"All right."

Cam finds an instructional video of performing a lung transplant on a cat. It is two minutes long and includes the vet demon chattering in Arabic while replacing the lungs of a demonic tortie.

Once he has watched the video, he switches over to slide view, props his computer up where he can see it with his hands free, and carefully positions Crookedstar.

He's gotten yet worse in that time but - yes, okay, still seems to be breathing.

Crack chest, interpolate out the one lung, add the replacement almost right away, add more blood to replace what's being lost, replace second lung, more blood, close him up, seal everything back into place with thin layers of cells, ribs and muscles and skin -

He twitches a bit, during this process, and then he -

doesn't, anymore.

Fuck. Can you defib a cat - Hellvet Mark 5 says yes - he tries that -

"I'm sorry."

"You have our sincere thanks for your efforts."  It seems a true enough statement on the brown cat's part, though a few of his Clanmates are looking on in horror rather than grief.

Cam folds up the Hell Vet to bring back to his house later. "What do you normally do with dead bodies?"

"We bury them."

"Do you want me to do the digging for you?"

"Please do not."

"Okay. I can - leave the camp, if you prefer." He picks up the Hell Vet.

"Thank you.  Mistyfoot will escort you out."

"Crookedstar was a noble leader, and will be missed," says Fireheart, bowing his head and slipping through the curtain after the fountain placement cat.

He installs the fountain on the way out. It bubbles merrily.

Mistyfoot is waiting outside, sitting and miserably grooming behind her ears.

"He didn't make it."

"I saw."

"I'm sorry again about Graypool," Fireheart meows quietly.  "For you and your brother, if you would pass on the condolences."

Mistyfoot maybe nods and maybe just tips her head as part of grooming it.

Cam sighs and rustles his wings.

Mistyfoot looks like she really doesn't want to stand up and walk places but eventually she does anyway.  Here they all go along the river.

"What are you planning to do here besides making water things and trying to save dying Clan leaders," she asks after a bit of silent padding along (and one false start where she forgets to keep her meows within the Twoleg range of hearing, before being gently corrected by Fireheart).

"Uh, I'd like to end material scarcity but I need to know more about what this world is like before I get really started on that." He scatters handsful of birdseed as he walks.