Junkie

Luca and Le'du eventually make it back to the village with a wolf carcass on his shoulder, whenever a tribesman sees the wolf they cheer for them however Luca just concentrates on getting Le'du to Sarr'ina so she can look at his injury. He dumps the wolf next to the communal fire and continues to help Le'du.

He helps him walk to the relatively large hut and enters to see Sarr'ina sitting over a bowl and mashing a variety of things into a white paste with rounded stone that looks like a pestle. She looks up and beams at Luca when she sees him, her expression quickly changes when she looks at Le'du and who smells heavily of blood.

"Ina, he's injured can you help?" Luca asks

She walks up and slowly unwraps the leaves that'd been tied around his wound, her nose wrinkles when she sees the extent of his injuries. The skin is entirely gone leaving the bloody, damaged muscles open to the air. Le'du audibly grinds his teeth as the pain of having the air in-contact with it is too much.

Sarr'ina nods to herself after a moment, "Sit, I will clean it... Lu can you grind some herbs for me while I do this?"

He nods, "What do you need?"

"Outside there are herbs drying in the sun, gather two brown leaves, some stems from the bundle with a blue top and three of the small green leaves at the far end of the rack."

...

Luca nods after a moment of trying to memorize what she'd just said before going off and picking them. Outside behind the hut were a few large racks with many herbs hanging from them... To be honest it was quite confusing but he thinks he ended up with what she had asked for. Going back inside he's instructed to grab a stone bowl and start mashing them together, he does so and around thirty minutes later he ends up with some kind of paste.

Sarr'ina had squeezed some kind of gel out of a plant and applied it to Le'du's wound after carefully cleaning it with sterilised water. She holds her hand over it and mumbles a few words which cause the wound to glow green for a moment before looking over to Luca who's staring at the phenomenon that'd just happened in interest. "Is it ready?" she asks which snaps him from his thoughts.

"Yeah, here." he says handing her the bowl, though she doesn't take it and instead scrapes out a large amount of the paste and starts applying it to Le'du's wound.

"Hurrgh.." he groans in pain as she covers his injury.

"Stop being a baby." she says as she finishes applying the paste, afterwards she grabs a few large leaves and wraps his shoulder before tying it in place with some plant fibre string. "There, it should eventually heal... Do not unwrap the leaf until it stops hurting." she says after taking a breath.

He nods and bows deeply, "Thank you Shaman."

Le'du exits the hut leaving Luca and Sarr'ina alone together...

"That magic is pretty cool... Could you teach me?" he asks after a moment.

She shakes her head, "Only the Shaman can ask for nature's assistance... That and you are male."

Luca looks down in mock surprise, "I am?"

She slaps him on the shoulder, "Do not joke with me Lu!" she giggles.

...

"Are you doing well?" she asks, still apparently worrying about whether or not he'll last on his own.

Luca nods, "Yeah, yeah I'm good..." he says but cringes at how quickly it came out. "Hey, by the way, what is this powder that we were told to use before a fight?" he asks, untying his bag from his waist and presenting it to her.

"It helps our young warriors battle. It temporarily gives them the courage to do what is needed." she says.

...

Wait a moment.. Luca has a mini epiphany about the actions of the tribesman earlier, they hadn't torn that Karaskir apart because they wanted to, but because they'd used the powder... What is it then? Some kind of bath salts that he'd read about on the news?

"Courage? There was nothing courageous about what they did... They acted like animals." he mutters to her.

She sits down next to him, "Lu, the powder does not make them brave. It simply allows them to fight without fear, they will gain courage after they face the things they do while under it."

"So you're basically drugging them and hoping that they don't murder their friends and kill themselves afterwards?"

She shakes her head, "You may disagree with it, but we find that it makes the tribe stronger as a whole by using it. Our warriors are stronger, fiercer and do no lack courage. I used it in the past when I was younger, now I am able to kill those who seek to harm us." she states.

Luca sighs, he doesn't really know if what they are doing is correct, nor does he really care in all honesty... He assumes it's just culture shock, not being able to comprehend why they think this will lead to a more prosperous place. He understands that it raises the combat abilities of the tribes youngest but at what cost? They probably have no idea of the long term effects it may have on people, even if they only use it to get over their fear of killing. This also shows just how much he doesn't know about Sarr'ina, he'd thought he had understood her. She was chipper, excitable and fun but serious when she needs to be. Apparently he'd need to reevaluate how he interacts with the tribesman? Or not... Either way he didn't intend to take these primitive bath salts and go ape-shit.

"I understand... I need to go and prepare some food, thanks for your help Ina." he says as he gets up and leaves.

Behind him Sarr'ina frowns, she couldn't help but feel that Luca was judging them for some reason. Could he know something that she didn't? She was just using the methods taught to her by her mother. Shaking her head she decides to leave this topic for later and start preparing more medicine for those warriors that are still fighting.

Luca sits next to the fire and prepares the wolf while watching to see when Cuth'lu and the group will get back. He didn't know when they'd return but he wanted to see what kind of state they'd be in as using those sorts of drugs usually led to some sort of down at the end of them, he wouldn't be surprised if they returned tomorrow after recovering...

An hour later while he's chewing on the a wolf rib he spots some movement in the treeline, waiting a moment more he spots the group coming towards the tribe... Cuth'lu leads the group with a frown on his face, the group behind him are all carrying a wolf while four are carrying some kind of make-shift stretcher with a young man on it. They carry it to Sarr'ina's hut and quickly pull the injured man inside while the tribe cheers for the others who are carrying wolf carcasses. Luca looks at them closely and sees the bags under their eyes, they look absolutely exhausted, some are even heavily trembling... Whatever drug they'd taken doesn't seem to be good for their health at all.