Yeah. That’s not happening here.
Because my hero is face-down in a river.
And me? I’m stuck on a slippery rock, talking to you instead of saving him. Don’t judge — I was having a thought. A deep, philosophical thought about whether fish ever get bored.
Then it hits me.
“Ashva.”
The name leaves my mouth like thunder.
“Oh frozen tails of the moon — he’s still in the water!”
I leap. Graceful? No. Picture a snowball discovering gravity for the first time.
I tumble through mist and crash into the current. The river bites — icy teeth on fur and skin — but I keep paddling.
There he is. My idiot. My family. His body turns in the current, the scar across his chest bright against the dark water.
“Hold on,” I growl, because that’s what you say when you have no idea what else to do.
I clamp my teeth around his cloak and pull. The current fights me, snarling and twisting, but I am Neira — the White Shadow of the forest — and I don’t let go.
I dig my paws into the riverbed, scraping against stone. Pain blooms in my shoulder, yet I drag him inch by inch until we hit the mud of the bank.
He’s breathing. Barely. The air catches in his throat like a broken flute.
I nudge him. Nothing. I nudge harder. Still nothing.
“Come on,” I whisper. “You can’t leave like mom did. Not you. Not now.”
The thought of her burns. My mother’s last breath, her body still warm against mine. This is the same helpless weight.
I lower my head beside his and scream — not a sound, but a wound made voice. The howl climbs the mountains, shattering silence, calling anyone, anything.
For a moment, the forest answers only with wind. Then I smell smoke. Not fire. Herbs.
A figure moves through the fog — tall, stooped, carrying a lantern made of bone. His beard gleams silver; his eyes, river-bright. He doesn’t flinch when he sees me.
“You shouldn’t howl at the dead, child,” he says. “It confuses them. Makes them think they can come back.”
He kneels beside Ashva, fingers steady as roots. He presses the boy’s wrist, listening to the weak flutter beneath.
“Still warm,” he murmurs. “Good. The river hasn’t claimed him yet.”
He pulls a bundle from his bag — leaves, roots, something that smells like rain and bitterness. His hands move quickly, crushing herbs between stones. I watch, wary, but too desperate to stop him.
“Gotu Kola — for the blood,” he says, half to himself.
“Ashwagandha — fever.
Turmeric, honey — keep the rot away.
Tulsi, neem — breath.
Giloy — for the life that’s trying not to quit.”
He spreads the mash across Ashva’s wounds. The scent stings my nose — sharp, earthy, alive. He ties it all with strips of palm bark and pours a few drops of a dark liquid between Ashva’s lips.
“What are you doing to him?” I snap.
He glances at me. “Healing, if he lets me. Killing, if he doesn’t. Nature decides.”
I crouch beside them, shivering. The moon slides from a cloud, painting everything in silver. Ashva’s chest rises again — faint, but steady.
“If he makes it till sunrise, he’ll live,” the old man says. “If not, start digging.”
He leaves us by the fire he builds with a single spark. The flames dance like small spirits. I curl around Ashva, my fur pressed to his skin, counting every breath. One. Two. Three.
Hours crawl. When dawn finally bleeds over the trees, the fever breaks. His skin cools beneath my paw.
He’s alive.
Outside, rain whispered instead of roared. The cave smells of smoke and herbs. Shelves carved from stone hold dried roots, bones, and rolled scrolls. The old man hums while stirring something in a clay pot.
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I sit near Ashva, who’s asleep again. His snoring is… impressive. Loud enough to scare off predators, though sadly not me.
“Do you ever stop making noise?” I mutter.
He doesn’t answer, of course. He never does when I’m being reasonable. So I talk to you instead. Keeps me sane.
He looks peaceful now, doesn’t he? Like a lump of wet cloth someone forgot to fold. Maithlee would have laughed. Actually, she’d have told me to stop complaining and fetch water — but that’s the same thing as laughing, right?
I remember once, during training — oh, you’d love this — Ashva tried to meditate under a waterfall because Maithlee said it builds focus. He lasted three seconds before the water smacked him so hard he screamed something very un-spiritual.
She laughed until she cried. I laughed too — until he threw a fish at me.
I miss that.
“Rest, fool,” I whisper. “You still owe me dinner.”
Behind me, the old man chuckles. “You talk too much, White Shadow.”
I whirl. “You can hear me?”
He smiles, eyes crinkling. “Not your words. Your intent. The forest carries it. Keep him safe, and perhaps you’ll learn to speak in more than thoughts.”
He turns back to his herbs. Something about him feels older than trees. Outside, rain begins again, soft and rhythmic. I glance at Ashva and lower my head to my paws.
“Don’t scare me like that again,” I mumble. “I’m running out of family.”
It was already night time when a sound wakes me — a soft hum.
The old man sits beside Ashva, unwrapping the bandage. The wounds glisten, the herbs dark against skin. He frowns, tracing something along Ashva’s collarbone.
Light — faint, blue — threads beneath the boy’s skin, forming symbols I’ve never seen.
The old man breathes, almost in prayer. “A child of the Chakraline,” he whispers. “So one survived.”
I lift my head, ears twitching. “Chakra-what?”
He doesn’t answer, only covers the marks and adds more herbs to the fire. Sparks rise, painting the cave roof with brief stars. Typical.
“Fine,” I sigh. “Be mysterious. But when he wakes up, I’m telling him you called him special. He’ll never shut up about it.”
The old man laughs softly. “Then he will have reason to live. And that's all life ever asks for.”
I curl closer to the warmth, watching Ashva breathe. The world outside the cave roars with wind and rain, but here — here it’s only heartbeats, firelight, and the quiet promise of another day.
