Herbalists' Cache nuvujak ╫

when kukutux returned, it was to settle at the side of her husband's wife. she smiled into the soft and beautiful features, now flushed with pain. 

"you will sleep now, lótë." she offered her sister three black seeds upon a leaf. "i will bring your children to my hearth to be given meat. they will share dreams with their sisters." the cloudberry woman must set her mind to healing now.

kukutux chewed three poultices from the herbs she had brought.

as the woman slept, she would work: she would break upon the fetid crusts upon the wounds and wash them with the acidic draught of birchbark. the wounds would be packed with goldenthread and a soft mixture of tiny mosses. cobwebs and comfrey for the top of each, to hold the skin together.

the duck sang as she worked, and she did not keep lótë's children from watching. they would see that their mother slept and breathed before kukutux took them away for a meal. she would not hide this from them. it was the shared experience of their hearth. and perhaps it might move one or more of the four toward a want to know healing as well.