and evoking a light chuckle, Phinuphus began plodding steadily toward the merchants stalls. They milled about for the better part of an hour, Phinuphus bartering for this and that and the other, greasing the wheels of the camp and only taking what he needed. After leaving one of the Smith's with some medicine for a cough, a thought occured to Phinuphus.
"Did Szazah speak at council today?" The Capybkin asked, fingering a fruit on display at a stall.
"Yes, Master Tankin."
"And I assume Meekminnow still bleats as a sheep in water." Phinuphus exchanged smallcoin with the fruit-seller and took a bite of apple, handing it up to Cheed, who took his in turn.
"Dignf maffer. Shashah -gulp- won this time." Cheed was silent as Phinuphus started moving again, pointedly in the direction of Szazah's tent. "You're not really going to go, are you?"
"Szazah is wise. There are other healers, other quartermasters. That man sees the world with Our Lion's eyes. I shall serve his wisdom." The boy knocked their apple against Phinuphus' skull. He paused to have another bite, returning the apple to Cheed before moving again. "Franksodi will make a better keeper for you anyway. He likes children."
"You like me." Cheed murmured, glaring at the back of Phinuphus' head.
"You are a rat. We are family. I don't have to like you." Cheed had served him well, but the boy was less than ten. Smart and quick, like all good mice. But he needed the safety of the Moving, such as it was, more than Phinuphus needed a servant. God forbid a sodding student. Worse, a child in the wilds with no proper care.
Cheed's scowl softened. He reached a small hand to scratch behind one of Phinuphus' ears. The Capybkin winced cheerily and they continued on in silence.
Presently, they arrived outside of Szazah's tent. Cheed swung down from Phinuphus' back with a practiced tumble into the mud, standing to wait outside the tent as Phinuphus made his entrance, bellowing.
"SZAZAH!" He roared cheerily, sticking his head between the tentflaps to find the warlord and his first guest. "And one of his friends! Our Lion smiles!" He passed through the tent flaps with slow, deliberate movements, not wanting to unbalance the tent with his bulk. He made a seat for himself in the hard earth, dripping with rain and filling the tent with the smell of burning pitch from his work earlier in the day.
"I heard the good news." Phinuphus continued, his voice lowering to a dull thunder. He surveyed both men with the inscrutable expression of his entire species. No matter how jovial they tried to sound, Capybkin always seemed to look vaguely annoyed or vaguely amused by everything to bare-skinned creatures. Phinuphus looked pointedly at Szazah. "I am more prepared to leave than I expected to be, in person and spirit. How many others?"
As the silence deepened, Phinuphus looked between the two men again. Humans often found his bulk alarming at first, but Szazah had already met him several times. There was a different tension in the air.
"Have I interrupted something?"
Summary: Stopped an epidemic. Comforted a child. Ate an apple. Ready to march.
AlteredTundra