Keeping the Rosebloods alive – and excelling at that task – came as a personal accomplishment and source of pride for the ocelot. Part of her self-esteem relied on the health, physical and mental, of the group that she grew increasingly attached to. So the vizier’s wounds pained her in more ways than one, especially with Rosemary’s assumption that the calico injured herself trying to protect the group’s only medic. Who, Rosemary chided herself, frankly should have known better than to recklessly put herself in harms way. That fed into the reasons why the physician fussed over the vizier, regardless of the frosty and cold exterior of the second in command.

And, of course, Rosemary knew something that most of the group probably never would. That their emotionless badass woman actually had enough emotion to drown in them, regardless of how little that showed in Jiyu’s body language or in her aura. And Rosemary could empathize with that; the ocelot struggled to properly convey her own emotions, even if she wore them on her sleeve through her aura and allowed them to color her every action. There was no denying that the healer started to grow a soft spot for their cold vizier – spending so much time with the calico only made that worse, especially as it grew obvious to Rosemary that the calico was in love with her.

So it was entirely expected that when Jiyu managed to hobble back to her home, Rosemary followed shortly behind. The slender wildcat took the rare time away from the calico to hastily wrap a gift – she trotted over with it now, the small package swaying from her jaws with every step. “Jiyu, wait up --” the physician called, panting, as she set down the present a few meters in front of the house.

Ears flicking, she looked at Jiyu’s directly and gestured with a paw to the dropped present. “This is for you. Holiday spirit and all,” she said, still gasping for breath and barely able to make out the two short sentences without wheezing in between them. Well, Rosemary decided she’d really need to work on her stamina after this – this was frankly just embarrassing.

[ The gift box has 20 small containers of acrylic paints! ]