True to form, the old woman awakened in darkness. As the decades had passed, so had the need for deep and dreamless sleep.
She shifted on her aching bones, the action causing her to cough up a gob of phlegm that had caught below her voice box.
She sat up and spit into the pot she kept beside her bed and swung her feet out, wincing at the pain in her hips, back, and ankles.
A soft whine was barely muffled by her door hanging.
Grunting with the effort, she rose and hobbled to the door, slipping it to the side.
The dog let out a low whine, struggling to stand, managing to find a purchase with two legs. A third was cocked, the fourth, a right front, it held high in pain.
“Ah, it’s you. Come to trouble, have you?”
The beast looked up at her through a half-swollen blue eye, patches of fur missing from its scabbed head.
“Well, I can’t pick you up. You’ll have to make it inside on your own.”
The dog hobbled forward, that high-pitched whine of pain deep in its throat each time the wounded back leg took weight.
Inside it collapsed in the darkness next to her hearth.
“Let’s see what we’ve got, shall we?” She knelt by the fire, teased a glowing ember free of the ash with a stick, and used the ember to ignite a handful of shredded bark to which she fed kindling.
Once the fingers of flame Danced light around the room, she cocked her head, squinting her old eyes as she felt along the dog’s body with practiced fingers. As light as her touch was, it still brought pitiful cries from the dog.
“Mostly they are bruises. The big bones seem all right. Red willow bark will help, along with coneflower. It’ll take me a moment to mix it up in something you’ll eat.”
The dog watched her, uttering a guttural rejoinder.
“How long ago did this happen?”
A soft growl came from deep in the dog’s throat.
“Five days? If you were going to die, you’d have done it by now.”
The dog made a muumphing sound.
“Hurt that bad, did it? Took you that long to get here?”
A sighing whine was the answer.
She propped herself against her bed, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. “It’s time, then. Can’t say I’m sorry the day’s come. I just hope we’re not too late.”