She's dreaming of Father, of harpies and basilisks. In her dream, she is fully grown; she stands queen over her own empire, and Father's serpentine self coils proudly nearby. She's loving it; the attention, the adulation. She is worshipped.

Ker's anguished shrieking wakes Oizys from her slumber, and she jerks into consciousness with an irritable growl. Her dream fades away, until she cannot remember it however hard she tries. "The fuck, Ker?" The eagle shrieks louder and bobs her head towards the orange dragon circling above, and Oizys follows her eyeline. Oh, joy. That orange dragon belongs to her tutor, and that can only mean one thing. Lesson time.

Whoopie fucking do.

The gargoyle yawns languidly and narkily shakes her body until she feels somewhat more alert. The dragon seems intent that they follow, so with a loud and pointed groan she breaks into a trot after the orange lizard. Ker launches into the sky and flies just above Oizys, casting the occasional dark glare up at Tallis.

Eventually, filly and Philippine are brought to Evangeline, and Oizys makes no attempt to hide her evident boredom as she fixes her cold grey gaze upon the mare. God, she's so pretty, so golden. Has that darling, herb-wielding face ever seen hardship like Oizys has? Harpy-talons against newborn flesh, snake-teeth against submissive mind? She half-wishes she had followed her instincts at the meeting and left, but Father would be furious had she abandoned her post. That is why she must endure these lessons to stay in a herd she doesn't even like. For him.

She huffs loudly. "Let's get this over with, I've got important stuff to be doing." She inserts as much drawling insolence into her voice as she possibly can, eager to see how far she can push her teacher before she snaps.

In an impressive display of self-control, the palomino doesn't rise to Oizys' blatantly-dropped bait. That's slightly disappointing - she'd been looking forward to goading the healer into a frenzy, as she'd so easily managed to do to Elsa during the meeting. Instead, Evangeline issues a calm warning to the filly, who responds with a pin of her ears and a withering glare from those cold grey eyes of hers. A sharp response bubbles up into her throat - along the lines of who the fuck do you think you are, you can't tell me what to do, go and find another kid to bully because you sure as shit aren't bullying this one - but her father's face slips unbidden into her mind, making the words jam in her throat. He made it clear that he wanted her to stay in the Edge, to ensure she could keep him up to date with a steady flow of information. If she tells this healer to ram her lessons up her ass and walks out of the herd, as she so sorely wants to do, Father will be...displeased.

Father cannot be displeased with her. She needs his approval, not his ire. So with a level of control that even Oizys herself is quite surprised at, she bites back her razor-edged words and instead simply grunts. She's still seething, and her muscles quiver with rage, but she does as Mother taught her - she averts her gaze from Evangeline's own, to show submission and deference. It makes her ache, but she does it.

Father will be pleased.

The palomino asks if she has any knowledge of healing, and the gargoyle gives a contemptous shrug of her shoulders. "Your darling General used something on my scars when they were fresh, to stop them getting infected. No idea what it was, but it stung like a bitch." She refers to Nyx as the General, not as Mother. For one, because that'll keep up their little lie, and for two, she's just as mad at the ironheart as she is at Evangeline. After all, she'd only been trying to defend Nyx, and how had the mare repaid her? By throwing her under the bus and telling Tembovu that she would do her punishment. Fuck that. Only when Oizys has simmered down will she deign to call the grey her mother again. "Aside from that, I haven't got a clue. The General could have taught me about herbs whilst we were travelling, but she was too busy teaching me useful things, like fighting and not getting eaten by predators." She flashes the older mare a snarky simper - she's vowed to be nice (ish) and complete these lessons, but some of her sass simply cannot be contained.

Often the easiest way to learn about herbs is to ingest them. Despite her promise to herself to be demure and submissive, the filly cannot keep the look of incredulity off her face. "You go around eating random herbs? Shit, no wonder there's so few healers around. You've all snuffed it from your own stupidity." The gargoyle gives a contemptous snort. Just when she was starting to think that healers actually had brains in their heads, this mare goes and proves her wrong! The very first thing her mother taught her was don't eat it unless you know what it is. Evangeline's words go against everything she's ever learned, and she's hardpressed to get her head around such dangerous dumbness.

The mare's dragon arrives back and deposits some herbs at Oizys' feet - Ker gives something that would sound like a warning growl if she didn't have a beak - and the mare herself instructs her to eat it. The filly raises an eyebrow with a suspicious glint in her eye. To accept a random herb off a woman who clearly hates her? Not smart. But, she reasons, Evangeline wouldn't give her something that could kill her, as that wouldn't go down well with the rest of the herd. Oizys might be universally loathed by the Edge populace, but she's still a member of the herd and somehow she doesn't think Tembovu would take too kindly to the murder of one of his members. Nor, Oizys imagines, would Nyx take the news too well - the General has a touch of the Mamma Bear about her, which is the one useful thing about her.

