Wildcard tapped a finger on the edge of the page, scanning the anatomical drawings. Every chance she got, she went looking for more books - and just as she'd hoped, they contained information she needed. Shapeshifting into animals wasn't an instinctive thing. Sure, she knew how a bear looked from the outside. But on the inside? Trying to replicate the structure and misplacing an organ, even slightly, would be a disaster.

She'd shed her eyepatch long before settling down to study her most used forms, visualizing the reforming process. It helped to be familiar with them. Plus, it gave her something to think on.

Time had been creeping along, achingly slow. Enough hours spent scouring guardhouses for bounties and coming up empty-handed. At this point, she'd take an offer on tracking down a petty thief just to give herself a mission to complete. Yet here she was, trying to content herself with detailed depictions of synovial joints.

Admittedly, it wasn't too bad to have some time to herself. A bit of quiet was both disconcerting and welcome. Wildcard got to tidy up the rooms, straighten out furniture, and fix the tear in the cord of her eyepatch. And sitting on her bed, leaning against the headboard, she noticed the clean sheets smelled like lilac.

Wildcard twirled her bookmark once more, then pressed it to the page and shut the book. If she had to scrutinize elaborate drawings for another minute, she might end up with a headache. A glance out the window told her that it was too early still to go to sleep. Dusk hadn't fallen yet.

Training it is. Standing up, the shifter stretched, breathing in slowly. Training, then sleep.

Once in the training room, Wildcard scanned the shelves for her sword hung up on a hook. She'd just wrapped a hand around the hilt and started to free it from the sheath when a pocket of silence enveloped the home, and a soft grunt echoed from somewhere within the walls.

Quietly, she drew her blade and held it aloft, straining her senses for anything else. Immediately, her mind started firing off a list of beings that could teleport, trying to narrow down the possibilities of what kind of intruder she was dealing with. Anything she could figure out before the confrontation would be an advantage.

There - a strained mumble, barely audible. "Please be home."

It took a moment for Wildcard to recognize the voice, and when she did, she quickly sheathed the blade again and strode from the room, searching for the source. "Wraith? Where are you?"

Footsteps sounded from the living room next to her, and as Wildcard turned, she caught sight of the assassin.

Wraith was leaning heavily against the doorframe, eyes crinkled with pain, one hand clamped over her forearm. Blood pooled between her fingers, and blonde hair tumbled from her ripped hood, half-loosed from where it'd been tied back.

As Wildcard stared into eyes of shining silver, not a word was spoken.

Wraith slowly lowered her head. "I'm sorry, Em," she said quietly. "I didn't have anywhere else to go."

"Sit down," was all Wildcard said. Wraith glanced down at the blood dripping from her hand, then dropped unceremoniously into a nearby chair as Wildcard opened a cabinet set next to the wall. From inside it, she plucked a towel, a roll of bandages, and saline.

Wraith watched her stride to the chair, then grasp her wrist and move her hand away from where it had been applying pressure to the wound. Wildcard scanned it, brows furrowed as she tried to place the angle of entry.

"You were stabbed," she said, and the assassin nodded confirmation, her free hand now gripping the arm of the chair with a force that might have shattered it if she were less careful. Slowly, Wildcard began to tend to the wound, checking how deep the weapon had cut. A slight wince snuck through her professional composure at the sliver of bone she glimpsed.

"Okay," she said, loosing a controlled breath. "It doesn't look ideal."

"I think I already knew that, thanks."

"You should have known better than to come to me if you wanted optimism."

Wraith rolled her eyes, but didn't comment on it. "I just came for bandages, and then I'll get out of your hair. I can patch this up myself."

And then, Wildcard drenched the wound in saline. The assassin inhaled sharply, clenching her teeth against the pain. "If I can see bone," Wildcard said matter-of-factly, "you're not leaving with just bandages. You need stitches and an anti-infection gauze." Instead of responding, Wraith hissed a solid round of curses under her breath. "Maybe a numbing agent."

