A Tall and Small Collection | Soren

Bandages and Glue

There were countless minutes of silent glances between Soren and Dorian as Soren washed away the blood from Dorian's wounds. The bleeding was not as profuse as before, but the once clean water was now some shade of pink. Dorian, for the most part, had stopped crying as hard as before, but tears still gathered from time to time around his puffy eyes.

Soren wanted to explain how Ashlynn had helped him. He wanted to explain that he had made a deal and that a human seemed to respond to his requests. He wanted to ease his brother's mind – but he could only worry about Rey and reassure Dorian that they were going to be okay.

The wounds, now cleaned, didn't seem as bad as Soren initially suspected. Granted, they were still bad, and it was obviously traumatizing for Dorian, but Soren was glad Dorian was out of danger for the moment. Dorian still looked eerily pale and needed bandages, food, and rest; but those things could come later.

The sound of the door opening snapped both of them to attention. Dorian instinctively whimpered and stumbled forward behind Soren, latching onto his arm and peering out from behind his shoulder. Soren instinctually pulled Dorian behind his own body, despite the fact he trusted Ashlynn, wrapping his arm backwards around Dorian. [Old habits die hard.] He thought as he forced his body to relax.

Ashlynn stepped into the main room and carefully closed the door behind her, a rush a cold air following close behind. From the floor, Soren couldn't see anything in her hands. Then he spotted something; a small, rectangular tray no bigger than her palm.

The look on her face was difficult to read; then, a mixture of two emotions. One of them was a pang of sadness while the other had a hopeful gleam. She flashed a partial smile at the two of them as she stepped forward. Dorian whimpered again as Ashlynn approached.

Soren couldn't take it. He looked up at Ashlynn and called to her. "Did you find him? Is he alright?"

The pain in Soren's heart burst into relief as he watched Ashlynn nod and carefully kneel, the whole time keeping the small, rectangular tray as level as possible.

"He's okay, but he's really stuck on here. I need to get some things. Be careful. You don't want to get stuck too," said Ashlynn, her voice much lower than normal. She lowered her hand onto the ground and set the tray near him. Soren felt like he had been punched in the gut.

Rey was, as Ashlynn said, really stuck onto the glue trap. It looked like he had fallen face first into the sticky substance. He was wearing the pelt and Soren couldn't see his face, but he could hear his quivering sobs. Ashlynn retracted and inched her way to the kitchen to retrieve the necessary supplies to unstick the small boy. She had to use her phone to search for those supplies first.

In the meantime, Soren disregarded the potential issues of the sticky substance and stepped forward to lay his hands on his brother's back. Soren could hear his heartbreaking sobs and the poor attempt to stifle those sobs.

"Rey? It's okay. It's me. It's Soren. You're going to be okay." Soren began rubbing his brother's back, unable to think of what else he could say or do.

"S-s-so-soren?" Rey's already tiny voice, muffled by the pelt, was barely audible. There was another round of attempted thrashing as Rey attempted to break free from the glue's grasp. His inability to break free set off another round of panicked breaths. "I...I c-can't g-g-get out!" Dorian, still clinging to Soren, began shaking his shoulder.

"S-soren we need to leave. We need to get out of here! Before the human comes back," Dorian whimpered.

"Soren, I was seen!" Rey was trying to press into Soren's hands, as if the contact was keeping him grounded. "Are... are we... c-c-captured? I-I-I d-don't wanna be a p-p-pet!" Soren had to take a moment and breathe. This wasn't going to be easy – conveying to his brothers that they were going to be safe and that the human six feet away wasn't going to put them in some kind of cage wasn't going to be easy.