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Talia tilted her head to the side, trying to think. Kirat Huruan… the name was familiar… and now that she thought about it, so was the boy. Before she could figure it out, though, Kirat groaned and clutched at his head, rocking. “Whoa! Hey, what’s wrong?” The only reply she got was when Kirat passed out again. Talia opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again to exhale slowly. “So that’s not good.”

She reached over and took Kirat by the shoulders, shaking him gently. “C’mon. Wake up…” No response. Had he gotten a concussion at some point? She stopped and sat back on her heels. Okay, so she probably shouldn’t let him sleep it off this time, or it’d be the middle of the night before he woke up. Not that it wasn’t late already. Then she remembered the snow. There wasn’t much in this specific area of the city, but she remembered seeing a couple of drifts while they were running. “Well. Here goes nothing.” She glanced at Kirat one more time, then crawled out from the bushes, hoping nothing bad would happen in her absence.

After several minutes of running with a pause to scoop up some snow, Talia slid back under the bushes and into the hideaway clearing. Half the snow she’d grabbed had already melted from the body heat in her hands, but she dumped what little was left onto Kirat’s forehead. She sat back on her heels again, wringing her hands together to try and squeeze some warmth back into them, and waited for the results. Sure enough, the kid bolted upright with a yelp. Relief spread across Talia’s face. “Oh, good. That worked. Are you okay?”