He couldn’t have expected to be left alone for long, not here and not with the state of his appearance. Oaks can already feel the sickness taking hold, weaving through his bones and into his blood like a well-acquainted guest (it is partially of his own creation, after all – how would it be foreign at all?). It spins and twirls, it spikes and digs, it makes itself comfortably at home. As a rebounded magic, it does not take quite as formidable a hold as it had on its intended target (its target, for Oaks had not meant to harm his mentor at all and does not know that it had caused Zain’s death). Regardless of this lessened strength, it leaves him feeling miserably weakened and waning ever so steadily. It is a slow progression, but notable all the same.

He’s not entirely sure why he had chosen to return to this tree, another of his unintended victims. Perhaps as a reminder of his curse? Perhaps hoping that it might inspire his magic to act again as it had that day, when it had nearly pushed away the disease that had robbed these boughs of their flowers?

He is nearly ready to try, to close his eyes and focus as he’s been taught, but a brilliant coat of blue and violet with a speckling of vibrant glowing white catches his eye. She approaches him, joining him beneath the shade-less tree, and for once he does not despair at the company. Where he would normally warn others away and fret for their wellbeing, he accepts her presence even as she stands at a safe distance as strangers often do.

Her apology is kind, her concern even kinder, and Oaks smiles faintly in response as he nods his head. “You need not worry,” he tells her in a voice roughened somewhat by the scratching in his throat. “I’ll be all right, one way or another… but I might ask the same for you.” The scratches upon her body are notable at this closer range, having been hidden by her brilliance before. One of his wings twitches as if attempting to offer her a hand to hold, but he does not quite have the strength to stretch it out fully between them. “Those wounds,” he nods particularly to her leg, “do not seem as kind as you.” It is not flattery he attempts, but a mere observation and perhaps gentleness to show his gratitude for her concern.

The infection that is only just beginning within her wounds is somehow almost evident to him, as if he can sense it growing there much like he’d felt it growing within the tree that covers them now. His magic, fickle and crude as it is, can almost be felt again as a slight static in his skin, reaching and seeking this new plaything. “I… I could try to help, if you’d like,” he offers to her.

He’s almost done it before, fixing something that wasn’t quite well.

Whether he could do it again is another question, though.