When the student is ready

[River]

...the teacher appears.

There was a new Herbalist on the scene. A greenhorn, one that probably didn't know much about the Valley's plants. As Tsubame was this new one's senior in rank, she felt the obligation to test her knowledge. True, there was one other Herbalist, but why let her have the fun of teaching the newbie? This was Tsubame's time to shine, and at the end of the day she'd go to her Big Sister and speak with pride about her day's work. The black female smiled as she approached the stream, the very one where she had bonded to Jasper. True, Hayley probably already had a bond, but this place was of symbolic importance to the timber. She had been reborn in these waters.

Tsubame quietly wondered what this new Herbalist was like. Was she socially awkward, like her, or was she a social butterfly? Well, considering the intellect needed for the job, she was probably the former. Cerebral wolves made good Herbalists, but not good socializers. She'd be surprised if the girl wasn't shy. Pondering this, Tsubame took a drink from the stream. Her permanently damaged paw was throbbing from being walked on, hot with pain, so she placed it in the water. As the cold fluid flowed over it, she felt the pain lessen. She sighed. Would the pain ever go away?

Once her paw felt a bit better, she took it out and raised her head to the sky. Her howl was a soft one, a gentle one, but it ordered the newer Herbalist to come to her. When the call was through, Tsubame would sit down and wait for her underling to show herself.

((We talked about having this RP awhile ago, sorry for taking so long to get it up!))

[River]

The very idea of being demanded to do anything by a fellow of her own status - senior or new as well - displeased the girl greatly. What audacity! What blunt naivety to manners! The herbalist bristled slightly, her fur standing out away from her, amber eyes ablaze like hot coals in the after-ashes of a once furious fire. How dare one of her own demand anything of her! Did she belong to them? Was she a member of their damned House? Memories of Salvatore drifted back to her, the gentle woman who had taken her in as not a False but True bond, had taught her and been the very reason she had obtained this rank of Herbalist. Of course, weakness was emotion, and so emotion she did not bother with. Inside she had died a little upon finding Salvatore's cold body under the stars. Who would she have to teach her, now? Who's House could she claim she belonged to, and hold the name with pride? She'd thought of beginning her own, but the idea.. it was foreign enough to hold a bit of distaste. So soon after Salvatore's death, too! She chided herself for such greedy thoughts, thinking then of the demand she'd recently been issued.

She'd known there were others, crawling the landscape like serpents whose poison was not liquid, but greenery instead; plant life, flowers and vines, stems and roots. It was an ideal job for the little timberwolf, an actual rank requiring that she worked with plants and other foliage to ensure a fine stock of poisons and medicine, both equally for the better of Oukoku-kai. Healing those who needed it, making poisons to kill of those unneeded, the dead weight even worse than slaves. For what was a wolf that would not work, except dead weight? Even slaves, those who were smart at least, repented and began to climb out of the pit they had dug for themselves. The beautiful Herbalist took a few tentative steps in the direction opposite the howl and the one who had issued such, almost deciding to avoid and otherwise ignore the call. She'd no business with some arrogant Herbalist who thought themselves the very spit that the Rosas threw upon the heads of those who dared oppose them; but then again, who would she be if she was to ignore such a call? This creature had demanded her presence, not asked it of her. It angered her, and thus her own bad side began to rear its ugly head like a cobra raising for the strike. So she turned, sighing roughly before shutting her mouth tight, lips a thin line of stoicism and unpleasantry.

Hayley couldn't have ignored the call even if she'd wanted to, she realized with a disgust unlike any other she'd experience thus far. It was against her manners, which were taught into her, almost bred into her genetic code. Scoffing at the idea, the pretty Herbalist began to walk slower, testing herself. She'd not hurry like a child to the playground, oh no - this stranger who had switched her presence from optional to mandatory would simply have to be patient, realize that they had no power over their colleagues. Amber eyes swiped a wide arc around her, observing the region around her with a keen attention to detail. She noticed the hoard of gnats floating aimlessly about above a pool of water little more than wet mud. Disgusting things, gnats were.. almost as disgusting as the upcoming sight she'd pass, the rotting carcass of a rat likely caught but never eaten by some wasteful little heathen; the rat seemed to be left staring up at the sky, perhaps wishing that, for once, it had stayed inside that day. Except there were no longer eyes to gaze through. They had been replaced by a pulsing white mass, a ball of maggots squirming as larva do throughout the body of the dead rodent. The Herbalist swerved away from this repulsing sight, careful to avoid the stench clinging to her body. The last thing she needed was the smell of decay hanging off of her like a robe. The smell was unpleasant, though dulled now that she had gotten far enough away from it.

Liquid, clear and pristine, washed over the rock bed below it, bubbling like a brook in the middle of some enchanted little forest. Hayley had long since forgotten such a thing, but the sound somehow resurrected the memories, and she smiled sweetly, a sight many Oukokans would have been foreign to. The red maiden was surprised to see that the river wasn't running red today. Even the Jin and the other murderous beasts of Oukoku-kai had days off, she supposed. No floating, bloated bodies and crimson blood were present to pervade the water of Death Valley's river today, and perhaps that was a good thing. Hayley followed the river upstream, and ahead she could vaguely make out the shape of a wolf, possibly the very same audacious little prick who had even dared to command that she come to them; the vulgar contents of her thoughts surprised her in a bad way, then, and she sighed softly to herself, tilting her muzzle toward her furry neck, eyes glaring at the grass she walked upon. When she raised her gaze again the figure was much closer, a little female of dark coloration, but upon her back an explosion of color burst out. Hayley thought it looked extremely out of place, like a speck of dirt on a white wolf's fur. Immediately she knew that this was who had called her, and that this was the wolf she'd surely come to dislike. Already she had a bad feeling of this one, and she'd not even properly met the other Herbalist. Hayley simply stood there, eyes displeased, body still loose. It would have appeared to anyone happening by that this Herbalist was beautiful, but sardonic and stoic, a beast wrapped in a pretty shell. While this was not the case, it was always the right thing to do to let people make their own impressions of others. The pretty maiden shifted her weight to her right side, the side farthest away from the water rushing by. Her muzzle never moved, and it was clear what she thought; You summoned me. Why?

[hikarou]

my name is hikarou and I walk around with swift and blood I am a male and though it happened four years ago I passed inarians but hiding me in the bushes at the bottom and five-ten minutes after, Sabre and I attack with fury during the match I was wounded and alpha dogs white wind said,''get your wounds are healed,''I was quiet and went away quietly and alone I came away it was the whole of my history deleted but I never forgot the deadly force it was so scary and uncontrollable that I had almost killed them all even the inarians