"All right, ladies," she said about midday. Normally they'd walk through the shade of the swamp trees as much as they could to cover all the ground they needed, but after their final loop - each one took about three weeks to complete - and all the plants being healthy, Hang the Moon decided it was time for a rest.
"Let's stay here for a bit. It's fairly dry, there's a fresh spring not far from here, plenty of places to hunt for you two and a field for me..." The excitement in the two felines was palpable. Hang the Moon gave a little laugh before motioning for them to scoot off. They didn't need to be told twice: both of them were gone in a flash, tearing into the underbrush to either go to the fresh water pond or to hunt. Or maybe to just go sun themselves in the field.
Hang the Moon slipped her satchel off from over her heat and put it gently under a tree that would be their base for the next week or so. She gave a soft sigh and laid down beside it, snuggling up against the trunk to lean back and rest.
Hang the Moon had been working hard for almost half a year now. Her desire to help others was coming to fruition. She'd helped so many kin already, even without her knew plant knowledge, and she was excited to see what would come next year once she had the supplies she'd need to help. She'd need to spend time with some healers next to see how they treated ill and injured kin without the plants she currently had so she could combine the two practicies and become as good a healer as she could manage.
That was still a ways off, though. She let her eyes slide shut and she rested, not sleeping but still letting her body recharge. Her ears remained on a swivel, listening to the sounds of the swamp and the occasional noises from her playing and hunting lionesses. She was so grateful for their presence. Doing this alone, even with her newfound confidence, would have been hard.
Eventually she opened her eyes and decided a dip in the water would be good. It was getting quite warm, the humidity of the afternoon starting to settle in. She rose to her hooves once again, grimacing slightly as they throbbed harder after the break. The cool pond would help those, certainly. Making her way carefully, Hang the Moon called out to Gone the Sun and Night and Day to encourage them to join her in the water. They could swim and splash around before getting some food together for the evening. She was already looking forward to sleeping in a pile of warm felines and not waking with the sun.