"Hang in there, little one..."

[Tsukikage]

The group had finally reached the grotto, and Mar immediately set Neo to the task of rounding up the healers.
Mar set Rin on one of the beds, and soaked some of the bedding in water, placing it on her forehead to help cool her off.
"All we can do now is wait for Neo to get back with the healers." He said.

[Rynn]

Rin let out a small sigh and opened her eyes slightly as Mar laid her down, "I'm...I'm sorry for being such a bother...." she muttered quietly. Kaze sat next to the bed that Rin was laying in and waited patiently for the healers to show up.

[hitobannofokkusu]

[ooc]Daisuke is gone now, so only Maname is left.[/ooc]

[Tsukikage]

"Shh..." Mar said softly, "Don't talk. We're going to take care of you. Neo's gone to get Maname. Everything's going to be just fine."

"Mane?" Neo called, "Mane, where are you at, girl?"

[Rynn]

A small smile went across Rin's maw before she slipped back into unconsiousness. Kaze glanced at his sister then over to Mar, "Thanks for helping, it means a lot to her..."

[Tsukikage]

Mar could almost cry, ad he finally did when Rin couldn't see it. "I can't imagine why it would mean anything to her." He responded in a hushed voice, "We aren't exactly family or anything... I just..."
Mar paced the floor for a while, then turned and looked Kaze in the eyes. "My brother-in-law was sick too, and he got really hot. I don't know if it's the same thing, but I brushed him aside and let him die, because he was..." his gaze fell, and the tears that were welling up finally flowed down. "He was a hunting dog. He was beneath me -- weak, pathetic... I let him die. I wanted him to die... I was a real monster, Kaze, you know that? Not the beast I am today. Not like Giga, or Katashi, or that Rasputin fellow, either. No... I was a monster on the inside."
He turned away from both Kaze and Rin and sighed, "Who knows... maybe I still am a monster. You see... I'm not doing this for her sake, as much as to try and make up for something that I know can never be forgiven. I'm selfish, Kaze, and I'm doing this for selfish purposes... so don't... don't tell me that it means something to her, I beg you. I'm no saint, Kaze..." He sobbed, fighting harder and harder not to cry, but before long, he was succumbed by his grief and cried.

[Rynn]

Kaze looked calmly at Mar as he spoke, "She'll say the same thing later...If she can even speak when she wakes up. But to tell you the truth Mar your one of the only ones who's ever shown concern or even bothered to help her besides Fallen and myself...." he looked at Rin for a few seconds before continueing, "Our father, our other siblings, they just acted like she wasn't there, even our healer....no would look at her, and none would help her other than Fallen, myself and our mother before our father killed her." A small smile split Kazes' maw but it wasn't a happy smile it was more a sinister/grimace, and spoke again, "And with our fathers dieing breath turned the whole pack on us, who then threw Rin out of the pack and sent her own siblings out to kill her...even Fallen and myself...but as you can guess I couldn't bring myself to harden my heart and kill my own sibling...unlike the others..." He sighed, looked at the ground and fell silent.

[hitobannofokkusu]

Maname heard someone calling her, and it sounded close. She knew that things sounded closer than what they really were for her, so she located Neo's voice and started following it, putting the last herb she'd plucked into her bag. For some reason, she thought there was concern in his voice, but not for her. She suddenly remembered who she was-Lady Hitoban's pack's healer. She was a healer, and someone was calling her. That must mean that someone is injured or in need of aid. She transitioned smoothly into a run, and found Neo quickly. She stood, panting slightly, and asked him what the matter was.

"What's going on Neo? Is someone injured?"

[Tsukikage]

Neo nearly jumped, then gathered himself and tried to play it cool. "Oh, there you are, Mane. Yeah, Rin's got a fever or something, and Mar wants you and me to check it out, and see what we can do, y'know? Although, I'm no expert on medicine, but my power might help." He walked the short distance back to the others, though he did walk quickly, and he could not hide the concern on his face.
Neo returned just in time for the next startling development in Mar and Kaze's conversation...

"Well..." Mar sighed, "Your father sounds just like me... you know how I ended up this way? I mean, my fur used to be white as the snow, and I was about half my current size. My family line inherited a curse when they tried to duplicate what humans call 'shamanism'. This curse has a variety of effects, and lays dormant for quite some time, but it is almost always fatal once it awakens. I... I brought my family to a foreign land, to kill my sons, as well as Little Miss Hitoban. The sad thing is, my youngest son actually wanted to do it -- I guess he was trying to earn my respect, and since I had banished the boys when they were less than a year old, Kenji didn't know or care for them at all. My curse awakened in battle, and this is the result. Dante managed to stabalize my condition with his dying breath..."
Mar looked stoically at Rin. "I suppose Kenji and I deserved our fates, because we had the intent to kill, but... the rest of my family -- my brother, mate, and my daughter, Merida... damnit, I promised myself..." tears began streaming down his face again. "Kaze, how close were you to the rest of your family? It's obvious that Rin and Fallen are dear to you."

