Witch's Marsh Death doesn't let you say goodbye

Nanook tended to @Keen with what assistance @Derg and @Wintersbane would allow her to offer, collecting herbs and showing the men how to best apply the poultices and wrappings so they might find themselves equipped for when she herself was gone. In need as they were of a healer, Nanook did not bind herself to the Vartija. She could not. Her loyalties would never settle with them, and though a pack promised security and safety within the warmth of their number, her feet were calloused from the years of travel. The paths she best knew were the roads best travelled alone.

Yet her duties to Vartija were not yet over, not until she was certain the men could identify the herbs she had used, could recall what she had taught them, and could replicate the process again. They would pay their debt by accepting her teaching. She knew the proposition would be unsatisfactory, but what she wanted most, they could not give her.

The Hollows lay somewhere far behind her, concealed by the frozen tomb of what had once been her home. Here in the marsh, she couldn't see the monumental grave; the forest wrapped thick shadows around her, and she pulled through the mire with nostrils flared for a plant she didn't quite care to find.

Today had been a hard day.

No matter how many debts she collected, no matter how many favours she was owed, what she wanted most, no one could give her.

Tags for reference <3