In Loki's Honor

I looked up. Priestess was crouching next to me, covering me with her body. I watched horrified as blood trickled from her lips. No. No, no, no. I heard the hunter shouting and quickly climbed over Priestess's body to look. She had a knife buried in her chest, fortunately on the right side of her body. It was bubbling, a sign that she had a punctured lung.

I squeaked. My Nurse Profession guided me at that moment, and I knew what I had to do. I pointed a paw at a strong hunter and screeched. Applying pressure on the wound, I willed my Staunch and Vitality Skills to work on her. If my amebiasis disease worked as a proof of anything, was that the System didn't follow strict laws of physics. No way a baby bunny would fell a grown man with a kick.

The hunter approached and I ran back to fetch the leather fest. I pointed at the vest and at his knife, then drew a rectangle on the leather. The hunter nodded and cut the piece I needed. Then I pointed at the girl I was standing on and stood on my rear paws, making a lifting motion. He nodded again and picked her up as she was, carrying her with the knife sticking up. Since she was my ride, I went along. Priestess's breathing was short and ragged. Not good.

The hunter was taking care to not jostle the girl too much. I kept pressure next to the wound, doing what I could as my Skills and Profession guided me. Once we reached Granny's hut, they put her on the bed, lying on her belly. The hunter offered me that rectangular piece of leather, but I first had to fetch some things. The first was a moonshine they brewed fermenting forest berries. I could smell the alcohol from very far away. The second was some strips of cloth to bandage the wound.

Gesturing and squeaking, it took a minute to show them I wanted to wash the leather with the moonshine. Then I used my teeth to rip one the priestess' clothes, exposing the wound. With a scrap of leather, I wasted another minute to show him that he had to press the leather to the wound and then wrap it around the wound tightly. The hunter nodded and ripped out the Priestess' dress, exposing her bare chest. The girl was in her late teens but the lack of nourishment did a number on her breasts. A vanishing number. If it weren't for the nipples, one could mistake her for an emaciated boy.

The knife came with a splurt of blood. The hunter slapped her back with the patch of leather, and Granny's deft hands wrapped the cloth around Priestess' torso so tight it was blocking circulation. She sucked in air as if it was life and coughed a lot. Finally, she expelled a ball of coagulated blood. The girl's body sagged and she fell asleep. I touched an ear to the patch of leather. I could still hear a faint hissing. I pressed my paws and squeaked at the kind hunter. He nodded and put his giant hand on the patch, pressing hard. The hissing stopped.

You gained the First Aid(uncommon) Skill.

You gained the Sign Language(rabbit, rare) Skill.

For healihng level 12 Priestess, you gained 36,000 Exp (360 base x 10,000 x 0.0001 x 100 Size Bonus).

I relaxed on my haunches. Thanks, System.

For three days I nested on Priestess' bed, allowing only Granny and Gramps to tend her wound. The villagers brought me herbs, water, and vegetables. The System recognized the Skills I nurtured while I practiced my Profession.

Your First aid (uncommon) Skill reached novice 3.

You gained the Long Term Care (rare) Skill.

You gained the Prophylaxis (rare) Skill.

You reached Nurse (uncommon) level 13.

You gained 2 Skill Points.

Your First aid (uncommon) Skill was raised to novice 5.

I had a hunch that Skill rarity was based on how many people in the world had it. The System then tweaked the Skill's effects based on this assessment.

Priestess stirred. I perked up my ears and turned to look at her. She was confused at first but then she saw me and smiled. I jumped and licked her cheek.

"Pruvia tomash, ni bumola sorson," She cooed softly and rubbed me.

Granny snorted a laugh. I wasn't even aware she was in the hut, but it was her home and I was focused on my Status. The two women had a conversation, but Priestess's face clenched when Granny announced something. If I had to guess, it was about Bully Hunter. She stood up and finally noticed her lack of clothing when the rough linen sheet fell down. from her torso. Fortunately, Granny had a new set of clerical robes for her.

Dressed, Priestess carried me on one arm outside. She went to a section of the village I visited only once. It was a patch of land walled-off by a rickety fence removed from the houses with some tall logs stuck on the ground evenly spaced. It was used as punishment. People that broke the village rules would be bound to these poles for days under the sun. Nobody bothered to clean up the place, so you can imagine the precarious sanitary conditions of this area.

Truly enough, Asshole Hunter's arms were tied to the top of the pole. His feet barely touched the ground and he was facing us. He looked weak and delirious.

"Rushagal!" Priestess shouted and hurried to look at him. He blinked and mumbled something. She looked at his back and gasped. I stole a peek. He was flogged. The whip wounds were still red and tender. She rose me in her hands and our eyes met. Then she said something that I knew was begging me to heal him. All I could get was that Rushagal was the young adult's name.

