Handling Herbs

Searching For Herbs

Kat mumbled as she searched the shelves. If she'd been thinking clearly that morning, she would have stopped at the apothecary in the main building before coming out to the stables, and then she wouldn't be trying to read faded and well-worn labels. Anything she found in the stable offices was likely to be beyond its shelf life, anyway.

But she'd been bothered at not being able to find Jonah at breakfast. And Minde was acting weird. And by the time she was headed to the stables, getting the herbs she needed had completely left her mind...

...until she saw one of the calves lying there, its leg still splintered from its tumble the day before. It was general practice to allow younger creatures to run and play during specific periods of the day. Everybody had their assigned paddock and time their animals were allowed to play. Somehow, that didn't stop some of the larger creatures in Kat's timeslot to decide the younger ones were there for sport.

This calf, too young to have reached its naming day, had been one of the more seriously injured. Its leg snapped under the stomping of a celebrating male several times its size before the older creature was caught and dragged out of the paddock.

And honestly...the little guy was bearing his injury much better than Kat expected, but she still didn't want him to suffer. So, it was off to the stable stores.

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She shifted through the jars and bottles one more time, just in case she overlooked the one she needed. But it wasn't there. She dreaded the thought of walking all the way back to the main building, but it was far better than watching her little friend suffer.

On the steps outside, a boy who looked like he was probably in his first year at the monstery sat weaving something through his fingers. Kat made a quick note of him as she started down.

"Hey." The boy said, startling Kat.

"Hey," she replied, never slowing down.

"That's your calf that got trampled yesterday, right?"

"He wasn't trampled, but yes." It never ceased to amaze Kat how quickly news traveled around the complex.

"That's rough," the boy continued to weave what Kat now recognized as reeds of some plant. "He's hurt bad, though, isn't he?"

"His leg is broken, but he's on the mend. I was just headed up to the apothecary to get some herbs to help with his healing."

"Yeah. They've got a lot of stuff up there."

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The boy wasn't wrong. The apothecary had quite a bit in stock. Unfortunately, they didn't have any of the herbs Kat was looking for. By the time she reached the stables, she'd run so many options through her mind that she couldn't keep any of them straight any more.

"They didn't have your herbs?" The boy was now sitting on a barrel outside the main entrance to the stable that housed the creatures overseen by the upper class.

"Hmm? Oh...um...no. They didn't." There was no reason a first-year should have been anywhere near this stable. Then again, Kat reasoned, there really was no reason he shouldn't be there, either. No reason, except... "No class this afternoon?"

"Class is boring."

Kat remembered those days. "But if you don't go to class, you'll never get your animals."

"Yeah...that's what the professors keep telling me, too. But how am I supposed to learn how to handle and treat animals if they don't let us work on them?"

"You learn a lot in the first year and a half, if you give it a chance. Things that make working with your animals easier when you get to the stables."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She offered him a smile, but didn't actually feel any sort of reassuring. Her mind was elsewhere. "You'll have to excuse me. I have to get back to my animals. And you really should go back to class."

"All right." He hopped off the barrel, reminding Kat so much of her youngest brother, even though this boy was a couple of years older. It almost made her homesick.

Hands empty, she walked into the stable, only to find the injured animal sleeping peacefully. She scratched it behind the ears and turned her attention to the other two animals, who were happy to see her.