Planting Life, Breaking Ground

With the slow arrival of Spring ebbing into the lands, the Nomad was getting to work cultivating the ground in preparation to plant the various medicinal plants she’d saved from seeds gathered over hundreds of locations, both in the Boreasian and Austerian continents, and lands beyond over the years of her life and the generations of Nomads that had come before her.

The Elders had gifted her with several of the rarer plants when she’d made the decision to remain with her eldest daughter in Valhalla—both as a parting gift and a mourning present. It was Nomad custom to plant seeds and bulbs of some of the best healing pants to celebrate the lives of those passed on. What better way than to celebrate the life through growing herbs that would help save more lives?

Valhalla’s beta Cairo had made many sets of the bear-claw armed bracers he wore nearly at all times, and Eramaya had borrowed a set that suited her paw-size, slipping her toes into the loops and wiggling them to assure the claws would work as intended, before she turned to the plot of ground outside one of the huts Ardyn had built.

She’d chosen the hut instead of one of the alcoves in the hill-cave – though she would be working there often, she liked the huts better. They reminded her of the yurts and tents of her culture, and she wondered idly as she began raking her paws over the ground, sinking the bear-claws into the soil and sod, if that had been Ardyn’s intention.

It was a relatively large structure, built by a tall wolf, and she had no worry of conking her head on the ceilings or doorway. Broken into three rooms, the largest central chamber held the firepit, with a hole cut into the hide ceiling to allow the smoke to escape. It was just large enough for four average sized wolves to lounge around the fire, or two of Ardyn’s size.

The walls were stacked stone, with the added support of older sapling trunks, peeled and painted with something she hadn’t identified yet that seemed to prevent them from rotting, carefully chosen so they each had a crotch at the top for the roof-beams to set into. The central beam ran from one side of the hut to the other, like rafters she’d seen in old human structures, and the stone walls broke the hut into its three rooms, adding more support to the structure.

To the left was the room she’d taken for her bed. She’d found that the firepit had a tunnel that ran into the sleeping room and underneath it all, providing heating during winter. When she’d asked Ardyn, he’d told her that the tunnel could be blocked off with a slate piece during summer. Ingenious young wolf…

To the right was her storage and workplace. It wasn’t an infirmary by a long shot, just a home. Patients were to be cared for in the Alcoves under the hill, where they were protected by the earth.

She leaned into the work, clawing up sod and tossing aside the clods to knock dirt off of later. Under her breath, she hummed the tune of a lullaby she’d sung to her children many times. Three of them had died with that song soothing their ears, even though it was thick with her own tears.

Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Labhair an Sean-Teanga." ---- "Hear" ---- Think