Tail-Wind

The lights of Ealaín's house sit dark and musty, as if not turned on for many days. Not many people visit the night club during winter time, whether that is due to the increase in other third places in town, or due to the cold keeping people from enjoying the club, one thing is for certain; nobody has seen Ealaín in days.

This typically isnt a problem, because of her schedule, she typically is running around on Vixen, patrolling the outskirts of Valleytown, or trying to help any of her friends with larger building projects, but because of how close Yuletide is, nobody wants to be working on any construction. And with the location of Valleytown, the air gets bitter cold, far too cold to spend days outside patrolling. Typically, everyone would prefer to spend the time with each other, keeping out of the cold.

~*~

The snow falls heavy on the ground up in the highlands district on this cold night. The streets are lit up with colored lanterns, seemingly in spite of the below-freezing temperatures. Lights come from nearly every residential window, their warm glow melting the snow on the sills of each window, radiating warmth. Yule-tide is in the air.

As the sun begins to set, turning the clouds a radiating amber near the western horizon, the temperature begins to plummet, causing the blazing lanterns to turn into quiet dancing trickles of light, out of fear of the cold. The world grows silent.

From the end of the road connecting to the bridge sits a dark, silent house. Its dark red paneling covered in snow and ice, and as dark as the night around it. Not a peep comes out of the house, except for the sound of warm water running through the pipes. A sign waves in the wind, hanging from heavy steel chains, labelled with red text, slathered in glowing ink:

Ealaín's House.

It's the house of one of Valleytown's founders, and primary protector, Ealaín.

Cutting through the silence is a heavy knock on the door. A bovine beastfolk covered from head to toe in heavy woolen clothing, Roxanne, and an exceedingly tall dog-taur, Callirhoe, both stand near the door, the smaller of the two, anxiously fiddles with the tie on her trench coat, somehow still shivering in the cold.

"I told you that just knocking wouldn't work. I don't know what happened, but she hasn't been answering her door in weeks."

"Have you looked in any of her windows? She could be out on patrols, or staying at the cathedral. What was she doing last time you saw her?" The very loud but soft voice of Callie echoes off the buildings on the road, then back to Roxanne.

The bovine shifts in her spot, trying to remember anything, "I.. I don't know, really. Last thing she told me was how she was going to go on patrol, and try to fix something. She usually only takes a day to patrol at the most." She knocks on the door again, harder. "I-I'm just worried that its something serious. She never leaves her lights off, especially during a snowstorm like this."

As they turn around to check the sides off the house, they hear scratching on the inside of the door, and squeaks from a fox on the inside. Roxanne tries to open the door, and it swings open, revealing a small, cold fox on the doormat, shivering. Roxanne kneels down to warm up the fox, named Robin, and calls for Callirhoe to notify Astraal. Callie speeds off.

Before long, Robin is up, and pulling Roxanne further into the house, the lights dimly glowing, nearly completely out of fuel. Roxanne follows quickly, lighting her own lantern and delving further into the house.

~*~

Galloping back is Callie, with Astraal on its back, nearly colliding with the house, and sliding to a stop. Astraal rushes in, Callie hesitating at first, but crawling in the front door and laying down in the foyer. From the first floor, the second floor is now lit up with lanterns and commotion.

Nearly tripping up the spiral staircase, Astraal finds itself hearing Roxanne panicking in the room over, "Oh, G'reth, please be okay. By the gods, please be okay. Elaine? Can you hear me? Please wake up Laine.." A very shaky voice is heard through the door.

Astraal bursts through the door, toolbox in hand, to see Ealaín, collapsed on the floor, Robin curled up near her head, and Roxanne crying over her, frantically shaking her and trying to wake her up. Dropping the box right next to her head, Astraal and Roxanne struggle to roll Ealaín onto her back, nearly rolling her onto Robin.

It takes its hat off, and puts its ear on Laine's chest, feeling around on her wrist semi-frantically. Finally, with a sigh, she exclaims, "She's breathing. not consistently, not heavily, but she's breathing." It opens the Vixen's eyelids, trying to see if there's any kind of activity, and gives an even larger sigh.

"What's wrong with her? It looks like she hasn't moved from that spot in weeks..." Roxanne yelps through her tears.

"I don't know. Her iris aren't there either." Astraal sits up, checking Laine's mouth, then her arms, then her legs, and finally sitting back down on its knees, frustrated, "Gods, I don't remember what she told me to look for." It puts its hands over its eyes.

"Could she be carried down here...? I might be able to find something." Callie echoes through the halls, reminding them of their very large friend downstairs.

