Ooc: gathering thread yo! Iskra's gunna hunt for some trillium this fine day.


Iskra hadn't really known where she would go after her meeting with Regulus, but she knew she needed to keep looking for herbs and places that grew them. She needed to provide goods worthy of halfway decent favors or it was all pointless. That, of course, meant she didn't need just any herbs, but like, really special ones. Ones that the average wolf wouldn't just stumble upon by accident wandering through the woods. She left a small bundle of what she'd grabbed so far hidden by the shore before swimming out to the island. Something told her that an isolated place like that might be a better bet for finding unique plants.

It wasn't the hardest swim of her life, but she was pretty tired by the time she reached shore and flopped onto the sand. Okay, a lot tired, but she hadn't been swimming in a while so she was allowed to be tired. Eyes slid shut for a few breaths until she was ready to continue, padding along the beach with head held high and nose working to sort through the scents as she wandered into the foliage to continue her quest. Her red pelt stood out in the sea of green , making the astral fae rather glad to not be hunting for prey today.

There were plants and mosses growing from a few of the trees, but Iskra figured she wasn't going to have much luck reaching those anyways so she focused on what sprouted from the forest floor. There were so friggin many stupid plants! How was she going to know what one to take? Growling irritably and strongly considering flopping down on the ground in defeat already, she nearly did just that when she heard a voice call out gently to her, 'Hello? Are you looking for something?'

Looking at the man who came wandering over at an unhurried walk, she studied him a moment before answering rather curtly, "Maybe. Why do you wanna know?" she stood tall, though the stranger was still several inches taller than her despite her best efforts. He just laughed a gentle, easy going laugh and shrugged, 'Cause if you did need help finding something I might be able to locate whatever it is? Unless you don't need an-" Iskra cut him off when she abruptly asked, "Are you a healer?" to which he nodded.

He'd been pretty content to explore today and just see where life took him. Originally herbs hadn't been on his mind at all, but that very quickly changed when his day took an interesting turn and he ran into a lovely crimson woman who looked like someone breathed life into the stars and painted on a few markings to make her look slightly less otherworldly and more believably real. He recovered quickly, offering to help the lost looking woman out. When she asked if he was a healer Jouko suddenly felt a bit more invested in helping her with whatever she was out to do. "I am, why, are you or someone you know sick or injured?" a rapid assessment of the red woman suggested she was fine. 'No, I uhm, it's a long story. In short I need to bring herbs to someone in order to get a favor in return.' Jouko eyed her quizzically until she added, 'The problem is I'm not a healer and I don't know anything about herbs.' okay, now he was getting the picture.

"Mkay. Well, I would like to gather some herbs for myself, anyways... Okay, I'll help! Do you at least know what you wanna look for?" The red woman grinned sheepishly and shrugged, venturing, 'Uhm, something that's not very common?' Shaking his head and scoffing playfully Jouko chuckled. Running through a mental list of herbs they might encounter here he eventually straightened and abruptly took off. When she asked what he was doing he laughed, "Taking you to look for Trillium!"

He just, took off! Running in search of whatever Trillium was, at a breakneck pace! Didn't this guy know she just swam forever to get here? "What's Trillium?" she managed to ask between breaths as the ran up the side of a steep slope and down the other side, into thicker foliage where she saw so many different looking plants she thought her head might explode at the prospect of hunting through them all. How did healers even do this on the regular? Madmen, all of them. 'Trillium's good for plenty of things. Cleaning out infections and wounds, pain relief including during childbirth. The root in particular is an antiseptic, it can be ground and applied as a poultice to reduce swelling. It's also pretty rare, and therefore somewhat valuable.' The man was now sniffing around, probably looking for the scent of the plant he spoke of. "So I take it you go looking for plants like that a lot? he glanced back at her and shrugged, 'Eh, I haven't looked for Trillium specifically in ages... maybe with my sister when we were small... ' Iskra felt her eyes widen to an unnatural size.

She felt useless trying to look without knowing anything about the plant so she sped up her pace and turned to leap in front of Jouko and stop his progress. "What's this plant even look like? I've never seen it as far as I know." He mentioned flowers and she immediately gestured to the first flowering plant she saw. "Like that?"

