--THREAD BEING MOVED TO WEEPING WOODS--

Gossamer laid out some deer hides on top of the frost to give her audience a comfortable place to sit near the fire that Ásta had started. They'd laid out several bowls, bottles of various liquids, and most importantly a heap of dried yarrow. Yarrow was a hardy plant and it had held on longer than some of the other healing herbs which was a real blessing after her stores had been destroyed. She'd set about gathering as much as she could and drying it. Now that it was dry it was time to start making things with it and that's when she realized this could be a good lesson for those that weren't familiar with yarrow. She knew that Aris was interested in healing and perhaps Ophelia would like a crash course in it as well. Tipping back her head she howled for any interested in healing to come attend her lesson.

Aris heard Gossamer call again and her face twisted in a grin that was part anticipation and part perplexed. And trotting up to her sibling with Tansy in tow didn't clear up the second part like... at all. She cast an eye over the assembled stuff, clearly healing related, and slanted a stare of narrow-eyed, cynical amusement towards her sister. "So like... are you just going to do all of the lessons in everything since no one else does, or something? Should I come looking for you if I want to learn to sing and build towers too?" There was as much bitterness as there was laughter in her tone, all that teenage angst. She'd spent so much time as a pup wishing anyone would bother calling lessons and being consistently disappointed that it wasn't really a surprise that one of the youngest members of the pack was the one doing all the work the older wolves should have been doing, which was to say training everyone and not just their favorites. Maybe she should have spent more time kissing up so she could have been a favorite - but now with Goss throwing out lessons left and right it didn't look like she'd have to. As much as it was disgruntling to be playing student to her own littermate, at least she got to be a student...

Ophie figured that since she wasn't any good at hunting she could try her paw at the other end of the scale: aka healing! Except it was even more daunting than the former since there was so much at stake. What if she accidentally hurt someone by misdiagnosing an ailment, or gave them the wrong cure? Her head span with the endless possibilities for things to go wrong, but she felt as though she had very little wriggle room to back out now. Either she double down on her new-found duties or...what? Idleness wasn't a good look for an Armada wolf and heaven knows she already had a bad track record. Thumping along, Ophie rushed to meet her sister's summons. Like Aris she felt as though Gos had been leading the way in teaching as of late. It was good and all, Gos was a great teacher, but it wasn't really her place to. Sort of felt unfair, like she was picking up the other's slack. "Sorry sorry." She said in place of greeting, quick to settle on one of the furs splayed out. "What are we learning today guys?"

Lukina skirted around the trees as she slipped through the weeping woods in search of white willow bark. Winter wasn't the ideal time to gather bark but she'd take what she could get in these times of need. With a pair of hide bags slung over her hips she went on her way, pausing when she heard a call for healers. She knew the call likely wasn't meant for her but she had a spare pheasant she didn't intend to eat and the howl sounded vaguely familiar.

She followed it to the source, a small gathering tucked just inside the weeping woods. Lukina recognized the large saber-fanged girl but wasn't sure if she'd met the other two. "Hey! Are you having a healing lesson? I'll pay of course." She turned her head and pulled the pheasant out of one of the bags. With the sudden imbalance in weight her other bag slid right off. Shoot… she'd have to add rocks or something.

Gossamer fidgeted a bit but she didn't have to wait long before Aris showed up with her usual wit and sarcasm. Gossamer smirked. "Well, someone has too," she joked. "If you want to learn to build towers or sing though I'm afraid you're out of luck. I'm horrid at both." In all seriousness she just wanted to share what she'd learned. Gossamer had been lucky to have Ásta who was skilled in both fighting and healing and was able to pass on her knowledge. In some ways the giant fox was like an older sister to her. So much had gone on in their earlier lives that they'd mostly been left to fend for themselves when it came to training. Gossamer felt the least she could do was share a little of what she'd learned. Maybe it would goose other members of the pack to hold more training sessions if one of the more obnoxious yearlings just started doing as she pleased and teaching whatever the hell she wanted.

Ophelia soon arrived afterwards. Gossamer grinned, tail wagging happily as her heavier sister joined the duo. "Hey, Ophie, glad you could come! I had the luck to gather a bunch of yarrow this fall after the floods. Figured it would be a good plant to go over. You can do so much with it and we have plenty so I'm sure it'll be used."

Before she could get the lesson officially underway a scrappy, albino yearling showed up and expressed interest in the lesson. Gossamer was prepared to make a hissy comment until the loner actually offered to pay her for the lesson. She eyed the rooster pheasant and decided she very much wanted the tail feathers. "Yea, ok. I don't care. Just mind your manners. I'm Gossamer and these are my sisters Aris and Ophelia."

Now with that out of the way the real lesson could begin. She wasn't sure how much her sisters or the stranger already knew so she decided to start with the basics. "Alright, so there are a lot of different kinds of healing herbs but you'll find similar ways to approach them so don't get too overwhelmed with intricacies just yet. I'm focusing on yarrow today. Like many healing herbs yarrow has medicinal properties that we want to get out of the plant so we can use them to help our patients." She gestured to the bundles of dried yarrow she had.

"In order to get these properties out you can extract them using water like making a tea, using alcohol like white wine to make a tincture, or using a fat like lard and beeswax to make an ointment. Let's look at water extraction with yarrow today." Now that Gossamer was trying to teach others she suddenly realized how much there was to know about this one plant. She didn't want to overwhelm anyone so hopefully focusing on the main two uses would be enough.

