The Grey Tower

Gareth nodded, keeping his faint but encouraging smile. "A desire to help is always a good place to start," he reassured her. "I won't be able to teach you any weaves, since you would not be able to see them, but I can tell you about them and you can help with other tasks in first aid and with the herbs." He stood and gestured for her to walk with him. "Are you interested in the Yellow, or just in lending a hand?"

She was, perhaps, about to have that assumption challenged.

Gareth started them walking to the large, deep sideboard where the herbs and the herbcraft tools were kept. Mortar and pestles were strewn about, some already half-filled with some other healer's efforts. Bandages hung from a thin pole on the wall, ready to be smeared with relevant poultices as necessary.

He gestured her to the table, so she could look it over and see what she recognized. "The Yellow is the healing ajah, plain and simple. Here in the Grey Tower and out in the world, it falls to us to heal and to care for those who need it. With the One Power, with herbs and first aid and triage; the body and the mind. In whatever ways we are so skilled and whatever ways we are so needed, that is our calling."

"Very carefully," Gareth replied easily, but with certainty. He pulled down a mortar and pestle, sliding it in front of her and dropping the ingredients for a special powder into it. With an economical gesture of his head, he indicated for her to start grinding it. She was here to work, after all, as well as learn. Gareth fell well in line with the Yellows that had taught him: keep working.

While he spoke, he checked on several items that had been left in jars on the shelf above the table. "The mind is just as much a part of the body as the heart or the limbs, but it is a far more complex one. Some Yellows are trained in the ways of the mind from without, being able to observe and understand the factors that make people do what they do. They can talk to them, help people change harmful patterns, or at least least help them understand enough about themselves on their own.

"That is done with simply talking and having a keen knowledge of people. Some Yellows, and this is a rare but no entirely unheard of gift, can use the One Power--complex Delving and Healing--to search inside the mind and find where it is damaged, and try to repair it. It is not only rare, but incredibly difficult and dangerous."

Gareth worked alongside her, having long ago found that such conversations were easier when you had something else to help keep your focus on. "It takes a reasonable amount of strength in the One Power, but more over a marked early Talent in the ability of Healing to be able to achieve that sort of complex healing. Also a great deal of study and training to be able to attempt it safely."

Pausing, he considered his next answer. He didn't want to frighten her, as she seemed...a little prone to timidity. "Yes," he said. "I am able to do it, although it has only been on the rarest of occasions that I have even considered attempting it, let alone done so."

He reached up to a higher shelf to pull down some items, some that he'd need and others he knew that she would need. Still focusing on his work, he shook his head. "No, it's not just for me," he said. "Asha'man do tend to have more blunt strength, but the dexterity of the Aes Sedai can often be a benefit over that.

"Healing can be a most delicate process," he continued, not minding her questions in the least. He enjoyed inquisitive minds. "That's why if you want to learn to be a Healer, you must learn how to Delve successfully; you must learn how to identify the problems just as strongly as you know how to fix them. If you don't properly heal something, you won't get a second chance and any damage you do may not be fixable later. Like most things, perhaps more so, you must have great respect for it."