"No, not like that. That one's called Valerian. You use it's root to cure a cough and- wait, are you going to let me tell you what Trillium looks like or are you going to interrupt me and get distracted?" if she was going to ask for help she needed to let him be in charge. Iskra nodded, a bit more subdued now that she'd been chastised. Jouko sat for a moment, head held high and a look of importance on his face as he set to telling this girl about the herb they sought. "This is a good time to look for it since it's flowers bloom around late spring to early summer. It has flowers which always have three petals. They can be white, dark red or pink, but always with three petals and three sepals - the tiny leaves just under the petals on the flower itself. I think they're usually one to two feet high, so not too hard to spot really."

The stranger digested the information he'd provided, a sight that pleased him. He enjoyed others taking his lessons to heart, not due to his own ego but rather because he likes teaching and knowing his students were interested in what was discussed. It was strangely satisfying. Now that they both knew what to look for, things would go more smoothly. He walked a bit slower, taking his time to search and sniff through the plants around him. It'd been so long since he looked for this herb that he didn't want to trust his nose, but he still tried to sniff it out in case.

Peering under leaves of larger plants and carefully picking their way along through the thick undergrowth, the pair were in for a long search. Jouko did grow hopeful when he heard Iskra call for him from a short ways, so he hurried towards her wondering if she was so lucky as to have found it with such quickness.

Iskra stood, tense and expectant as she waited for Jouko to come tell her if she'd done well finding their quarry. To her dismay, he grimaced and looked as though he might fall down and cry out in frustration so disheartened was the look he gave her. 'No no no! Those are friggin' daisies! how do you not know what daisies look like? They have way more than three petals!" Iskra pinned her ears and looked away, clearly flustered and embarrassed with her foolishness. After pouting for a bit she mumbled, "I told you I was bad at this..." to which Jouko had to laugh in a more relaxed manner as he sighed and agreed, 'You sure did. Guess I just didn't expect you to be plain terrible!'

He had to jump backwards to evade a half-hearted nip from Iskra. The Starry woman seemed to recover fast as she set to work looking again, the pair entering the lower dips in the terrain where Jouko hoped they'd have better luck.

Wandering over slight rises and down more dramatic slopes, they peered through what seemed like every patch of greenery within a mile. So, looking for rarer herbs wasn't easy, that was okay. He had to try expanding his horizons further beyond the basics sometime, right? Nosing through some earth smoke, he considered taking some while he was here but wanted to nab as much Trillium as he could if they actually found it.

Peering at Iskra curiously he asked, "So, what's your name? Mine's Jouko." she hesitated, busy double checking a plant she was staring at, before murmuring, 'Iskra. Nice to meet you, Jouko.' A pretty name for a pretty woman. He liked it. While wading through a particularly thick tangle of leaves and vines, Jouko asked, "You're from a pack right?" it was obvious from her scent. Iskra stiffened a bit and asked him to drop that particular subject and he happily acquiesced, not wanting to upset her.

They'd gotten to a more thickly forested area, with rich dark soil that her new healer companion was pretty excited about. Not knowing a thing about this stuff, Iskra had to take his word for it that this was a much better spot to look for the herb they sought. Continuing the search, weaving long, slow patterns through the greenery while carefully inspecting every plant. Both of the searching wolves grew quiet as they kept on looking.

Iskra was close to getting frustrated and giving up, maybe asking if they could just find some easy herbs instead, so she sat down and flopped dramatically on her side in a huff. Of course, that was when she tilted her head to the right, and saw some lovely white flowers up above her head. Scrambling to her paws Iskra called, "Jouko, I think I found it!" Assessing the plant, she hoped she wasn't wrong about this.

Jouko kind of wondered why she thought whatever deal she had was so important, and why a favor from someone might warrant traveling all over the place looking for herbs for them. He'd ask if he was bolder but she seemed a bit tense and he was willing to assume that whatever she was dealing with was fairly important. Trotting in slow strides, weaving through the foliage and growing discouraged, Jouko considered what to look for if Trillium wasn't growing here. Wait, no, he couldn't entertain thought like that. Besides, what kind of healer got frustrated and gave up on looking for plants? Patience, Jouko.

Then she called to him and he hesitated before bounding over to see what she had found. Please let it be the right plant! As he came up beside the red woman he saw it, with the little white flowers each with three petals. Bumping his shoulder against hers gently he cried, "That's it! Well done, Iskra." She burst out with a whoop of joy, her excitement further magnifying his as they celebrated their find.

After some carrying on they calmed and Jouko was ready to get to work. It was a small patch of four plants, one of which seemed to have been mangled a while back and was now dying. He wondered if the roots might still be salvageable though. "Okay, okay. Now we're gonna dig 'em up. Be careful of the roots, we want them, so dig slow and carefully."

