Outlaw was going to do some work and as a bonus, he got to take one of the pups with him!  He hadn’t really spent any time with Emile until today so this should be an excellent outing.  They were on the hunt today for some rare herbs for Outlaw to use for making medicine.  Ok well to try and make medicine with.  The young dog was a healer now and he was starting to learn some of the basics but his skills were still pretty novice.   Outlaw’s only experience with winter was on the forgotten Island as a pup and he expected the weather would be different here without the ocean surrounding them.  He understood a lot of the plants would be dying off so it was time to collect and store up.  Today they would be going after alder buckthorn and trillium.  The grey and black dog was hoping especially for the trillium as it seemed the one to be used the most but that didn’t mean the other wasn’t important. Looking down at the pup Outlaw imagined there would come a day he looked up to the boy instead as most of the wolves seemed to grow taller than him.  “So, I’m hoping we can find trillium and alder buckthorn.  Do you know what those are?”   Might as well try to help educate while they hunted for the plants, right? The mangrove was an interesting place and had been the first bit of land he had explored when he arrived from his trek across the ocean.  All the waterways made a large portion of the ground soft and squishy on his paws though there were patches of dry ground.  The plants surely wouldn’t be under the water, right?  His focus would be on the dry ground, areas around the tree’s and maybe some of the mushy areas near the dry ground as maybe the plant could hide under a little water?  There was so much to learn!  For now, the most important part though was collecting the ingredients as time wouldn’t wait for him to learn first then pluck later. WC: 353 Speech:"Life is but a game " Think

Emile was excited to get to spend time with the dog Outlaw, he always loved a chance to make a new friend and being allowed to leave the pack lands with the man meant getting to see even more of the world than he already had... the world was so big! He had a basic understanding of what it was they were going to do today, they were gathering more plants, the way his mother did sometimes... he hadn't had much chance to ask her about it yet and so he was excited that he was going to get to help Outlaw. He trotted after the dog, sometimes having to pick up his pace to keep up with the man's longer strides. Finally they stopped, not too far from the pack but to the young boy it felt like half a world away. Outlaw looked down at him and he asked if Emile knew what it was they were looking for. Emile assumed they were plants but didn't know anything of what they looked like. He shook his head, looking up wide eyed at the young man. Emile had heard the adults talking about winter and the coming expected changes, and of course the boy had no understanding of what any of this meant. He would face his first winter soon, in the coming weeks but as far as his naïve mind was concerned it was a super important time of year, a time that meant all the adults had to talk about it and to prepare, so while he didn't yet know what it meant he knew at the very least that trying to collect these plants was going to be very important, which helped Emile himself to feel important, being on such an important mission. WC: 297 (650/2500) "Speech"

Art by Kolokolchek

“Ok, no problem!”  Outlaw was ever the cheery fellow.  “So we need two things and both are super rare!”   It was great they were rare right?  Rare meant it would be more difficult and thus just like treasure hunting again.  Outlaw hadn’t realized the fun healer’s got to have with having to find all the right herbs and plants.  The dog was sure glad he had met Meadow to try and learn from her.  Too bad she was gone now. “So, the first one is called Alder Buckthhorn.”  He bet that was a mouthful to the pup, it had taken Outlaw time to try and remember that name. “Now it's actually like a miniature tree or shrub thing.”   So far it was a great explanation, “Um, so it's not like a flower basically.  Its leaves are pretty wide and it has red berries on it.  I haven’t seen one before but I’m guessing it’s more on the shrubbery bushy side than tree cause how can a tree be hard to find, right?”   If anyone questioned Outlaw’s information this was certainly helping to prove he was a novice.  “The key thing is it has red berries on it.  It’s actually the brown bark that’s important though.” “The other one is trillium. It’s got little white flowers and big wide green leaves.”  Hopefully, this place didn’t have multiple white flowers with big leaves of different types.  So far he hadn’t seen a single white flower so it might not be a problem.  When wading in the water he felt a bit more of a chill to it than he had expected.  The water at the hot springs was kept warm so nicely he had forgotten fall would be adding a small bite of cold to water elsewhere.  It wasn’t winter cold though and he still wasn’t sure how bad winter got here. “This will be your first winter.  That’s pretty exciting.”  Outlaw lowered his head to peer under the roots of a tree, tilting his head this way and that for a better look before pulling it out.  “Nope, no trillium there.”   What were the odds of them being hidden by other plants after all, or tree’s?  Outlaw planned to look everywhere!  “I never spent a winter on this land.”  Outlaw loved to talk, and with a pup following him on a treasure hunt it seemed a great time for it. “I was born on the forgotten island.  Great place, but it's surrounded all around by the ocean and I’m not sure how winter there compares to winter here.  It will be kinda new for both of us.” “Why don’t you check out that dry area where the two trees are practically hugging each other?”  Outlaw headed towards another semi-dry patch near it. “I’m gonna look here, don’t worry though.  I’m pretty good at keeping an eye out in more than one spot.”  Outlaw just loved puppy friends. WC 485 (1135/2500) Speech:"Life is but a game " Think

