Bandages [Artisan Crafts]

Bandages

   On this chilly Warrenfall winter evening, Dhaoragan was sitting in front of the entrance to his cave, forepaws crossed as he was staring down at the mess the group of Vayrons left behind. The culprits’ voices could still be heard in the distance as they were leaving back to the town, leaving an injured Runner known as Wardac to Dhao’s care. Apparently the town’s doctor was away and since Dhao had helped one of the party members before, he got the brilliant idea to take Wardac to the Dragon of Warrenfall instead of waiting for the medic’s unknown return. Dhao wouldn’t have mind, if the doofuses were using a sled instead of a cart to carry Wardac - the muddy path wasn’t dry or frozen enough yet, meaning it left behind dark deep ugly tracks in the thin layer of fresh snow, in addition to the unnecessarily many pawprints everywhere. It would’ve been enough if just one or two of them were escorting the cart and the one pulling it, but no, instead they all decided to have a rowdy evening walk.

   Dhao took a deep breath, leaving this mess for the future him to worry about as now he had other matters to attend to. He turned around, closed the door and wiped his paws before he noticed the trail of muddy paw prints going to his sleeping chambers and back. He took another deep breath, then one more. He reminded himself of what he needs to focus on…

   He followed the trail to his bedroom, where the others had left Wardac on his sleeping spot. The poor fella was unconscious, slightly trembling as his fever started to rise. His left forelimb and almost whole body were wrapped in a mountain of worn bandages, while nobody had bothered to pick off the thawing chunks of ice and gunk stuck in Wardac’s coat. Dhao grunted and rubbed his temples as there was a lot of work to be done.

   First, Dhao picked away the dangling things stuck in Wardac’s fur so they wouldn’t melt all over his bedding. No matter how much he tussled or picked at the fur, Wardac didn’t react. Having cleared out the worst, he started by carefully cutting up the rugged bandages to check on the condition of the wounds. Gently removing the stained covers, he had a moment of relief as the wounds themselves had been cleaned and sealed up with magic. They still needed time to heal while being kept clean, which meant Dhao had to apply fresh bandages before he started dealing with the fever. He left the bedroom to check his medicinal cabinet, but no matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find enough gauze to cover Wardac’s injuries.

   While mumbling something under his breath in slight frustration, he retreated to the main spacious room of his cave and started going through the countless books stored on the numerous shelves by the walls. It took him a good while before he found what he was looking for - a trusty tome on first aid, where he vaguely remembered reading something about crafting a good amount of bandages relatively fast. He took the book to a better light and started to study it, all the while keeping one ear rotated towards Wardac’s direction to catch any signs of potential distress.

   The book had a little bit of everything, and the author had decided to use their own system for listing the various things. Dhao was forced to flip through the pages from the very beginning before the topic started to veer off from the seemingly endless discussion on the quality of silk from different towns all over Reos and started to steer towards on how to properly dress open wounds. Dhao had found what he was looking for and placed the book down on a small table to study the instructions closer. The text was a bit chaotic, but fortunately Dhao’s mind was wide awake so he was able to decipher it with ease. Before he started to gather the required ingredients, he checked on Wardac. The Runner was still asleep and the feverish trembles had grown stronger, so Dhao placed a damp piece of cloth over Wardac’s face and a few more on his paw pads to buy himself a bit more time to make the new bandages.

   Having searched for and gathered the items listed in the wall of text, Dhao organized his desk. It was only then he realized that he should sterilize the table, himself and the materials. Fortunately this was something he could easily do with magic, so it took him only a mere moment to get everything around him squeaky clean. He even wrapped a cloth around his snout so he wouldn’t accidentally contaminate the working area with his breath, after which he leaned over the instructions once more. The used ingredients might’ve seemed like an odd choice, but how the author described turning them into an effective bandage made perfect sense to Dhao. The writer of this book might’ve been chaotic, but they sure were brilliant. His concentration was broken when he heard soft gasping from Wardac’s direction. As he leaned to peek around the corner, he observed his guest for a little while, simply to acknowledge to himself that Wardac was probably having a bad dream. When Wardac calmed down again, Dhao followed the book’s instructions almost word-by-word as he was creating the fresh bandages for Wardac.

   Dhao took a moment to admire the gauze he had just finished creating. His mood brightened up as he returned to Wardac to gently clean his wounds and pick the last bits of dirt left in his fur out. With the help of magic, Dhao skillfully rebandaged the injuries, after which he checked on Wardac’s vitals. The fluffy fella was indeed running a fever, but since the wounds were clean it couldn’t have been a serious infection, so Dhao decided to wait a couple more hours to see whether Wardac’s condition improves on its own or not. It was only now he suddenly felt how spent he is from the spontaneously busy night, and a wide yawn escaping from his jaws convinced Dhao to have a small nap before checking on Wardac again. Since his bedroom was taken, he stepped back in the main room to sleep by the endless little campfire burning in the middle of it. The tome left open on his table, surrounded by some leftovers from the crafting fun, made him briefly stop. With an approving smirk he closed it and gave it an appreciative pat on the cover before retreating to his temporary napping spot.