lazy daze

Kass blinked back awake, his gaze finally focusing on the young face before him. "It's all right," he said, somewhat muddled still by sleep cobwebs. He mustered a smile for the boy who'd woken him. One of Lark's? Had to be. "When you get to be my age, you fall asleep easily and too often. Nothing ever gets done." His sentence was punctuated by a yawn. He followed the boy's gaze to the herbs he'd been in the midst of grinding and his smile turned sheepish. "Like those." Levering himself shakily to his paws, he moved over to the pots that were waiting for him. He sent the boy a questioning glance. "Do you really want to help?" he questioned with tentative surprise. He'd never really had someone interested in learning healing from him, not enough to seek him out for it, or at least not for a great deal of time so it came as some surprise to him. He'd always had a passion for healing that had overcome even his anxieties, but it had seemed like the opportunity to pass on his knowledge had passed him by unnoticed. At least he'd be able to share a little of his knowledge with this youth before he died, though he wished that the opportunity had come sooner.

His paw brushed over his invented mortar and pestle, his smile wistful. He wished he'd had time to make more of these and teach apprentices here how to use them. They could have revolutionized the way herbs were stored. Or maybe that was just nostalgia talking.

He slipped his paw into the leather loop that held the odd shaped rock gripped between his toe pads, and showed it to the boy. "I use this to grind the herbs, so I can store more of them than leaving them whole. It allows me to store them more securely as well, but they can lose their potency faster than herbs that are stored whole so it's better to do it with more commonly used herbs."