Gossamer stoked the fire, turning the coals with a deer shin bone to make sure the heat level was good. She'd unrolled hides and laid out a number of ceramic bowls and dried calendula. She had a few other assorted items which she looked over before calling for Aris and Morgawr. She had her assignment and Azure expected the mentors to train their students. Finally, the younger wolves were going to have a chance to be trained in their area of study and she was grateful for Azure taking charge in that respect. However, she still didn't feel completely qualified being only a yearling herself but she was eager to help her sister and get to know her new nieces and nephews since she'd missed the opportunity to connect with Aslatiel's children.

In some ways it might make sense to wait for the world to go back to normal and for her illness to heal but she was losing hope that normal would return. There was only survival and endurance now. What other choice was there? Laying down and dying? No, that was not the Fatalis way. She could teach and keep her distance and she looked to Ásta to bridge the gap between herself and her students. Gossamer wiped the goo from her eyes, wincing at the circular would that had been left on her right wrist from her own fangs. She scooted closer to the fire, the light gave her strength and kept the demons at bay.

Morgawr was in the middle of coming up with a story. It was natural to her. She was pacing around to keep the thoughts moving when she found a small rough black pebble and decided that it was a symbol of her main character. She couldn't come up with a name, but she decided that the character would be a big angry squirrel. She tried to draw her in the dirt, but the squiggly lines didn't look like anything to anyone but her. To her, it was Biggie, the big angry squirrel.

But she had to pause on Biggie when someone called to her. She glanced down at the pebble and quickly buried it and then stuck a twig out of the freshly laid dirt to mark where it was so she could find it again. She then went off to follow the call. "Hi!" she chirped.

Aris was coming to terms with the idea of Gossamer being her mentor in healing. Between Goss and her fox friend they were more knowledgeable in it than most of the full adults in the pack and, unlike the older adults, she was actually willing to teach Aris without being a snooty asshole about it. Being paired with Ophelia to train fighting instead of getting an actual mentor was a completely different issue altogether, but Goss as a healing mentor she could get behind, so when Gossamer called Aris answered with appropriate eagerness.

She hid a disgusted face at the sight of one of Azure's pups there to clearly share a lesson - ugh she was in the baby class - but she couldn't really blame Azure for wanting his kids to be trained when that lack of training was exactly what Aris had been complaining about this whole time. So when it came down to it, she was the reason the kid got to be trained, right? Because she'd complained loudly enough about it? But no matter how much she argued with herself, she felt a little ember of resentment that no one had ever cared enough about her litter to do the same.

Still she forced a grin as she came up on them. "Hey, Goss! You look like shit," she told her sister with cheerful disregard for the young ears listening. And to hide the resentment that Goss surely would disagree with, and because despite the resentment she knew it wasn't really the kids' fault and it wasn't really fair of her to resent them at all, she added "Hey kid," because she had no idea what the kid's name was, and sought to tousle the fur on her head roughly. "Ready to learn about the exciting world of healing?"

The youngest princess was the first to arrive and she greeted Gossamer with a friendly chirp. "Hey there, you up for a healing lesson?" She hoped the young girl would agree but if not she knew Aris was probably game. Gossamer just hoped she could teach at a level that would be satisfactory to both of them, particularly the youngest as her lesson might be considered a bit advanced. Well, if the child had an interest in healing it would be good for her to know what she was getting into.

Aris arrived and shot a playful comment about her appearance. Gossamer stuck her tongue out at her litter mate. "Hey, I'm doing much better and am no longer contagious. If you wanted to see horror you should've seen me a week ago." She shuddered lightly at the memory. That was probably the sickest she'd ever been in her life.

"Ok, let's get started. I'm Gossamer. Morgawr, this is Aris. We're your aunts and your father wanted me to start instructing you in healing. I was thinking we could all make some Marigold Salve today. It's stuff you can put on cuts, burns, bruises and bug bites to stop bleeding and keep injuries from getting infected." Using one of her claws she flipped off the lid of a small tin that held some already made calendula salve. She tipped it to show her sister and niece.

"The first step is mixing dried calendula flowers with lard or olive oil. Just enough to cover and combine with your flowers." Animal by products were far easier for a wolf to come by, but she managed to trade with a small nomadic group for some olive oil. The wolf she'd dealt with had also explained the process. She was eager to give it a try when her full strength returned. "I've taken care of that step since when you mix marigold flowers with olive oil you need to let it sit for 4 to 6 weeks so the oil has time to get the good stuff out of the flowers." Gossamer proudly pulled out a large amber-colored jar with a large cork. Within it you could just make out the marigold flowers swirling about in the oil.

Gossamer asked Morgawr whether she was up for a healing lesson, and the baby princess nodded vigorously. "Duh! That was what she'd called for, right? Morgawr could listen, at least, when she wanted. She didn't always want to. But healing seemed fun, and then she could have something to talk about. She did want to talk to other wolves; she just didn't want to talk about any of the things that they talked about, and she couldn't share any of her made-up stories. It made her feel very uncomfortable just to think about, like she would be telling a secret. Her stories were hers. Not anybody else's.