"Remind me again why I come here," she managed to get out through gritted teeth.

Wildcard raised an eyebrow as she rummaged further through the cabinet. "Because you seem to have a personal grudge against actual qualified doctors."

Wraith's brow furrowed further, and she rested her head on the back of the chair. "I don't trust them," she muttered, glancing at her arm out of the corner of her eye.

"Who do you trust?" Wild drawled, plucking a bottle from the lowest shelf and sniffing it. The bitter fumes made her cough, and she nodded as she tried to breathe the scent away, popping the cap open. "Yeah, that's strong enough."

A small frown twitched at Wraith's lips at the disgusted expression in her face. "I really hope you're not planning on putting that in my arm, Em."

Wild contrasted her frown with a bright smile, but this one was considerably more sarcastic. "No, Wraith, everyone knows you inhale numbing agents." She dropped the grin, falling into her thoughts. "I'll have to open a new needle."

"Why don't you just give me the bandages?" Wraith asked, rubbing at her face with her free hand, then attempting to free her hair from what remained of the braid she'd put it in. Her voice had a rasp to it now. "I've had worse than this, you know. I can handle it."

Wild glanced at her, and this time, a genuine frown crossed her face. "Why don't you just stop getting hurt all the time?" She said, pulling a packet from the cabinet and ripping it open. "It's a revolutionary idea. Maybe try it and I won't need to keep putting you back together every time you take a job you can't handle."

At that, the assassin lapsed into silence. Satisfied, Wild slipped the cover off the needle and picked up the bottle. "I'm going to have to inject the agent into the skin around the wound, so this is going to hurt. A lot," she warned.

Wraith exhaled softly, then relaxed her cut arm, eyeing the needle and the liquid it contained. She gave a quick nod, and Wildcard grasped her wrist to keep her arm still, then began her work.

Multiple injection sites later, fresh blood dotted the wound, and Wraith's arm burned like someone had done their hardest to saw it in half. Her breathing had deepened halfway through, but she never lost her calm, eyes trained intently on the needle and the deep gash. "There," Wild said eventually, removing the needle from her forearm. "Give it a few minutes to start working."

"Do you do this to yourself when you get injured?" Wraith asked, looking up after a bit. When Wild nodded, she hummed under her breath. "Must take a lot of willpower. Your pain tolerance is lower."

"It does hurt," Wild repeated, eyes flashing with something - not annoyance, but...perhaps understanding? "It's why I try to always fight in human form, because injuries that would be a nuisance to a grizzly might drop an average human. It doesn't always translate well from form to form."

Wraith huffed, finally managing to ever so carefully shake her hair free of the braid. "Healing would be nice," she mumbled. "Imagine getting hit and it just...seals up by itself."

"It would save me a lot of effort," Wild said. "Between my missions and the bullshit you pull, I should just get a medical license at this point."

Wraith laughed, sudden and crisp. "I have never heard you swear before," she drawled. "I'll take it as a compliment that I frustrate you that much."

After a moment of silence, Wild loosed a slow breath and shook her head. "You worry me, honestly," she said, the final traces of her grin disappearing. "You try to do everything alone. And then you show up with gaping injuries and all you do is ask for a roll of bandages. Then I have to try to get you to stay, because awful wounds are normal for you and that makes me nervous."

Slowly, Wraith had begun stretching her arm, testing the numbing agent. She watched Wild for a moment, and then let her arm rest on the side of the chair. "You want me to stay?"

"For goodness sake, yes!" Wild exclaimed, gesturing at her maimed arm. "You think this is an inconvenience? Hell no! I'd rather you ask for help than sit in your room somewhere and pretend everything's fine when it's not."

Silence reigned. The only sound for a very long time was a wooden creak as Wraith leaned back in the chair. "...Oh," was all she said.

When no further reply was forthcoming, Wild pushed away from the chair to retrieve her suture kit.