A working vacation

After the first frost was always the best time to gather both rosehips and haws, and while healers would be excited to gather them for health purposes Corbie was gathering them for a different purpose. She had plans for a spiced hawthorn-rosehip mead - marrying together her own craft with what little she'd learned from her long-dead guardian Tornach. Just the act of gathering the little fruits brought her back to that long-ago youth when she'd done the same with Tornach. Tam was with her, just as he had been back then, and now Ayer was there too with her clever little hands. Ren, who was not interested in berries or mead, was off scouting around them as she often did while they were outside of pack lands. Two woven panniers rested nearby, ready to fill with the literal fruits of their labor, while they worked to fill a smaller basket that they'd dump in. They'd already set up camp a ways away, where she'd work to make the mead before they headed back to pack lands. She could have brought the rosehips and haws back to the pack instead of carting the honey and jars out here, but she was feeling nostalgic for the nomadic ways she'd lived with her mentor and felt the need to be close to him now while she did this. The pack could do well enough without her for now, with two betas to keep them rolling along smoothly, and they knew where to find her if she was needed.