Another wolf showed up, talking cheerfully. Morgawr wondered what the word "shit" meant. She couldn't remember hearing it before. She couldn't remember most of her conversations--if you could call them that--with others, though. They were so boringggg. She couldn't help it if nobody was interesting enough to keep her attention, right? The wolf rubbed Morgawr's head roughly, and she stepped back, wrinkling her nose and her eyes narrowing to slits. She didn't want to be pushed around, and she didn't recognize the action as an attempt at affection. She completely ignored Aris's question because of that. Disrespect was met with disrespect.

She turned to Gossamer as she started speaking, not sparing another glance for Aris, and listened as politely as she possibly could force herself to. She was more focused on looking like she was paying attention than actually paying attention, but she did alright. She'd probably remember next to nothing, but she was at least trying.

Goss stuck her tongue out at her and Aris grinned, blowing her a teasing kiss that said clearly 'you love me anyway'. The kid pulled away from her paw and gave her a dirty look before proceeding to ignore her - Aris rolled her eyes, not bothering to hide it even if it did exasperate Goss. Ok, so she wouldn't make nice with Azure's kid. No skin off her nose. She wasn't here for the brat anyway, she was here to learn from Goss.

She leaned forward to sniff the container of marigold salve while listening to Gossamer's explanation, which made her blink. "So wait, are marigold and calendula the same thing then, or two different flowers and we put both in it?" She only thought she could smell one herb but if it was a similar smell she wouldn't necessarily be able to separate them both from the smell of the oil, which was an unfamiliar smell all by itself. It seemed like a particularly useful salve to keep around though so she paid close attention to filing away the scent and sight of the little flowers floating in the oil as well as the finished salve.

Gossamer's stomach flipped at Aris' question as she realized she'd completely forgotten to talk more about the different types of marigold. Well, shit. Now that she was actually trying to teach healing skills she was becoming more and more aware of just how complicated it was and how much there was to break down for a student. How the hell had Ásta ever managed it? She supposed the benefit of having a one on one student/mentor relationship is that Ásta could wait until she fucked up to inform her what she was doing wrong. Like the time she'd brought back Field Marigold instead of Pot Marigold for her salve.

"Crap, that's a good point Aris. What I have here are the same flower, it's just called by different names. Calendula and Pot Marigold are the most common but there are other names. There are also other kinds of marigolds that you don't normally use for this salve. We can go more into telling them apart another time, I know there's a lot to cover. Let's get to crafting." She thought perhaps actually making something would be more fun than just listening to lectures, at least for the young pup.

She pulled a smaller ceramic bowl toward herself. "First will pour in some of our infused oil. About a cup. You can strain it if you want." She didn't have her straining basket handy so she skipped it. "A cup is about this much. Then we want to add in an ounce of lard which is about this much." She took part of a deer scapula and used it as a spoon to scoop out the lard. She then flicked her head sharply to dislodge the fat. Gossamer set the bone down. "Ok, you two go ahead."

It annoyed Morgawr when Gossamer said that Aris had asked a good question. While she was tremendously lazy, she did have her pride. It vexed her more than words could describe to hear this brat praised. She knew nothing about her, but she had decided that they were enemies. Her reasoning was, well, non-existent. But hey, there was probably some reason to hate her older sister. It made this lesson more fun to have someone to fight with silently. She could even play out imagined arguments in her brain! Some of those were actually quite good, and much more engaging than the lecture.

Finally, Gossamer stopped droning and instructed them on how to actually start crafting. It was bound to happen eventually. She glanced at Aris to see whether or not she was supposed to get her materials and stuff now or wait until after their teacher stopped talking. Why did people like to talk so much? She was nearly wriggling with the desire -- she couldn't tell whether it was excitement or just boredom -- to start actually doing something. But Gossamer eventually set her free. She grabbed a bowl and started trying her best, although she hadn't particularly paid attention. She knew that the lard was put in at some point, so it wouldn't hurt to put it in first, right? It got a little stuck on the bone-thingy she was using as a spoon, so she just used her paw to swipe it into the bowl. And then onto the next steps!

Wait, what were those?

She decided to just toss in the oil, in an amount that was definitely less than a cup, maybe just about three-quarters of a cup. She then stared at the bowl quizzically, as if she would find instructions written on the side of it.

ooc: just wanted to get this one wrapped up. Tea if you need another post just let me know!

Gossamer watched quietly for a moment debating how much correcting to do. There was definitely more wiggle room in an ointment than there was in measuring out something like a tincture so she opted not to get too anal retentive as long as the measurements were in the ball park. It didn't matter the order really as now that they had everything together it was time to mix and then melt. "Ok, now all we need to do is mix everything together." She picked up a smaller bone in her teeth and used it to stir her mixture until it was mostly combined. There was leeway in this as well as they would use the fire to help combine the ointment. "Next scoot the bowl over toward the fire so everything can melt and blend together even more." Gossamer moved her bowl near the fire. "After everythings melted and forms an even color we'll pull it away from the fire to cool. After that it will be ready to store and use." Moving it from the fire would be the tricky part but she had plenty of practice now hooking bowls with the edge of an antler and carefully scooting them far enough away to cool.