Ordinary Day

I was listening to Carbon Leaf's Love Loss Hope Repeat on the way home tonight, and found myself startled and amused that it seemed uncannily appropriate not only for my general frame of mind after the week I've had, but also for the three central characters of Lament.

"Learn to Fly" is apparently a Kestar song as far as my brain is concerned. Especially with the bit about "I can feel your heart and I can hear you cry".

"Under the Wire" is Julian. "I need to feel redeemed"? Oh, hell yeah. It's all Chapter-16-y, in particular.

And, the location of the title not withstanding, "Texas Stars" is Faanshi. "So breathe, breathe, breathe in the night / Your journey's just begun"--yep. Girl's only getting warmed up as of Book 1.

None of which of course will make the slightest bit of sense to any of you who have not actually beta read Lament of the Dove for me, but for those of you who have, if you happen to get hold of this particular Carbon Leaf album, think of Lament when you listen.

I just saw one of my beta readers swoon over one of my characters. *chortle* I think this must be the first time since I quit MUSHing that I've had anybody publically swoon over one of my characters--and that it happened on the OKP, which is generally chock full of swoonage directed towards the actual living members of Great Big Sea as opposed to fictional gentlemen residing only in my head, makes me giggle and giggle. *^_^*

And I do take great comfort in the observation that apparently Julian's second incarnation is living up well to his first, and in the hope that this bodes well for female readers slashing the boys in my cast right and left ahem, er, I mean, my ability to appeal to my chosen target audience.

Now to cross fingers that my Rook can blow some editorial socks off!

So here I am in chapter 18 of my book. My poor hero is wounded, but nobly soldiering on, and he's just made an emergency stop at his family home to have an Extremely Awkward Conversation with his mother to hit her up for help and vitally needed information. Mom, seeing that her boy has suffered a rather nasty wound, has not let him take off again without stuffing something he can use to take care of himself in his saddlebags. My question for the herbally inclined on my Friends list is, therefore, what might she give her boy, and how should he use it? Taken orally, or maybe mashed up into a poultice?

Pertinent bits of data for those of you not familiar with Lament of the Dove:

1) Assume a general technology/cultural level roughly equivalent to the late 1700's in real life, although the book is set in my own world. Similar levels of herbal and medical knowledge/awareness should therefore apply.

2) My boy's got a nasty wound in the chest that has been already partially magically healed and also tended by a village doctor who knew what she was doing.

3) Since the aforementioned doctor was being leaned on to give my boy too much laudanum, he's really cranky about taking anything that would overly muddle his wits. He's on a vital mission and needs to keep functional. This means pain control but not any more reduction in mental clarity than absolutely necessary.

4) My boy is a member of a holy Order that also involves military training, so it can be assumed that he knows how to dress his own wound if he needs to.

As with my last question of this nature, this is something that I'm likely to hit only as a passing brief detail, but it's something I'd like to get right. :) Thanks in advance for any useful cluage, folks!