"Yarrow tea is a great treatment for bad colds and it can help with fevers. For the tea we'll want to put 1/2 ounce of dried leaves in a bowl and add one cup of water." Gossamer used her paw pad to crush up some of the dried leaves on a piece of hide. She then folded the two corners together and lifted it to form a makeshift funnel she could use to pour the leaves into the bowl. She then tipped the bowl to show how much was in there. "I'm working on a scale so we can actually weigh stuff but I'm not there quite yet." Gossamer then popped the cork out of her water skin and poured in a cup of water.

"We'll then put it near the fire so that it can start to simmer, we'll want it to simmer pretty good for ten minutes." There was some debate as to whether it was better to boil or simmer so Gossamer just shot for the middle with a good rolling simmer.

"Make sense so far?"

ooc:  Let me know if you're wanting to craft in this lesson to. The thing with the crafting is we'll need to do 3 rounds for each item.

Gossamer shot back a reply as sassy as Aris' original comment had been, and Aris grinned at her. At least this time no one was looking over their shoulder watching for one of them to screw up, even if it was fucked up that no one'd bothered pulling them together before. Ophie waddled up too, and Aris snickered quietly, thinking it probably was a good thing she was going to be learning healing. It was a bit more... sedentary for her lifestyle. She was fully prepared to turn on the Most Innocent expression if either of her siblings heard her laugh.

Lukina's appearance made her perk up. "Hey, Lu!" she called out with a grin. "Long time no see!" She'd always regretted not being able to find the albino yearling again. She'd said her cousin knew poisons, and all... maybe she'd heckle her into bringing her cousin next time.

When Goss indicated the plant they were going to be learning about - yarrow - Aris leaned in and took a healthy sniff of it, adding scent to name to the sight of the dried herb in her mind, and then the uses for it in tea form. "Makes sense to me. How would you administer it for, say, a cold? Like what symptoms would make you decide to give them yarrow instead of something else?"

Ophie sat and listened, ears flicked forward as Gos began the lesson. Having a newcomer join them made the tubby Fatalis girl feel a little nervous, like she ought to make more effort not to embarrass herself, but she hoped she'd be able to slip under the radar by just being a good student. Not that it was hard, Gos had a way of explaining things so they just made sense, simple and clean without the fluff. First thing on the menu today was yarrow. Ophie leaned forward and took a sniff, hoping to store the scent in the back of her mind. So far it was hard for her to tell what plant did what, but with its cute white flowers she imagined she'd be able to distinguish this plant from the rest. Hopefully. "Could you make someone sick by giving them too much yarrow?" That was something Ophie had always struggled with, how much was enough?

Gossamer thought for a moment. "That's a good question. There are a number of factors, one being what we have at our disposal since we're working with diminished stores." They had plenty of yarrow compared to other plants that could treat the same symptoms courtesy of yarrow's longer growing season and hardier standing. "But, something else that would make me consider yarrow over another herb would be a fever. If they have a high fever I'd be more likely to consider yarrow. However, if the patient has a wet cough I might lean toward something like marshmallow or comfrey that could help the cough be more productive. Note that you can sometimes do various combinations of herbs to." Though that would get more complicated and would be a whole lesson in itself.

Gossamer turned to Ophelia to answer her sister's question. "Also a good question. Yes, many herbs can turn deadly if give in too high a dose including yarrow. If your patient happens to be allergic it can also cause a rash. Speaking of rashes, where I think yarrow really shines is in stopping bleeding. It is excellent for slowing the bleeding of various scratches and minor lacerations. I prefer to make a poultice out of it."

Gossamer scooted over to the second set of bowls. "You can make a poultice or ointment with yarrow. Since we're focusing on water extractions today I'm going to show you how to make a poultice for a wound with water. I mean you can also use your spit to if you have to." Water was going to become harder to come by with winter setting in but ideally they wouldn't want to be working bacteria into a patient's wound.

Gossamer took a small amount of dried leaves and added them to her bowl, she then poured in a little water from her waterskin. Once it was safely recorked with Ásta's help she addressed her audience. "What you want is enough water to make a paste. You can do this with fresh or dried leaves. To make the paste I like to use old bones but you can use a good stick as well." Or paws but that again tended to get messy. Gossamer picked up an old deer's shin bone and tilted her head as she started mashing and grinding the plant and water into a paste. Once that was done she set the bone aside. Digging her paw in she applied the poultice to her other arm on an imaginary wound. "You can then use a hide or other bandage to secure it or if the paste is thick enough wait for it to dry into the fur on the wound. Another thing to note about Yarrow is that it can help ward off infection. Any other questions you'd like to ask?"

Gossamer took her question seriously, which was always a bonus for Aris who found it difficult to get anyone to take her seriously. Maybe there was something to this getting trained by an age peer thing, except for the whole lack of experience at least Gossamer didn't treat her like a little kid. Ari scooted closer to peer into the second set of bowls as Goss began mixing it into water, watching closely to see the consistency that Goss judged it right at. A nice paste, and then Gossamer applied it to her own foreleg to demonstrate. Aris took a bit of leftover paste in her paw and rubbed a toe over it curiously, rolling it around on her pads to really feel the consistency through the leathery surface, the applied it to her own foreleg in mimicry of Gossamer to see how well it adhered. Well, it did ok but it would definitely fall off before it dried if she didn't hold still long enough. She'd have to remember to make a bunch of bandages somehow so she wouldn't have to worry about that. "Not that I can think of," she said absently to Goss' question, still poking at the drying poultice. "If I think of anything I know where to find you though." She grinned at her larger sister.