Chapter 2: Refuge

Curled up on the floor, quite peaceably next to one another, lay a puma and a shewolf nursing three puppies. A golden eagle and a redtailed hawk; each of the creatures, except the puma who appears unhurt, harbors injuries in various stages of recovery.

I screech an uncertain greeting.

The golden answers with a short screech welcoming me; the hawk quietly stares... but with a hint of gratitude in her eyes toward Jacob; the puma purrs lightly and laps his large, muscular tongue upon the nursing wolf's head between her ears; the wolf softly woofs a gentle greeting as she pants at the puma's ministrations.

Jacob dismounts, nearly dislodging me from his arm. The horse whinneys slightly, and trots across the dirt floor of Jacob's abode to a trough and quenches her thirst as the human sets me upon an empty perch.

I follow Jacob with my eyes as he disappears into a doorway. I hear clanging through the doorway as he searches for something, then returns with a bottle and clean rag.

"This is going to sting a bit... but should keep infections out," he said.

I cannot help but feel apprehensive as he opens the bottle, and pours some of the sharp-smelling liquid onto the cloth, sets the bottle down, then approaches closely with the cloth in hand. He slowly reaches up with his free hand near my head and pauses it just out of my strike range... requesting my trust.

I find it strange he knows the ways of bretheren birds of prey, but nonetheless lower my head, signalling my trust.

He strokes the feathers at the top of my head slowly with his finger, and I find myself gaining familiarity with his touch. He strokes further down my left wing toward my injury... I grow apprehensive but force myself to override my instinct to strike.

'Be at ease, eagle; he shall heal your body's pain... though you will feel a physical sting at first.'

I try my best to remain calm as he slowly raises his hand bearing the cloth to my injury and dabs it... the injury's pain does not increase, but immediately I feel a harsh sting, and I have little control over my screeching reaction... I manage to regain enough control to avoid popping my beak upon him, however. As the initial shock of the new pain passes, I control my reactions better and force myself into a calmer state, avoiding screeching or moving in any way to distract what I imagine to be delicate work on his part to avoid aggravating the injury.

"There, there... I think I can extract the pellets... now this will hurt," he says.

His tone is of warning, and I try to brace myself. He picks up a set of tweezers and dons spectacles to examine the wound closely. I grit my beak as he uses the instrument to remove small metal balls from my wound.

"Your wing is barely held together... I fear you may never regain your flight," he says in a disappointed tone. "I will do my best, though."

He extracts as much as he can, then applies the stinging cloth again.

"I must set what remains of the bone... but must get bandages to protect the injury and a splint for it first," he says. He gets up and retrieves materials from throughout the room.

"I must set your wing properly for any chance of a recovery," he says, and in a very warning tone, "this will hurt severely."

I lower my head, and grip as tightly to my perch as I can as he carefully unfolds my wing at its normal bending point, beyond the injury. He then lifts the inner portion of my wing, unbending the unnatural break.

The pain starts very intensely, and only increases to near-unbearable levels as he does so; I cannot help but scream loudly in pain.

He holds the inner portion straight, and quickly takes his tweezers to extract more of the metal balls that became accessible from the new position, and quickly applies more of the stinging cloth.

He puts some type of sticky material over the exposed bone and wound.

"I am going to need to pull out some of your feathers to bind it properly..." he warns.

He pulls several feathers from the area, leaving a gap in the feathers in my wing, then quickly applies two straight, stiff sticks atop and beneath my wing over the bone, then tightly wraps a length of cloth around the section, through the gap he created in removing several feathers.

He then lets go of the outter wing, allowing me to fold it and tuck my wing... the pain remains intense, but I find myself accustoming to it.

"I fear I am out of medicine to cure the pain... but I will get some more shortly," he says assuringly. "You are incredibly strong and tolerant, wise and beautiful, my feathered friend," he says in a comforting, admirative tone. "I wish my species were not so blind and cruel."

He moves to my right wing. "You will bleed to death like this... you will have to regrow these feathers," he says, and expertly pulls the tattered, bleeding flightfeathers clean out, closing their veins at their roots, ceasing the bleeding.