Heals a dog from near-death

“Hey, little guy,” I cooed, Observing it. It was a small dog, hidden in the shadows and the filth and looking…awful. Filthy, hungry, sick, wounded…he looked terrible. I think he was one of the Atlesian breeds, maybe a husky or something, but I didn’t have much of an eye for dogs. It could have been a mutt, too, I guess, but whatever it was it must have been on the streets for a while now though it barely looked capable of taking care of itself. A glance at its status effects…

Definitely sick. The injuries it had taken fighting…whatever it had fought were infected, as were its ears and parts of its skin. It had worms, fleas—the list went on and on and got worse as it did. I was honestly amazed it had survived this long—it must have been really lucky, especially to have lasted long enough to meet me.

Or, I wondered not for the first time, was this my Luck.

It didn’t matter. I placed a hand on the underside of the dumpster and lifted it absently so I could see under it better, making the children gasp—at me or the dog I wasn’t sure—and causing the puppy to growl, a surprisingly fierce sound, if one full of pain.

“Shh,” I said soothingly. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

I lifted a hand, reaching towards it but its growl merely got louder. It didn’t try to move or run, probably incapable at this point, but it didn’t stop, either.

“You’re a fighter, huh?” I said in the same voice, pausing as I reached out. The armor had been designed with Crocea Mors’ gauntlets in mind and without them, my hands were bare.

Probably for the best, I thought as I turned off my Metal Aura and Hide. If my hands had been armored, it might hurt itself.

I reached out to touch the dog and was unsurprisingly bitten—but it was so weak it didn’t really hurt even without several of my defenses. As it held onto me, I gently brushed its snout with a thumb and began healing it. I stayed like that for a moment, supporting the dumpster and gently stroking the dog as it healed, but after a moment it let go of me on its own, allowing me to scratch its muzzle and then its ears. After a moment, I was even able to gently coax it out and lower the dumpster again.

The little dog sniffed my face once and began licking it as I finished up the last of its healing, looking healthy again, if still dirty and missing a lot of hair.