Tuktu Weir Did we meet the other night?

Botany trade thread with @Holland (Tagged the wrong character, I'm so sorry ;-;)

The soft-woman ventured a little further from the Kingslend borders than usual.
She followed the Weir, of course. Not for fear of getting lost, but rather in the hopes of finding a packmate to interact with. Like Germanicus. Except acceptable.

She also nosed along for plants. Looking for some moss.
She wanted to pick the fluffiest to take back within the borders to grow.
The more they had, the better. The safer it was.
If she collected now, they might be safe for the winter.

Sacnite had her nose buried between rocks by the water's edge, sniffing and touching the different types living there.

The Hinterlands were not frequently much, if at all, lately. But he saw sense in visiting them. Holland also nosed along, uttering grumbles to himself and collecting as he went. His right foreleg was wrapped in a heavy cobweb that he had managed to find in a cave. Then he found more. Glorious.

More or less limping his way back to the Glen, he paused when he smelt a woman's scent. Typically he wouldn't care. He'd leave her alone, but when he actually spotted her... Well, he was experienced to know that she was rummaging around looking for something. And that typically meant she was...

A healer?

He approached awkwardly, lifting his right leg and hobbling along. Holland chuffed softly to her, not wanting to scare the woman but wanting to know what she was looking for.

She didn't notice the stranger until he was practically atop her.
She jumped slightly - it was more a lurch of her head and tensing of her muscles - when he chuffed to her.
But danger didn't chuff.

Sacnite calmed herself in a few seconds, looking to the scarred man.
He looked so soft, yet so haggard too. She was taken aback...his eye didn't look good either. Nor his leg...
"Do you need help?"
Her head tilted, wondering how she could help him. If she could.
Perhaps...if he knew how she could collect what he needed.

So maybe not a very versed healer.

Holland stared at her, a brow lifting almost sarcastically. His wounds were old and so was his blind eye. They did not reek of infection or pulse with blood. They were itchy and irritable sometimes in the winter, and his neck craned uncomfortably from nerve damage but...

"No" came a blunt reply, but not unkindly "are you a healer?" Holland asked the woman. If she wasn't, he was not going to let her anywhere near him in terms of putting herbs and such in his body. There were too many wolves around who wanted to play at things.

And it ended in disaster.

She blinked, not expecting his voice to be so...empty.
Her tail tucked instinctively. She'd made a mistake.
"O-ok. Sorry," she gave him a soft smile.
It was good he didn't need help. She wouldn't be much use.

"I'm not, but I know a number of plants and their uses. I'm looking for a good moss to pack wounds with."
Her tail swished softly. Thinking about her passion sucked her nerves away. She knew a bit of what she was talking about. Enough to know what can be used, what shouldn't be used, and what she was unsure about.
It was all about the smell.

"Do you need any plants? I can help you find some maybe."
She hoped so. She wanted to make it up to him for assuming wrong.

He curled his lip in displeasure seeing her nearly recoil. "Don't do that" Holland snapped perhaps harder than he meant. Recalling his encounter with Osiris at the border of the Glen, the boy-alpha expecting him to submit when he hadn't even been part of the pack yet. "I am not your alpha" he goes on, closing his eyes "and I will not harm you."

He paused. "Fine" Holland accepts her help, perturbed he got that reaction out of her. The man turns away, flicking his tail for the woman to join him. Hobbling along so not to lose any of the cobwebs, he continues. "I need yarrow" he utters softly "do you know what that is?" he directs this to her, side-eyeing the woman. If he had some when he treated that man... well, no use dwelling on it.

It was like having a bee around you.
You know it won't hurt - perhaps you even want to touch it - but it might still hurt you. A wasp though, you know that one will get you. So Holland was a bee. A honey bee, bumblebees, well, bumbled and he certainly didn't.

She tried not to recoil or let tears spring to her eyes.
So she just kinda stood there, a bit shellshocked.
But...he needed Yarrow. Yes, ok.
He turned, she followed obediently, head slightly down.

Yarrow.
"Yes," she replied sullenly.
She knew they were often brightly coloured, but it was harder in the winter to find them.
The leaves were easy to identify though, and it grew best in full sunlight.
She searched for more open areas - no bushes or boulders. The feathery leaves often stood out in the winter. The water didn't matter, but it could survive without much water.
She moved away from the water's edge.

Nose to the ground, she'd smell it too. The sweetness of it was unmistakeable in this season.