~*~

Lugging Ealaín down the stairs wasn't the difficult part of this project, it was getting permission from Robin to do so in the first place. Robin was dead set on preventing the two of them to pick Laine up in the first place, let alone drag her body down the spiral staircase and into the cold downstairs. They set up a nest of blankets and lanterns for Robin to sleep in to warm her up, as well as plenty of treats as payment for permission, and begun their trek.

After what felt like a day of trying to essentially roll the body of Ealaín down the stairs, they finally got her down by Callie, who effortlessly picked up and spun around her body, much to the frustration of both Roxanne and Astraal.

"Did you two..."Callie flips Laine around, so that her backside is facing them, "Notice what's going on with her tail?"

After a bit of thought, Astraal hadnt really noticed that until now. Getting closer, she inspects Laine's tail, and sees that it looked really damaged, was falling off at the base, and the connector that is implanted in her body was rusted and slightly bleeding.

Robin, now down with them, sticks her head near the connector, sniffing it, and gets shocked as soon as her wet nose touches the metal, yelping and jumping back. It seems like the connector to the tail has broken off a part of her tail, and the snow had short circuited her wiring, knocking her unconscious.

"Okay, good to know what the issue is now. Let's get her down to the metalwork shop and we'll get her all cleaned up." Astraal picks robin up, cradling her in its arms, as Callie brings Laine down to the Metalwork shop underneath her house.

Laying the vixen on the operating table, Astraal safely disconnects the tail, and the power coupling that got trapped in the connector after some unscrewing and some uncomfortable shocks and curses. Roxanne is sniffling, glued to the window outside the operating room.

"Do you think she'll be okay...?" Roxanne looks back to Callie as if she was sopping wet from rain.

"Definitely. Astraal has probably done this plenty of times in the past." Callie nods, cradling Robin in their arms.

A knock and quick opening of the door is heard, when Ellie and Race both rush in, having been informed by Callie.

"We got here as fast as we could," Race pants, exhausted, "How's Laine doing? Is she okay?" Ellie asks as they both run to the window.

"well, Astraal is now trying to flip Laine over with the controls on the operating table and failing, if that means anything to you." Callie remarks as Astraal walks through the heavy door.

"Okay, So. The tail is completely separated, all that I need to do is figure out how to wake Laine up again." Astraal wipes her brow with her arm, "Does anyone know how to do something like that? Or at the very least know enough healing magic to disinfect the connector by her tailbone."

After some picking and choosing, Ellie and Roxanne both go in with Astraal, setting up some healing ritual that they both practiced recently together. And after a bright flash of light, they stand there in anticipation, as Aneajus appears near them.

"What happened."

"Laine's been unconscious for a while, and we're trying to re-boot her." Astraal says sharply, as Roxanne is shaking Laine's arm. Aneajus puts her fingers on her temples, taking a deep sigh.

"Everyone step back."

The room is cleared as Aneajus looms over Ealaín, and with the raise of its claw, backhands Laine across the face, and she sits up stiff as a board.

"What the fuck? Where the fuck, what happened? Why are you here?" Laine looks around the room, terrified.

"You almost died. Your friends saved your life." Aneajus looms over Laine, then points at her severed tail, "Fix it. Next time I wont be here to wake you up again. Don't let it happen again."She disappears like nothing happened.

Everyone rushes in to make sure Laine is okay. She won't be living this down for many years.

~*~

Some time passes, and Ealaín is sitting with Astraal in her metalworking shop, and they are testing designs of different tails with the connector. Astraal turns to Ealaín, lost in thought.

"So. What even caused the short out in the first place? it looks like some wires were crossed and cut."

"...Do you really wanna know...? Its not like its somethting that's..."Ealaín looks off for a second, trying to remember what happened, then shakes her head. "Its not anyhting major."

"Does shit stink? Of course I want to know what happened. You almost DIED, dawg."

Ealaín sighs, staring into the circuitry of her new tail, "It... Look, promise you wont tell anyone what REALLY happened?" Ealaín turns towards Astraal, where it puts its hand up and swears to it with a grin on its face.

"It... I tripped on Robin while she was sleeping, and my drink spilt on my tail." She puts her head in her hands. "Now can we just get back to fixing this?

Astraal laughs to herself, "Oh, of course! We wouldn't want any soda-related deaths any time soon!"

"... Cut it out."

"The great 'Vixen of the North', felled by a bottle of the Club Approved Robin's Reserve!" She puffs out her chest.

"...I'm never telling you secrets ever again, Assy."Ealaín growls.