So, with narrowed eyes that quite clearly say poison me at your own peril, Oizys snatches up the herb and swallows it down. She cringes in disgust at the flavour. "Eurgh. Tastes like someone's rancid arsehole." She chews thoughtfully, trying to think of what this herb could possibly do. "An antidote to poison, maybe? Or....a.....hgngngghgh!" Her voice tails off into an unintelligable gargle, because her stomach is suddenly twisting itself into a knot. It's unbearable, it's agony, she's dying, maybe the herb-wielding whore has poisoned her, after all...Ker soars from her back with a shriek of alarm, her mind full of ??????.

With grey eyes wide with horror, the filly flings herself into the nearest clump of bushes. Thorns snag at her flesh and leaves tangle in her mane, but she doesn't care - she just needs to get somewhere private so she can...ahhhh. The contents of her bowels make their bid for freedom in a shameful stream of liquid, and a steady tirade of expletives flies from the girl's mouth even as brown ooze flies from beneath her tail. To a passerby, there would probably appear to be a particularly foul-mouthed bush in the Edge, but the thought gives Oizys no amusement.

She emerges out of the thicket ten minutes later with pinned ears and an expression of disgruntled disgust upon her face, her leonine tail coiled between her legs to hide the unsightly stains down the back of them. "Bitch," she breathes, but there's a grudging hint of respect in her tones. Okay, giving her the shits is one way to make her pay attention - maybe this woman isn't all nicey-nicey after all.

Every breath she takes is punctuated by an ominous gargle from her stomach, and she subtly crosses her hindlegs in an attempt to hold back any potential barrages that might eject from her backside. Her ears flop limply to one side and a thin sheen of sweat glimmers on her stone-coloured coat, but her cold grey eyes are afire.

If it wasn't for the lingering thoughts of her father and his disapproval if she was banned from the herd, this herb-wielding bitch-tits would be in for a whole can of whoop-ass.

You'd do well to remember that the next time you find yourself full of shit. "Then you need to feed our former queen a bucketload of those little shit-inducing fuckers, because she was just full of the stuff." Suffice to say Elsa had earned herself a permanent place in Oizys' bad books for her infantile tirade - wicked thoughts begin to enter the gargoyle's mind as she contemplates slipping the ice-bitch some of the Leaves of Evil under the pretence of niceness...

But those quite delightful thoughts are truncated by Evangeline's offer of peppermint. The filly gives a mistrustful snort, batting her ears backwards. "Oh yeah, because I'm really going to eat anything else that you give me, aren't I? What will peppermint do to me if I eat it, turn my eyeballs inside out?" Yeah, no. It is safe to say that Oizys will not be experimenting with any herbs she doesn't know anytime soon, especially if they come from the chestnut smiling assassin that stands before her. "No thanks, I can tough it out. Might go around giving little brown presents to people I don't like." She flashes the mare a toothy, devious grin, all false innocence and would I really do something so disgusting? Yes, yes I would.

Ker gives a small, anguished chirp at her bonded's dark and shit-befuddled thoughts, and fixes Evangeline with one big grey bird-eye whilst Oizys speaks again. "Tell you what, though, herbs sound a damn sight more interesting now I know what evil shit they can do....no pun intended. Is there any kind of plant that could kill someone?" Despite herself, Oizys is interested. Healing wounds is boring as tits, but poison....Now you're talking.

The mare says that the herbs help with stomach cramps, but Oizys just fixes her with a cold and suspicious gaze. "I'll suffer the cramps, thanks." Her stomach punctuates her point with an ominous gurgle, but the filly refuses to submit to nature's whims or to show Evangeline how much pain she's in. Dammit, she's going to see this lesson through. Then go and shit in someone's bed.

She gives the woman a withering glare as she points out that she'd have fed Oizys the eyeball plant if she knew it existed. "What a lovely threat to make to a child," huffs the filly. Sure, with her mouth and vulgar attitude, she's far from a kid, but that doesn't mean she can't pull out the woe is me, little tiny baby card whenever it suits her. "I can just feel the maternal instincts rolling off you." Her voice is thick with sarcasm.

Evangeline proceeds to piss on the girl's parade by saying she'll tell the herd what she's done if she follows through (no pun intended) with her threat. "Alright, misery guts, it was only a joke. Damn, the stick up your ass must have a stick up its ass." The gargoyle pouts, an ugly gesture that causes her facial scars to twist and ripple.

The one thing that kept these lessons interesting was the possible notion of learning how to kill with foliage, but unfortunately Evangeline isn't particularly eager to show Oizys how to turn herself into a one-filly crime wave. She huffs and deflates, but keeps her cold gaze level on the older woman. The mare offers for her to taste some of the poisonous plants, and the girl gives another obnoxious huff. "Yeah, not so much." Death isn't on the menu today. "What's next?" The sooner this lesson is over, the better.