Citizen 790 Maltese

The blue tiger-esque rexal was in a poor mood, even more prone to snapping at others than usual. The kid he had been supposed to babysit had not only given him the slip by pretending to play hide and seek, but then the pup had vanished into the forest, where there had been sightings of dangerous animals.

All kids were absolutely adorable, but once they got over ten, they started becoming more independent. That wasn’t even mentioning that once they turned twenty… Then they started really thinking for themselves, which meant trouble, as much as he loved the little ones. Maltese sighed to himself, and he braced himself for whatever was to come.

Meaning that he walked into the danger laden forest alone. It did not occur to him to ask for help, so single mindedly focused was he on the importance of retrieving the wayward pup. The solution to him seemed obvious, go into the forest to find the pup, no steps between. He was a straightforward thinker, and sometimes that was a good thing. Other times, not so much.

Pups were prone to exploring. It was a cute trait, at least so long as it was supervised. Left unsupervised, it was a trait that could quickly become dangerous. Likely, the pup did not even know there were dangers, making it all the more important that he act with urgency.

He walked through the forest, keeping a keen and wary eye out. The last thing that he needed right now was to get interrupted by a boar attempting to fight while he was trying to find this pup and bring them back to safety.

Maltese followed the trail of footprints and occasional tail prints from when the child had clearly stood up on awkwardly wobbly legs in order to see something better. So far, the search he was conducting had been going surprisingly smoothly.

In the end, he either had perfect or awful timing at finding the pup in question. The pup in the distance was safe, if gnawing on some plant. However, he felt a dawning horror as he got close enough to see exactly which plant the pup was gnawing.

It was poisonous. Very poisonous. It could severely harm a grown rex, even, given enough time in that rex’s system. It wouldn’t kill them, but considering the size of a ten year old pup… He was not certain what would happen, but it definitely wouldn’t be good.

“Spit that out,” he gruffly spoke, urgent demand to his voice. But when the pup turned to him, blinking innocent eyes, it was clear they had already swallowed it.

His brain was in a panic. Maltese could bring this pup to a medic, and he would need to. But he was not sure it would be in time to stop the potentially fatal consequences. In the back of his head, Maltese wished they had run into a boar instead in a way, so that it was actually a problem he could literally fight with a straightforward procedure.

The pup opened their mouth to speak, but Maltese grabbed them in his arms and began to scan the area with great urgency. He was taking the path back, of course, to a medic, but he could not recall if he had seen what he needed on the way in.

It was a tough choice, to take the same path back or not, a pup’s life literally in his hands. The pup stopped trying to speak and began to shiver with increasing intensity, despite the air not actually being that cold at all on that day.

He took the same path back. It was partially hope, but also he felt like he faintly remembered seeing a hint of something. He could only hope he was not imagining things in his desperation to be able to find this.

In the end, his memory proved accurate. As he found the plant he needed, one that he had basic knowledge of thanks to all the strange things pups ate and the remedies their parents had, the pup was in a bad state, their breathing starting to become erratic.

So Maltese held the found plant with his magic and brought it to his mouth and began chewing. It was a mild poison itself, but if he could get the pup to swallow, it would get the worse poison mostly out of the system. He didn’t care if he got some poison too, this was more important, a little life was on the line.

As he finished chewing the plant into a pulp, he moved the child into one arm only, and then gently opened the pup’s jaws with his other hand and encouraged the little one to swallow. It was a task, but he managed it.

The pup was already turned on their side on his arm in preparation, and the child threw up, and Maltese was relieved to see the pieces of the worse poison they had gnawed on within the vomit.

But there was no time to stop, other than a quick observation. The breathing had gone back to normal, but there was still an amount of shivering. It was a delay, not a fix. For a true fix, this pup needed a real medic.

Thankfully, the medic said Maltese had indeed managed to buy enough time through his improvising to save the pup. Maltese mostly felt lucky, even if it had taken some lesser used knowledge of his. It felt more like a failure on his part for having happened in the first place, than a success.

But sometimes victories don’t feel like victories. Sometimes battles aren’t fought against beasts, but against accidents. The world would move on, but the incident would stick with Maltese, and he would never forget to keep an eye out for those plants while in forests, no matter who was accompanying him.

~ nonbinarypixel