good soup

Mother had recently gathered a bunch of herbs and other miscellaneous plants from the garden. Along the wall, they were hung carefully to dry. Nice and flat and very aromatic. To the puppy, all she could see was an opportunity. A chance to try her own paw at making something useful. To be as good of a healer as her mother was! Wouldn't that be great? Her whole body wiggled with eagerness as she bounced after her mother. "Can I have some of the plants?!" Her squeaky voice trails after the moving Halo who is busy preparing for winter. Of course, Halo is too nice to say no to the girl, but also smart enough to give her a bundle of plants that hadn't been dried properly. A well-made basket full of crinkly, somewhat stinky, old plants that would be of no real use to anyone except those awful rabbits.

"Thanks, Mom!" Ursa says between the basket's handle as she turns to look for a sibling. There, she spies Whisper doing who knew what, but not looking preoccupied enough to deter Ursa. Stumbling over to her smallest sister, her body wiggles happily as she places the basket down for a second. "Whisp, come, come!" Her nose reaches out to bump her sister before picking the basket back up and turning to half-run, half-stumble over to a big round stone bowl that was used as a mortar and pestle with the corresponding stone laying beside it on the ground.

"Mom gave me these plants! Less make somethin'!" She turns her lavender eyes on her sister as she sets the basket down beside the stone bowl. Ursa can hardly contain her excitement as she waits for her sister to agree to whatever it was they would come up with.