She was sullen now, and he resisted the urge to bark at her. To tell her to stop it, to just go back to blissful ignorance - but it didn't work like that, did it? He kept his mouth shut, having tried to reassure her but in the end having insulted her. This is why he didn't have a mate; he was too prickly. And they were too emotional. They being women.

He smells the yarrow too. He twists his neck awkwardly, grunting softly. The woman has a nose for it, he'd give her that. But does he praise her? He finds that'd be even more awkward. Locating the bright yellow flower, he even more awkwardly approaches it. "Do you know how to properly collect herbs?" Holland asks her softly. He was useless with his leg wrapped in cobwebs.

But he could instruct her.

He didn't continue his...was it rudeness? Or just how he was?
She'll probably never find out, but was glad to settle back into her own skin as she worked.
There it was, the plant she searched for.

She watched him approach the plant too. He seemed uncomfortable. Achy.
It was probably the cold.
Heat was for old wounds, she was pretty sure, and cold was for fresh ones.
Should she suggest it? Maybe later.

"Not for, uh, storage for medical use."
She titled her head to him. She wasn't really sure if there was a proper way. Surely you just...picked it?
Oh well, she'd be enlightened.

He lifts a free paw, scratching a circle in the snow. In the center of it he draws a crude plant. "Dig around the plant" Holland begins quietly, his eye focusing on the picture before lifting to the yarrow's sight "equally deep on all sides" Letting his paw go back to where it had been, he nods. "keep digging down and you'll hit the roots."

If only he could do it himself. "Carefully grab them" he instructs "and pull them out. The soil will be loose since you dug. It'll be easier that way." Instead of trying to yank them out by the herb's flowers instead. Losing precious resources. Losing potent healing power. As if expecting unease or lack of confidence, he will go on.

"You won't know unless you try." Was that his way of encouraging the woman?

Ohh. He meant for replanting.
Ok, she knew how to do that.
But she'd follow his instruction with a soft nod of the head and a smile.
She liked it when he wasn't barking crudely.

She looked at his diagram.
It was good. She couldn't think like that.
She started to dig, pushing her nails into the cold earth, excavating around the plant, careful to not damage the roots as he instructed.

She glanced to him, then dug some more, deeper until she could scoop under the bulk of the roots.
She reached down, and if he didn't bark any other orders at him, she'd take the root in her mouth and slowly pull it from the earth.

"Good."

He grunts from his spot, motioning for her to bring the yarrow to him. If she does, he takes it gently and separates the plant with a paw. With one swift bite, he cleaves the herb in two. That way, the both of them have something to take back to their respective packs.

"Yarrow... can make a wolf throw up the contents of their belly" Holland muses, touching his part of the yarrow gently "useful if your patient is poisoned or has a bellyache." Or is a stupid idiot and eats weeks old sheep meat. He'll have to trek back to the Glen - but

It was worth the trek to get something so precious.

She passes it to him as he wished, watching closely.
He places it down, and with his incisors, he clips the plant by the stem.
She is left with the root, and he with the medical compnement.
That was useful to know.
She smiled, tail waving softly.

It sounded horrible...but if it came to it...she could use it. To stop Celnes being betrayed....
No, Sacnite you can't think like that. It's not your fight. Maybe.
"I'm Sacnite of Kingslend," she looked to him, settled now. She could take his meanness now she expected it.

"Holland" of nowhere, he wanted to say but knew that was impossible now "of Firefly Glen." He supposed he was stuck with the pack now that he was making a garden and tending to the flowers... Kingslend was not known to him, but he knew some wolves didn't go into details about their packs. They had secrets. He respected it.

"Thank you" he gestures to his cobweb wrapped limb "for assisting me, Sacnite." He gives the woman a nod, prepared to leave if she so wished it. He knew he hadn't been pleasant, but he had only wanted to let her know submission was not required. It was true - he wasn't her alpha. He didn't have power over her. Seeing a woman submit herself...

Sickened him.

Firefly Glen.
It sounded cute. Sweet.
A small paradise.
One where her missing daughter resided...and she'd not know. At least for a while yet.

"Your welcome," she beamed cheerfully, tail wagging now.
There, being nice wasn't too hard was it Holland.
She resisted the urge to make physical contact with him. Most wolves were repulsed by it.
Or at least nervous.
It was more acceptable when she was a bubbly yearling, but now she was a shrewd woman? Not so much.

Holland turned to leave, and she called after him, "come again!" before returning to her moss collection with her newly acquired yarrow root.