A thread of sunlight spills into the cave, weaving gold through the smoke. The fire has shrunk to embers. Ashva stirs — a soft groan, the sound of life remembering itself.
I’m on my paws before I can think. He blinks up, dazed, eyes glassy with sleep and confusion.
“Neira?”
I don’t cry. Wolves don’t cry. We just... exhale too loudly and pretend the air’s dusty.
“You big oaf,” I snap, tail flicking. “Next time you decide to go swimming, maybe don’t bleed out first?”
He smiles weakly. “You pulled me out?”
“No, the river got bored and spit you out,” I retort. Then softer, “Yes. I did.”
He tries to sit up, but the old man appears like a ghost from behind the smoke.
“Stay down, boy. Your body’s mending, not reborn.”
Ashva freezes. [ Who—? ]
“Call me Bhairav,” the man says. “Healer. Hermit. Collector of herbs and bad decisions.”
He checks the bandages, nodding with quiet satisfaction. “You’re lucky she howled when she did. Another hour and I’d be teaching her how to bury you instead.”
Ashva glances at me, guilt flickering across his face. “Thank you… both.”
Bhairav waves him off. “Thank your heartbeat. It refused to quit.”
Then, to me, “He’ll live, but rest is the price.”
I tilt my head. “And food. Food is also the price.”
The old man chuckles, and Ashva smiles despite the pain. “Still the same, huh?” he murmurs — tired, fond.
I grin. “Did you expect me to become a solemn spirit-wolf of wisdom or something?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Well, dream smaller.”
Time passes slowly after that. The storm outside fades into a gentle drizzle. Bhairav goes about grinding herbs, humming old tunes that sound like forgotten prayers. Ashva sleeps more than he’s awake.
I mostly… talk. To you. Because honestly, no one else listens as well as you do.
It’s strange, though — sitting in a cave with the boy who used to chase lightning, the one who used to laugh at danger like it was a festival game. Seeing him pale and still hurts in ways I don’t know how to name.
So I fill the silence with stories.
“Did I ever tell you about the time he tried to impress Maithlee by cooking?” I start, watching his chest rise and fall. “He said, ‘I’ll make her something grand!’ So he hunted a hare, gathered spices, built a fire — then forgot he left the pot on the fire. We almost ate smoke that night.”
I giggle. “And Maithlee didn’t scold him. She just said, ‘You tried. That’s what matters.’ Then gave him half her share of berries. He was so smitten he nearly fainted. I had to bite his boot to snap him out of it.”
My tail swishes at the memory. “She had that way, didn’t she? Calm. Like the world could scream and she’d still hum a lullaby.”
Bhairav glances up from his herbs. His eyes soften, but he says nothing. Maybe he knows there are griefs no words can bandage.
By evening, Ashva is awake again, stronger. Bhairav forces him to sip a potion so foul that even I wrinkle my nose.
“What’s in this?” Ashva coughs.
“Miracle and misery in equal parts,” Bhairav replies. “Drink.”
He does — barely. I stifle a laugh.
When Bhairav leaves to fetch water, I nudge Ashva’s blanket closer and grin. “You know… you owe me.”
He groans. “For saving my life?”
“For that and the entertainment tax. I almost drowned too, you know.”
He smiles faintly. “You’re impossible.”
“True. And since you’re bedridden, I’ll take advantage of that.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Neira…”
I bare my teeth in a mischievous grin. “I’m going to prank you.”
His eyes widen. “What — no — Neira!”
Too late. I tug at his blanket, dart out of reach, and howl dramatically as I trip on a loose pot. The herbs go flying. Ashva tries to stop laughing and fails miserably.
By the time Bhairav returns, the floor is covered in crushed tulsi and honey. The old man stares. Then sighs the sigh of someone far too old for this nonsense.
“Children,” he mutters, and starts cleaning up.
I tilt my head innocently. “He sneezed.”
Ashva laughs so hard he almost reopens his wounds. For a brief moment, it feels like Maithlee’s laughter fills the cave too — faint, echoing, but real. And I realize that’s what I’ve been trying to do all along: keep her light from fading.
Later that night, when Bhairav’s asleep, I lie beside the fire. Ashva dreams restlessly, murmuring names — Maithlee’s among them. I close my eyes, listening to the rhythm of the flames and his breathing.
“Sleep, idiot,” I whisper. “You’ve got a world to fight when you wake.”
The words taste heavier than they should. Because somewhere deep inside, I can feel it — something ancient humming beneath his skin, the same light I saw before, the one Bhairav called Chakraline.
It’s stirring again.
Outside, thunder growls across the mountains like an omen. The war the kingdom buried is clawing its way back to the surface.
And in that fragile cave, between ashes and snow, a family’s promise and the last spark of a fallen order breathed again.
Chakraline. What are your first impressions of him?
best wolf-companion? I love having her act as our snarky guide through Ashva’s more "unconscious" moments.
The Healer's Satchel. These are real-world medicinal plants that form the backbone of the forest’s healing lore:
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Gotu Kola (Indian Pennywort): Found in wetlands and marshes; these round, scalloped leaves are used to treat the blood.
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Ashwagandha (Winter Cherry / Indian Ginseng): Woody roots from dry, sandy soil that help the body endure fever and exhaustion.
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Turmeric: Bright orange roots that act as a natural antiseptic to keep "the rot" away.
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Honey & Turmeric: A powerful combination used as a healing base for many of Bhairav’s medicines.
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Tulsi (Holy Basil): A highly aromatic plant with purple flowers used to clear the breath.
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Neem (Indian Lilac): Serrated, dark green leaves from tropical regions known for their intense cleansing properties.
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Giloy (Heart-leaved Moonseed): A climbing vine with heart-shaped leaves used to strengthen the "life force" trying not to quit.