The sandy sea, the water that swooshed back and forth, the smell of the sea and the tree’s sticking out of the water were all fascinating things that could easily call a pup back to it more than once.  Kotori wasn’t going out deep in the sea, just enough that his little paws felt the lapping of the cool water and how it made the sand all squishy under his paws.  Kotori would stand still for a few moments to shift his weight into the funny sand and then take flight to pounce through the waves and see how high up he could make the water splash. The pup stopped on seeing something funny, not that it was the first funny thing he had found here.  Part of what was neat about the seafront was all the fun stuff to spot.  This time the fascinating thing Kotori had found was the remains of a dead fish.  Whatever had been eating the fish had lost their meal for one reason or another.  The fish was a bit longer then the pup and thus huge in young Kotori’s eyes.  It had already been gutted with no entrails left to be seen, mostly it was a head, tail, bit of skin and fragile bones.  Pretty awesome! Kichi walked up to the dead fish, nudging its face and watching it tilt a bit in the sand and the water that tried to claim back the fish but could only tickle it due to how far it rested on the sand.  The brown wolf pup picked it up by its bony head, giving it a shake but the corpse felt kind of heavy so that it would only tilt for him.  Kotori didn’t know what he was going to do with it yet but it seemed a good prize to play with for a bit.  Bracing his back feet and pushing his teeth as deep as he could in the scales Kotor walked backwards struggling to drag the corpse with him.

Gossamer wandered along the Sea's Plain with Ásta in tow. The large fox was helping her look for an herb called Boneset but she had yet to find anything that looked like it. It was supposed to be two to four feet high so she was looking for something taller than her. Her eyes scoured the terrain when she spied her brother on the beach. Oooo… what did he have there? She turned off her path and dove toward where Kotori was, anxious to see if he'd found something neat. "Hey Tori! Whatcha got there?" It looked interesting though she had to admit that it smelt kind of bad. Gossamer wondered where it had come from. She looked over at the fox as the larger creature cleared her throat. "I'll start looking again in a bit Ásta, my brother found something!"

Kotori was working those back legs, he’d hunch up his muscles and then leap backwards to try and pull the fish up further.  He dropped the prize when he heard Gossi, “I don’t know, but its really smelly!” The large pup seemed pleased by that fact instead of turned away, “Sure is dead, but its really really big.  Come feel it too, even feels weird!” How to describe it?  Kotori didn’t really have much of a comparison, “Like, its, well it feels different, I guess rough like tree’s sorta but totally not cause its not tough.  I dunno, feel it, and then there’s the end!” trotting to the back end and whacking the tail-fin with a paw, “It’s different too.” Kotori couldn’t explain it well yet, but if they brought this home mom and dad or one of their brothers would surely know what it was! “Wanna help me get it home? We can show it off.”  It seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to Kotori.  Who wouldn’t be impressed when the two brought back a dried up carcass of a gutted fish?

Gossamer wrinkled her nose as she sniffed at the dead thing. "Ewwwww…." She reached out a paw and lightly tapped it. She wasn't quite sure what Kotori thought was so fascinating about a gross, smelly, dead thing. "Well, we could. But I'm not putting it in my mouth!" Suddenly, she got an idea. "Oh, oh, I know. I'll make a pointy stick, like a spear and we can stab the fish and drag it back that way." In a moment she went bounding off near the bushes, scouting high and low until she found a hazel bush that had long straight sticks that would make a perfect spear. And that wasn't all. She saw the plant with the small white flowers. "Ástaaaaa I found flowers!"

A moment later the giant fox was there, tail wagging lightly. "Good work, that's boneset. Gather some of that and I can help you with the hazel bush." The little pups didn't have the weight or the teeth to chew off a branch of hazel. The large fox moved to a dead limb and started chewing the slender stalk.

Hm.  She had a fox and Kotori didn’t have any pets.  He wanted a pet too, something that would be big and strong.  Watching her fox work momentarily had him forget about the corpse.  “It doesn’t smell that bad,” said in defense of his trophy.  Kotori forgot the details of smell though as she started having her fox do work for her.  That looked useful.  Why the heck didn’t have a fox or something even cooler?  Yah, better than a dumb ol’ fox.  What did he want then?  Umm. The carcass really had little significance now.  “Whatcha doin Gossi?  Are you doing training with Io or something?” Moving away from his carcass he headed towards the bush. “What’s boneset for?” The corpse would wait, after all by the looks of it and the stench it had waited a while already.  “Your fox is handy huh.”

