Having accidentally run into Modesty out on his gathering trip, his collecting had been cut short. Among the various bumps and scrapes there was a particularly nasty wound on her cheek, and he was sure if he didn't put something on it soon it would begin to itch. Problem was, most of his stores, now that he looked at them, hadn't made it through the winter. He'd taken a room on the lower floor of the main building with a broken window, and damp had gotten in. The unseasonably wet spring, with short bursts of warmth had encouraged mould growth and pretty much most of his hanging herbs had to be burned. Even the poultices were 50/50, and the bandages may as well be rotten rags. He let out a heavy, long-suffering sigh. It seemed to be a sound he made more often than not these days.

He'd been scouting some of the outbuildings. He had found what once would have been called a bungalow, with a big glass wall overlooking what had once been a pool. It had a large space that he had been working on clearing whenever he got 5 minutes spare that would serve well as an infirmary, with a room off to the side he could call his own, if he ever got the leaders wife well enough to not need watching like one of her many fucking children. He'd dragged the makeshift sled he had used to get her home into the dank little room and began to sort through the supplies, either throwing them into the small flaming bucket he had set in the middle of the new room or placing them carefully for transport. Far more was being burned than kept, and it caused his brow to furrow in worry.

He sent his monkey to fetch a soft goat skin that he had been keeping his navigation notes on. He had caches marked with dots, and a few scribbled landmarks laid out. He set the monkey to duplicating the map on another much larger piece of hide while he tried to keep a mental note of what they would need to collect to replace what had been lost. First and foremost, a salve to reduce scarring, or at least keep the flesh from forming a painful knot. Strawflowers would mean a trip to the western edges of Algoma Prairie, he pointed to a flower and then to the spot on the map, keeping the least damaged dried specimen aside so he could rope in some help on this one. He watched as the monkey began to sketch out the rough shape of the flower and nodded his approval before fetching a sprig of rose hip and marsh penny, gesturing to Sea's Plain and Corpseghoul Swampland respectively. Lavendar was more for presentation than anything, but if anyone needed calming it was the leader's wife, so he grabbed a stem for good measure and gestured to the Tall Grass Plains. Someone had left their garden behind when the pack moved, and he knew there was an established supply there.

Perhaps this really was too much work to do on his own? He gave a short howl to call in Rivin, at least he shouldn't have to spell out the needs for each plant with her assistance.

“Speech”

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After her latest episodes, Rivin had set to taking a sedative in secret to keep her mind calmed once more. While she didn’t like the idea of needing to rely on the herb, it was necessary. She would not, could not risk hurting anyone in the Raiders. And she would be damned if this beast within her managed to win. At first she had been afraid of her, afraid of what she was capable of… but this was her body, wasn’t it? It should be her choice how to proceed in her life. Just as Gil had told her regarding what her father had said. And so that was what Rivin was fighting to do. Take control of her life, try to manage what was within her. She carried a small supply of that herb in her gathering bag, just in case she started to feel her try to creep into her mind.

Rivin had spent a good portion of the day straightening up her room and reorganizing things. While she wanted to head out to Fern Gulley, as well as some other western lands to gather herbs, she wanted to make sure she had a system in place for organizing them and preparing the seeds of others to be used in the garden. As she worked on her system, making changes and pausing every so often to run through a checklist in her head, Lark watched her from a bed of moss and grasses. To see her at work, truly in her element, was a fascinating thing. He’d been worried for his mistress for a while, and so it was his searching that had discovered the passionflower. It was fast growing, and therefore of the most use to Rivin who yearned for that control over herself.

She would not be caught in another episode again.

Ears pricked as a call came for her. Sakana - a fellow healer and a knowledgeable one at that. She would pause her organization, grab her bag, and set off to leave her room and make her way to the outer buildings where the call had come from at a brisk trot.

The smell of burning and mold invaded her nose as she approached. She wrinkled her nose as she stepped in, an ear flicking back as she noticed the flaming bucket and the remainder of the herbs he was sorting. The pile set aside that was still usable, well, it certainly wasn’t enough to cover a whole pack. Especially one that was seeking to expand their territory and likely members in time. A thoughtful frown crossed her face as she let her green gaze turn to Sakana. “Not looking good… fucking sucks.” She tilted her head to the side slightly.

“What were the most vital things we lost? I was planning to head out on a gathering trip as it was, and get some things of my own.” And of course she could gather whatever they lacked as well. He’d had the only store from the previous year, and if most of it was bad, she’d be out there for a while collecting everything they would need.

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Word Count: 524 Words
Total Word Count: 1,077 Words

"Speech," 'Thought.'

Sakana continued to sort and point, his monkey continued to scratch away at the hide. Willowbark, surely he wouldn't have to spell that one out? but he did anyway, Devil's claw, they'd need to go all the way to the desert for that, maybe even around Dragon's blood grove, and whoever was there could harvest some dragon's blood while they were there? Perhaps he would have to take that one on himself... Meadowsweet should be around Tall Grass, and he'd gathered some beggar's blanket from Waterfall Peak, but it wouldn't hurt to have more on hand. Eucalyptus though... That would be another tricky one.

He was pulled from his musings by Rivin's arrival, and though he smiled, it was a haggard sight. He looked visibly exhausted, as he should after months of trying to keep the leader's wife alive, and keeping her illness a secret from him. “Anything to assist with respiratory distress, and with this bunch, wound care. The Wife almost died over winter. She has a horrible wet cough. You can hear it crackle in her lungs, and sometimes it gets so bad she spits up blood...” No point keeping it a secret now, she'd been halfway across Boreas hacking and screaming. “I'd burned through everything I had left, and then some. I think we'll have to get Gilgamesh on side to get the scouts involved. I've got blondie making a map... Even if we aren't desperate for it now, it's worth marking known locations out so it isn't just on us to keep supplies up. What if we're patching people up after a raid and we're running short on something? At least this way, we could probably even send some of the birds in a pinch.”

Once he had his new infirmary set up, he would hang it from the wall so it could serve as a teaching aid as well as a reminder for the rest of the pack that supplies didn't just materialise out of thin air. If they wanted to go and get themselves into mischief, then they could bloody well help stock the supplied to help keep them in one piece.

“I managed to find purple coneflower and beggar's blanket at waterfall peak, I even bought back a small valerian plant if you think it might be worth trying to grow it in your garden, but it prefers to keep its roots damp so it might be a struggle with the sand...” The wilting plant sat on the sled with a damp scrap of hide holding soil close to its roots. “We should also look at setting up another garden, maybe over on the archipelago... The soil seems more forgiving over there, but we'll have to contend with the birds and the pigs...” Another discussion to have with the Raid King, he'd need wolves far larger than he was to help build a decent fence to keep the wildlife away.

He sighed again. “Where on earth are we going to find more bandages?”

“Speech”

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