Preening and puffing her chest out a bit at Jouko’s praise, Iskra took a moment to enjoy that small ego boost. Hah, so she could get this stupid plant thing down after all! Good, cause otherwise she was not going to have a fun time at all. ”Thank goodness, I thought we’d never find them!”

’We’ve only been looking for a little while…’

”Yeah, well you looked fed up with searching too!” she huffed indignantly. Jouko decided then to back off with a muttered apology as he realized he had no leg to stand on since she was entirely correct.

’Okay, okay. Now we're gonna dig 'em up. Be careful of the roots, we want them, so dig slow and carefully,’ Jouko instructed, earning a serious nod from Iskra as they both set to work. It wasn’t super difficult work, really, but she felt like it was taking a while to get the root all dug up, so she started speeding up and managed to get a sharp, ’Careful!’ from Jouko as he narrowed his eyes at her and she sheepishly ducked her head and continued, digging all around the plant to try and unearth as much of it as possible before she actually tried to remove it from the soil.

He could have laughed at how very proud of herself Iskra looked; the way she puffed up and sat with her head held high was amusing to say the least. As they began digging up their respective plants he kept an eye on her, ensuring she wouldn’t rush and tear up the plant. Eventually they both had a significant hole dug around their own plants and he told her she could stop.

”Alright, so watch how I do this and then you can pull yours out. Be very, very gentle,” he instructed before situation himself where he thought he’d have the best angle to pull the plant out. Gripping it lightly in his jaws at the bottom of the stem where the root began, he slowly tugged on the trillium until it came loose from the soil and he had a whole plant in his jaws.

’Allllright…’ Iskra muttered hesitantly, eyeing her own plant as Jouko began digging up the wilted one. ”It’s not that difficult, just try to be careful with it and pull the whole plant out without damaging the root too much.” ideally they’d both end up with intact plants so that they could use as much as possible.

Oh, gosh, oh goodness, what if she accidentally ripped it to shreds and this was all for naught? That would SUCK. And with her luck it was something she’d totally do. Then she’d bring that Abraxas boy some lame common plants and tell him about ruining trillium and he’d scoff and tell her deal was off. No, no no no. Since when did she get this anxious? Get it together loser.

Her expression became determined and extra focused as she set to the task of ever so gently removing the plant from the soil, holding the base of the root gingerly between her teeth. Blue eyes narrowed with concentration as she put way too much effort into pulling a plant out of the ground. When it came free and looked relatively happy and not torn to bits she sat back on her haunches and eyed it suspiciously as though it might be tricking her. Jouko laughed and swatted at her with his tail in a friendly manner, ’You did it! Just two more plants and we’re good!’

Stepping towards the next plant Iskra canted her head at Jouko before setting to work once more, a little more sure of herself this time.

They both quickly set to work digging at the next set of plants, and Jouko found he quite enjoyed the simple work. It was fun to get his paws dirty and do something relatively simple. Maybe he should do this sort of thing more often. He could always invite Iskra to go herb hunting again sometime since she needed to find more anyways. His attention shifted as she noticed her eyeing him and he asked slowly, ”What’s up?” her eyes flicked away from him before she shrugged.

After a few moments she relented and asked, ’Why’re you taking the one that’s all shriveled looking?’

Jouko stopped digging and chuckled, shrugging a bit before replying, ”Well, I think the root’s probably still good, and you seem like you need them more.” Iskra didn’t look quite satisfied with that so he added, ”It’s not like I have a den to put things in. I’m a loner, so the only wolves I help are those I bump into by chance. Storing lots of leaves and roots would be a struggle for me and I don’t really plan on joining any packs soon so, you can have two healthy ones. It’ll do you more good than me.”

When they both had their second plants dug up and removed from the soil he grinned at her, tail wagging. ’Thanks for your help, Jouko. I appreciate it a lot.’ He nodded, ”No problem! Take good care of that plant until you get it to auster. I haven’t had as much experience with it as I’d like, so maybe you should talk to someone about the best way to store or preserve it until you return to this guy you made a deal with.”

Iskra said she’d do just that and prepared to leave, gathering the two plants she’d gotten and saying her good bye via a soft bump of her shoulder against his. Once she’d departed, jouko also gathered his spoils of this successful herb hunt and prepared to go searching for Aggie cause he had nothing better to do than try and track down his sister anyways.

-Exit Jouko and Iskra-