Neo stood off to the side, silently listening. Mar... tried to kill his own son? I must've been -- no. Dante was a part of that, I'm sure, but I am not Dante.

[Rynn]

Kaze listened silently to Mars' tale but was caught off guard by the sudden question, he stood there for a few seconds before speaking, "The only other person we were close to was our mother..she died the same day Rin was exiled from the pack, she had been trying to protect Rin from our father, and right in front of the entire pack he killed her. The rest of the pack hated Rin and we hated them back for it, so we never really got close to anyone else in the pack, but back then Fallen and I were just like our other siblings...we hated her...we pushed her away....and now we're trying to fix it, I don't know why but Rin, she's always trusted me, when I went looking for her several months after her exile I wasn't alone, I was with our two older brothers..." A pained look crossed his face, "I regret that day, for two reasons...one because I almost killed Rin, and two because I didn't kill my brothers that day for what they did to her...." Kaze looked down at his sister again and seemed to be looking at all the scars that ran up Rin's front legs and though he couldn't see it phisically he was looking mentally at the scar that ran across her right eye as the memory of how she got the scars tortured his mind. He blinked and looked back up but at noone in particular, "And yet, though I had been the one to almost kill her she trusted me almost immediatly after that fight, I never asked why that was, but I can almost guess why..." He stopped speaking after that and just fell silent.

[hitobannofokkusu]

Maname had been watching the scene carefully, paying more attention to Rin than anyone else, and listening to Kaze's tales of her troubles. There was definitely something wrong with Rin, since she was the one unconscious on the table. Maname couldn't see any physical problem, but she didn't know anything about this yet. Once Kaze stopped talking, she nodded for him to follow, and she padded silently over to where Rin was. She gave her a full examination while she spoke to Kaze.

"Obviously this is not a sickness I deal with on a day to day basis. I can't seem to find anything wrong with her, though there is clearly something. Possibly it's internal, but before I do anything like that, I want you to tell me all you know about it. And I mean everything. Don't hold back any details."

[Tsukikage]

Mar began pacing, which was awkward considering how much space he took up. He took half a step forward, then turned around, and continued in this fashion until he was dizzy. Then he focused his gaze on Rin. "I guess..." he said softly, "I guess we're all trying to make up for our mistakes."

Neo snapped out of his shock and turned to Mar. "Hey, can you get Shimo to tell us what's inside her?"
Mar shrugged. "It's fifty-fifty that he'll be able to tell us anything in his condition, but it's worth a try." He turned to Shimo and looked him in the eyes. "Can you tell us what's wrong inside her, Shimo?"
Shimo looked at Rin, then back at Mar. "I can see inside... but... I don't... know." he panted a bit, as if speaking coherently was putting a strain on him. "I wouldn't know what to look for. Let's leave it to... Ma... na... me..." all recognizable signs of life disappeared from his face, and he became like a statue again, just sitting there.

Mar and Neo nodded at each other, and stepped back, giving Maname and Kaze the room to work with. Mar whispered to Neo, "If they need us, we'll be here, but there's no sense interrupting at this point." The two lay down, and Shimo came out immediately and sat by Mar.

[Rynn]

Kaze padded after Maname, "I don't know much about it myself, but I do know that it's only in its early stages...it gets much, much worse...." He focused his gaze on Rin and continued on, "It's very subtle at first, lack of appitite, gets tired easily, not too serious, after that it seems to start attacking her immune system, she starts getting high fevers, coughing, momentary blackout moments, which is the stage it is currently in...." He suddered not wanting to say what was next but he knew he had to, if its one thing he's learned it was to listen to a healer when they told you to tell them something, so he continued. "After all that, it spreads to her nervous system and starts trying to tear it down, she starts convulsing, can't eat, can't breath and or has trouble breathing, possible chance she will start coughing up blood, twice before her heart itself shut down entirely...and if it gets much worse than that she goes into something close to a coma for a period of time, any worse than that we can only guess it would kill her...she's always came out of the coma like state before it got worse...." He turned to Maname, "Of all the healers we have come across since her exile, none of them knew what it was, they could only say it was definitaly internal but has no clue what could have caused it...she was born with it, so there really no explaination for it as far as they could tell...."

[hitobannofokkusu]

Maname listened with an expressionless face. She was processing all of the information, thinking of possibilities, and thinking of ways to treat whatever it was. When he said she'd had it since birth, she said, "Think back in your family tree. If there is anyone who is older and related to Rin-parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and the like-who had any kind of disease, tell me about it." Her expression didn't change as she continued to attempt to unravel this mystery. It could be hereditary...It's definitely internal, and it has to do with her central nervous system. Cardiac, immune, and nervous systems...Could it be something that attacks all of her systems? If that's the case, then I would guess that it would attack her respiratory system close to the end stages... But why does it start?

[Tsukikage]

Kage had entered silently at this time, and pulled Neo and Mar aside for some reason. The three left the grotto, but Shimo stayed behind for some reason, still staring at Rin...