"Ok!" Gossamer chirped as she started chewing on the boneset plants. She moved her head down low toward the ground and started chewing, eventually ripping her head back and forth as she separated one of the plants from the ground. Heck yes, she did it! Seizing the plant she trotted over toward Ásta with her tail wagging. She set it down and turned her attention back to her brother. "Ásta is helping me learn about plants so Io can have a break." At his next question she paused as she tried to remember what the boneset was for. "Ummm…. fevers?" She glanced at Ásta for help, feeling suddenly embarrassed she couldn't remember everything the fox had told her.

Ásta had finished removing a branch from the base of the hazel tree and she nodded before setting the branch down. "Yes, that's correct. It's mainly used to help with fevers as well as colds and the flu." Grinning at the boy who seemed to have an interest in slightly gross things she added. "You can also use it to dispel tapeworms."

Gossamer stared at the fox. "Worms? Wait… they can get… inside you?"

Ásta nodded. "Oh yes, there are different kinds of worms that like to eat blood-"

"Ewwwww!"

Ásta laughed. "Here, take this branch and start chewing off any twigs growing out of the main stalk." Gossamer took the stick and started chewing on it, glad to be working her teeth on something difficult to chew and not soft and wriggly. Ásta soon joined in but shot a question at the horned youth. "Do you have an interest in herbs too?"

Kotori was getting jealous as he watched Asta helping his sister and more so when he realized the fox was actually teaching her about herbs.  A pet that had knowledge that he could make tell him stuff? He slowly sat down, one specific back paw shifting at a time as he was puzzling what to do on this.  Boneset for fevers and colds and flu and tapeworms.  He could remember that.  Maybe.  “Oh,” then scrunching up his own nose at the last part, “Worms inside me?  Like from eating something they were on?” He said that imagining visible worms he just needed to watch for, “or like they crawl on you when your asleep..” at that notion and knowing Gossi’s disgust he decided to run with that more, “like do they go in your mouth if its open while you sleep, or crawl up and in the nose, or actually get around the fur and chew their way in?” Yup, he was running with his imagination on it now.  “What do these worms look like?” As an only brother it was his job to gross out his sister.  This had just been decided. At Asta’s question he quit thinking on worms and nodded, “uhhuh.  Gotta be good at protecting anything I own.”  Not that he had much now but, he would at somepoint.  First things first, he needed to find a pet for himself.  The notion of his sister having one and he didn’t was an irritation.  The only reason not to rush off and get something today was the ‘what’ and the ‘how’.  Did he just find something, pin it to the ground and demand it be his?  This one was pretty friendly though and it talked!  “Hey Gossi, where’d you find a talkin fox anyway? Then looking to Asta, “I didn’t know foxes could speak wolf?”

Gossamer ripped and chewed at the excess branches from her hazel stick. She really liked this. She could chew on stuff all day! She pulled a few more branches off. It took some time with her little puppy teeth but eventually she got there.

Ásta meanwhile focused on Kotori and nodded. "You can get tapeworms from a variety of places, such as infected prey like a mouse or rabbit. You can get them from ingesting fleas to. You have to swallow them to get infected." The pups would likely experience pin worms a some point in their young lives but hopefully they'd be spared tapeworm infection.

Gossamer trotted over to Ásta with the clean stick in her mouth and the fox gave the next set of instructions. Gossamer shifted the stick in her jaws so her jaws were closer to one end, she then started awkwardly rubbing the end against a nearby rock multiple times until she had something pointier than it had been before. She set the spear down.

"I was gathering herbs near the border and I met her." She puffed up proudly.

"Most foxes can't speak the common tongue. I learned some time back." Her kindred always teased her, stating she was half wolf even though she knew she wasn't. She'd befriended a wolf shorter than her and the rest was history.

"Ok, let's stab the fish!" Gossamer picked up her spear and ran at the fish, poking it in the middle. She looked over at Kotori. Was this right?