What could possibly make it worse

The cliffs were beautiful during the winter, Elizabeth couldn’t deny this. She had travelled so far from pack lands to try a little experiment. Liz had brought her dried elderberry with her. A little bit of the berries she had would not upset her stomach and today’s task would be attempting to find sweet things to mix in with the snow to make it easier for patience to take. What would paladin think of this training? Liz wanted to try to think outside of the box, even though she knew this probably had been done by another healer before her. Elizabeth frowned sitting in the snow as she did, it was best to be careful around these cliffs too. With the thick snow it made it easy to fall below where the sandy beach was.

”What do you think Ben? Snow, Elderberries and what else?” She did bring some lavender with her as well. It was in such abundance when she gathered it that she wasn’t too concerned about using it for this. Her tummy had been a bit upset and the berries would be perfect to settle her stomach. Bentley would whistle a little tilting his little yellow head as he hummed in thought. The cockatiel would land in the snow after fluttering a bit staring at the elderberries and the lavender.

”What is around here? Maybe some sort of herb would go good in it.” He knew that elderberries were very bitter. The lavender would add a nice aroma and flavor to it but bitterness was something hard to cull. Ben flew onto her shoulders again as Elizabeth stood and turned trying to dig through the snow for some growth. It was hard to find herbs in the winter, not very many survived it and the winter was so harsh this season. Not that Liz wasn’t used to that, they may not have had harsh winters at home but they had severe summers for certain that would dry out any herb for miles. Liz was smart about it sniffing around in the warmest of spots as she looked through the cliffs.

Sure enough, Rosemary was dug up. A bud from the autumn had survived as the hardy plant tended to do so. Liz wagged her tail happily, it may have been the ingredient that she just so needed for her little snowball of flavor. The hard part was trying to get it out without eating it. The tendrils was stuck in the snow as Liz had to dig down deeper to get the root out and return it to her little area. Where she sat then and stared at the snow, her lavender, and her elderberries. Now how exactly was she supposed to scoop it up in the snow and eat it?

Ben looked at her and then the herbs, as he took the rosemary and began removing the flavored bits from the stem. The small needle-like threads were easy for his beak to remove, a happy task for him while Liz brainstormed her next move. She could crush them up, a few rocks were here and there but then since she had dried the berries she wasn’t sure if this would exactly work in her favor. The white wolf tilted her head to one side, rolling the berries about in the snow. If she just shoved them into a ball of snow together would that work? She had to get this semi right, after all she couldn’t just go eating a bunch of Elderberries without getting sick.

”What should I do Ben, you think it would work if I just smushed it all together?” Liz asked her bird as he finished pulling off the rest of the rosemary. He would humm for a moment, giving a soft whistle as he looked up at her and shrugged his shoulders. Spreading out his wings a little in a stretch.

”You could give that a shot, I know it’s better to eat the skin of the berries rather than just the juice and you’ve already gone through the effort of drying them. Yes I’d say try rolling them up in the snow and take a bite!” he was excited to see this come to pass. As Elizabeth gathered the materials she placed a clove of lavender in the center with a couple of berries and sprinkled the rosemary on top of it. With that done she used her nose to nuzzle some snow on top before rolling it to gain more traction. Once the ball was a recent mouth sized thing she sprinkled some more rosemary on the top. She was nervous to try it to say the least. What was a healer without experimentation though! As Ben leaned in to watch Liz would shut her eyes and open her mouth. Moving it downward and chomping down on the ball of snow. It was a flurry of strange flavors. Snow, dirt, lavender and rosemary but hey she didn’t taste the elderberries at all!

”I think that went well!” she exclaimed with a jump scattering snow around her. Ben happily chirped, landing on her shoulder as she laughed, her face covered in snow that matched her white pelt. She was certainly going to have to try this with some of her patients should she run into a picky eater problem. Finding the best herbs for it would be great as when preserved correctly they could make for some tasty seasoning.