Emile listened to Outlaw, staring up at him. He didn't really have a good grasp on what a plant being rare really meant, not yet. On paper, he knew that the word meant it was hard to find but he had no real grasp of the value of anything yet so hard to find just meant that it was well hidden in his mind, not that they weren't many to find. Still, as Outlaw started to explain the plants they were looking for the boy nodded, filing the information he was being given away in his mind, he wasn't so sure this Alder thing was all that hard to find... after all he'd seen tons of shrubbery with red berries already, though of course, he wasn't aware of the big differences that meant that not all shrubs with bright red berries were this plant he was looking for. Trillium, on the other hand, a name he just knew was not going to play nice with his tongue, sounded at least a little more unique, at least based on his memories of the plants he'd seen. Little white flowers weren't something he typically went looking for, they were after all, not as bright as the ones he usually brought home for his mother. Maybe he should look for that one. Outlaw commented about winter and the boy nodded, he wasn't immune to the understanding of weather, after all, he could feel heat and cold and he was aware of the downward trend of the temperature over the course of the first few months of his life but had no way of knowing just how much colder things would soon get, or the effect that would have on his world. Maybe he was lucky to have been born near the hot springs, there would be warmth in the coming months and he'd likely only see ice if he ventured outside of his little safe circle. He trotted dutifully after Outlaw as the dog continued to talk. His ming snagging on one of the comments. "Wwwwwhat's the Ocean?" He asked. Watching at Outlaw peered under some shrubs. He'd obediently do as he was told, trotting over to the place the dog had indicated, turning his forest gaze towards the ground as he searched, even slipping between the two trunks when he needed to keep poking around. He didn't manage to find any small white flowers, this Trillium they were looking for but he did spot some blue ones, that he dutifully dug up to bring back to his mother once they were done here. "N.... Nothing here!" He called out once he was done poking into all the tiny nooks and crannies. WC: 449 (1585/2500) "Speech"

Art by Kolokolchek

Outlaw moved to the dry area he’d mentioned, nudging at a loose root with his paw idly before stepping around the tree to find flowers growing near it, white ones.  It looked like trillium!  It was probably trillium at least, he’d have to ask someone more skilled just to be sure.  The dog plucked a few just in case, dropping them though at the pup’s question. Glancing back at Emile he canted his head to one side, “What’s the ocean? Oh, we aren’t that far from one.  I can show you the ocean later.  Basically, imagine so much water you can’t see land on the other side.  It has a smell of salt to it.  The water moves in waves, and it has all manners of life in it.  Little crabs to huge fish.  I found the trillium.  So that’s at least a partial success either way.” The boy hadn’t found anything and that was fine.  This was great for getting to know him and still lessons in something highly important; knowledge of the ocean.  Well, it might be helping a bit with flowers also?  “We can search a bit more but if we don’t find the berries it’ll be ok.  They are supposed to be hard to find after all.”   Outlaw could spend all day at a thing on his own but he didn’t know how much energy the pup would have so he wanted it to be left to him on how much energy was put in this. Speech:"Life is but a game " Think

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