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The Magic of Plants, Wednesday, Per 3

Puppies!

There were four roly-poly puppies with Karla today, looking very solemn and trying to sit very still, even though their little noses were twitching like crazy taking in all these new scents. "Hello!" Karla greeted the class, making no mention of the four puppy-sized balls of floof by her feet. "Today we're going to learn to make essential oils from plants. Essential oils are basically the building blocks of anything with fragrance, from perfumes to scented candles to lotions and creams. Various types of essential oils have different uses; a few drops of clove and rosemary oils in a diffuser can make your home smell lovely, while several drops of lemongrass oil can keep mosquitos away, and just lemon oil is a natural cleanser. Essential oils made from even just one plant can have multiple uses. Lavender, for example, is said to be a calming scent, and can be added to teas to act as a stomach soother, and can help with insomnia. Because it's such a multipurpose oil, today we're going to learn how to make lavender essential oils, though this method can be used with any scented plant you have access to."

There were multiple homemade distilleries set up, one for each student, and at each station was a large armload of dried lavender plants. The distilleries were made up of pressure cookers, rubber tubing, a bucket of ice, and an essencier. "If you finish in an hour, you can make bath salts," Karla continued, pointing to her desk where yet more items were piled. "And, if you finish that, too..." One of the puppies managed to fall over. From a sitting position, yes. Karla knelt and scooped him up. "If you finish making the oils and the bath salts and there's still time? There are puppies to play with."

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"Have you found it yet?" Karla asked, bending down to scoop up a puppy and try to hand it over to him.

She saw you crossing your arms, Zack. That was a sign of defensiveness and vulnerability. Have a therapy puppy.

"The something that makes it worthwhile?" Zack blinked at the puppy, and then shrugged his shoulders and held his arms open to accept the offering. "To be honest, Karla, I'm still not entirely certain I've made it to the other side."

"In that sometimes you're not sure you really made it out of the tank?" she asked, picking up another puppy of her own. "Or that simply getting out and safe isn't enough? Or both?"

She nuzzled the puppy's fur. "Or something else entirely?"

"... Both? Something else? I... I don't know," Zack admitted, looking down at the pup, who looked back up at him with a teeny little tongue lolling out of a teeny little mouth. "I've been here for months and months now, and I still feel like I'm running. Is that weird?"

"No," Karla said quietly. "It really isn't. Trauma doesn't go away quickly."

Especially not when there was a whole heaping side of betrayal to go with it and a constant reminder of that betrayal as well.

"Let me ask, though. Are you still running? Rather than facing the reality of what happened to you and the effect it had on you?"

Zack bit the inside of his cheek, and then sighed and leaned his face down a little. Immediately, he was met with a whole bunch of little puppy kisses to the nose.

... He really should have seen that coming. He smiled a bit at the dog, and then straightened up again to look back to Karla.

"Honestly, I'm not completely sure I'd recognize the difference."

"One has an end," Karla said gently. "The other leaves you running forever."

"Oh." Zack sighed, and then held on to the puppy a little more tightly. It retaliated by snuffling at his arm with a wet little nose. "Then... I guess maybe both. It really doesn't feel like there's an end in sight."

"Can I ask what you've been doing to deal with it?" Karla asked carefully. "Or how?"

"I... deal with it?" Zack gave her a kind of hopeless look at that. "I've never been really great at, uh, coping, before."

He was excellent at bottling, though!

"I mean, I once spent a month sleeping in the dorm garden because I didn't want to make use of the weapon locker."

"I remember," Kathy said. "But I'd have to argue about whether or not you're dealing with it. Dealing involves confronting and exploring." She reached out a hand, offering comfort and understanding with a gesture. "Right now, I think you're still fighting the difficult, uphill battle of still going. Sometimes, you have to get to a place to be able to start dealing, and that journey by itself can be a lengthy process."

Holding the puppy in one arm was easy enough, at least. Zack leaned back a little to give the dog some extra support as he reached for Karla's hand.

"So... what place am I supposed to be getting to?"

Because he had no idea.

"'Should' is one of those words that carries a lot of weight and much of it negative," Karla told him, squeezing his hand. "The real question is what are you hoping to do?"

Zack just sort of raised his eyebrows for a few seconds, and then sighed and sqeezed her hand back.

"I'd settle for being able to do anything without jumping at shadows," he admitted. "You'd think it wouldn't be so hard. Is it weird that it was easier when I was running with Cloud?"

He'd had somebody to stay strong for. Now that it was just himself, he was feeling strangely aimless.

"That's not weird," Karla assured him. "You had an external focus to worry about and you had a clear and present danger to run from. You could shunt everything aside in favor of the immediate. Now you have neither of those things, and everything you've pushed off to the side is creeping back in and you have nothing else to command your attention." She gave him a rueful smile. "Same reason things are often harder to deal with at night, rather than the day."

"I can't handle the night," Zack confessed, his tone dropping a little lower. He re-claimed his hand, mostly so that he could return to hugging the puppy. "I don't sleep very much, anymore."

He did drink a lot of coffee, though.

Not that it really did much for him.

"Nights are hard," Karla said. "Dreams? I might be able to help you with dreams."

"Dreams are only bad if I can let my guard down long enough to fall asleep in the first place," Zack sighed. "But I could probably use a break from the dreams too."

He was supposed to embrace those. That's what Angeal had said. But then Angeal had become a nightmare and the rest of his life had followed suit, so who even knew anymore?

"I can make things for you," Karla offered. "Potions to help you sleep. And dream-catchers to catch the bad dreams. Even offer you a few package dreams to enjoy instead. Just to help you sleep."

And now Zack was squirming a little. The puppy gave a soft whine, and buried his face in his armpit.

"I guess I'd have to want to fall asleep for that, huh?"

Oh yeah. He was very paranoid these days.

Karla actually laughed a bit at that, more an amused exhalation than an actual chuckle.

"That is usually the first step, darling, yes."

"I'm trying to get there," Zack offered. "I suppose if I can actually get a good night's sleep I'll remember how much I miss it."

So, that was something, right?

"Mostly because your body will thank you in the morning," Karla said wryly. "Also, it's hard to think when you're exhausted. And that makes your more vulnerable to intrusive thoughts."

"Though I am made to run on less sleep than most people," Zack said, with a little wry smile. "I mean... literally made for it."

Which didn't make him any less tired now.

"Less isn't the same as none, darling," Kathy teased. "Silly question, perhaps, but have you tried napping? In the daytime, I mean. Not in the dark, with nothing but your thoughts and long hours stretching out in front of you, but small naps in the afternoon? Maybe even surrounded by puppies or something?"

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