Thread: Confidence WHO: Gilderoi and John WHEN: Sunday afternoon WHERE: John's room, Hydra dormitory
John's carefully gathered supplies were organized in his room and cataloged by use. Drying herbs hung from strings on the ceiling. He made regular trips into the woods and along the ocean to collect useful wild plants, never taking more than he needed, and always ensuring there would be more for another day. He was trained by the best herbalists in the tribe and knew the uses of local flora as well as fauna. Though John didn't often hunt animals, when he did, he used every part of them. Nothing went to waste. It was a practice his mother's people lived by. The Cherokee and other tribes still kept to many of the old ways, though with time, they lost more and more due to the inattentiveness of youth. That was the trouble with a mostly oral custom for passing on knowledge.
John kept to those ways as best he could. He had a natural gift for healing without needing the plants, but he used it only as a last resort. In addition to plants used to make medicine, John used them to make paint. It played an integral part in the traditions he learned as a part of the Paint Clan.
Currently he had white paint in a pail with a handmade brush and a bundle of feathers tied with a strip of leather. He was using the feathers to fan the thin line of smoke that was rising up from the sage he was burning. John's room smelled pleasantly of herbs at all times, but now the scent of sage was strongest. He hoped it would help rid his mind of the bad energy that was constantly gnawing at him. Particularly since Ms. Hallowfen made him go full stop on his drug use.
Carefully, John set the feathers down and picked up the brush. He was chanting in a low soft voice in the Cherokee language. With the brush, he painted on his own arm, drawing circles. When one arm was done, he switched to the other arm. As he worked, John tried not to think about the elf sitting across from him on the floor.
Dipping the brush for more of the chalk paint, his mixed hazel eyes glanced up at Gil.