Now We Are F R E E

There was so much to learn about healing, and Solveiga had barely begun. She was excited, always eager to learn more and absorb all the knowledge and experience she could. Sometimes it made her wish that she had paid more attention to her mother when she was a child. Maybe if she had, she would have an easier time identifying herbs now. After all, her mother had been a healer, and a fairly good one too. Her two children had never really struggled much with ailment or injury, and yet she'd always had a decent stock of herbs tucked away in their den. If only she had asked her mother about them, showed interest in learning more about the practice. But, at the time, she was too caught up in following her big brother around. And look where that had gotten her.

Solveiga sighed gently through her nose, carefully holding her bundle of herbs between her teeth as she walked along. She had no deer hide or other fancy pouches to carry her findings in. Not yet, anyway. But early on in her herb gathering trip she had found a young foxglove tree, with leaves nearly two feet across. She had folded one of these leaves the way Regulus had taught her, and it had made for a perfect little herb carrying device. Right now it held alfalfa, marigold, watercress, and a bit of lavender. She had even managed to find some lamb's ear yesterday, surviving here in the south thanks to the mild winter they'd had. Now she walked into the Fern Gulley, an area the other healers of Celestial had told her about. This was the farthest she planned to travel; after looking around here for a while she would turn and begin her journey home. But this place was just as wonderfully filled with herbs as the other healers had told her it would be, and she planned to stay awhile and see what rare herbs she could find. She looked around, slowing her pace so she wouldn't miss anything. Granted, she didn't know enough to identify half the plants in here, but that wouldn't keep her from trying. If only she had a more experienced healer with her, to tell her what was what.

As she walked, she came along a big, drooping willow tree. She stopped, setting her little leaf bundle at her feet again as she pouted a bit in thought. Willows had something useful, didn't they? Was it the leaves, the bark? As much as Solveiga wracked her brain, she couldn't seem to remember. She supposed she could collect both, just to be sure...