I mean, the guy stabbed her. He was trying to kill me. And I don't have powers of healing. So I scoffed, jumped on Rushagal's head, and then from pole to pole until I could clear the distance and vault over the fence. I stopped with my back to the fence, hearing Priestess cry.

Fucking teenage drama. Worse yet, I didn't have the big picture. Truly, I was in the village for over a decade but I was only conscious for a handful of days. Yeah. She obviously cared for him, and it was none of my business.

I climbed the rickety fence and jumped back to the pole with the hunter. I walked down the wood and reached the ropes binding him. Priestess heard me chewing the rope and looked up. She gushed and said some words of praise. After a couple of minutes, I severed the rope and Rushagal fell, supported on Priestess' shoulders. I clung to his back and used Phagocytosis to clean up his wounds. Chemical Awareness was the amoeba's sense of taste, and I could tell what was Rushagal and what was not. So my pseudopods - still microscopic in thickness but based on my body length - devoured the bacteria, dirt, grime, sweat, leather, and wood stuck to his wounds.

It seemed the System liked my method of cleaning wounds.

Your Prophylaxis (rare) Skill reached novice 2.

Priestess and Rushagal clambered out of the punishment pen with me scuttling over his back, pressing my paws to his wounds.

Some villagers noticed them and came to stop her from stealing away the prisoner. When they stopped and I saw the towering shadows of the village men over the young couple, I climbed to Rushagal's head and growled at them. They backed off immediately and I went back to tending to his wounds. The spot I bit a few days ago was going to become a nasty scar. Not that the leashes wouldn't. I once heard that the sign of a brave warrior was an unblemished back. It meant they never fled from combat. if it weren't for Priestess's kindness, I would've made her kill Rushagal to gain his Exp.

She led him to a hut and after some effort, laid him on his stomach. I practiced my profession.

I wasn't about to abandon my chosen priestess. While the whole "village guardian" didn't settle well with me and I showed displeasure every time someone tried to worship me, I knew that abandoning her or showing any displeasure on my part would mean sending the young couple back to the punishment pen. So I did what I could to nurse the man back to health. While Priestess had spent three days in bed, Rushagal was tied to the log. His recovery was longer even though her wound was severe. He was anemic, starved, and dehydrated.

After five days, he was conscious but too weak to move. I took that time to teach him a practical lesson on being a gentleman. Whenever a shadow of haughtiness or hubris flashed in his eyes I would kick him. I showed him that he had to be gentle with her by caressing her hand and then dragging him to do the same. Somehow I knew it was working because the System rewarded me.

Your Sign Language (rabbit, rare) Skill reached novice 5.

Your Long Term Care (rare) Skill reached novice 4.

It was obvious that the couple was in love. But I now recognized this village as being one or two steps removed from cavemen. They were between the hunter-gatherer and early farming stage. They had domesticated one animal species but as pets, not as food. I digress. The fact was, being mean was the way courtship happened. Worse, the females accepted that. I had to show them another way. Another path.

From time to time someone, mostly Granny and Gramps would come to check on us. On the eighth day, Rusagal was strong enough to go on his own, although he would have a hard time recovering his fat reserves. He went back to his hunting job and Priestess would spend the time while he was out with me.

One week on that routine, Priestess surprised me. She did some gestures with her fingers curled into a cat's paw, and I understood something. She was asking me which herb I liked most. I shrugged but she took me and we went to the rack behind Granny's hut where they dried herbs. She would point at each herb and I would invent a paw, head, nose, and ear sign for each one of them. She would tell me a word as if she was...

Teaching me their language. Great! Awesome!

She obviously picked up Rabbit Sign Language somewhere along the road. She would imitate my gestures for each herb while we corrected and cemented each one's understanding. I decided to make composite gestures, with one for "herb" and another for each specific species. I also devised gestures for "yes" and "no". A head shake and a nod.

After that, we went around the village. She would point at an object, repeat the word a few times, and I would invent a paw-head-nose sign. On our second day, Granny took notice of our shenanigans and joined. Priestess taught her some gestures and she joined the game of mutual language sharing.

We spent a whole week doing that, and the message I hoped for finally showed up.

Your Sign Language (rabbit, rare) Skill reached novice 7.

You gained the Auvani Language (common) Skill.

You gained the Mime (uncommon) Skill.

Mime was one of my Entertainer professional skills. Sign Language (rabbit) had almost a hundred signs by then. Gramps and Rushagal were the new pupils and the five of us kept on developing our Skills. Another week went by like sand through my clenched paw and Auvani Language reached level four. I could now understand most of their conversation and figure out new words by context. We had a "what's the word for