Plants and Little Old Ladies (Quills)

[Anonymous]

Marten pulled up another strand of grass and continued braiding into a short piece of rope. He flicked his brown hair back. The sun was shining and everything was calm.

There was a faint rustle. Probably just the breeze, Marten thought. The rustle came again, this time louder. "Probably not the breeze then," He muttered to himself.

Marten spent some time searching for the source of the noise, and found and old woman. Please don't be a mage, please don't be a mage... Marten took a deep steadying breath. "Excuse me," he asked "Who are you?"

[Anonymous]

Ulma rummaged noisily around in a bush, moving branches aside with force in case a stray berry was hidden behind them and cursed under her breath. No such luck. This was the third empty plant she'd found this morning, and she knew why. The weather had been unusually good this summer, the fruit had ripened early and the birds had eaten it all. Damn the feathered little bastards.

Hearing a man's voice, she extracted herself from the shrubbery. If he was a local, he might know where she could find what she was looking for. She ignored his question, which was in her opinion irrelevant, and squinted up at him. "I look for little orange berries." She held up her hand, thumb and forefinger indicating size. "You know them?"

[Anonymous]

It was a little annoying that she didn't answer his question, but really it was more to get her attention than anything. But her accent, Marten found more than a little grating.

"Little orange berries, hmm," He answered "I think I saw some magpies flying off with them, if that's any help."

[Anonymous]

"Hmph." Ulma wasn't particularly pleased with this, but it wasn't the man's fault and it wasn't really anything she didn't already know. It was her own fault she'd missed them, even if they had ripened early. Fruit was always tricky to get hold of and it was better to sit around and wait for them than to let them go. She hit the ground with the bottom of her stick and muttered, "Week in Arca, waste! Stupid city." Hanging around until a buyer was ready to see her... Pah! Her time was more important than that.

It wasn't all bad, though. The berries weren't too special, they were just a nicer-tasting alternative to a root she could find easily in Thanatos, and there were plenty of other useful plants around here.

[Anonymous]

"You seem a little annoyed" Marten said with a slight smile. This lady seemed nice, and while he wasn't sure if she mage yet, but he had a subtle way of finding out if she was. Marten sat down cross-legged near the bush. If the answer was 'for a spell' or maybe 'for a potion' Marten would stand up and slowly back away, but if not, well he had decided he would cross that bridge when he came to it. "So, what did you want those berries for.

[Anonymous]

Ulma grinned widely when she was asked about the berries, annoyance at losing them all but forgotten. She loved telling people about her work, partly because she found it fascinating herself but mostly because she got to show off. Most people just didn't care about plants, not like she did. But he wanted to know, and that was wonderful. "Medicine!" she stated proudly. "Knotbush berries are very good for the digestion. You have a stomach ache, you eat some berries, you have no more stomach ache. Now how they to be working, oh, that is interesting!"

She was just about ready to talk forever, leaning on her stick, one hand in the air waving about as she spoke, eyes glazed over with the sheer joy of teaching about her favourite thing. It didn't occur to her that maybe he didn't want a whole lecture. He'd asked, hadn't he?

[Anonymous]

Marten was very relieved that it turned out the old woman most likely not a mage, just someone with a keen interest in medicine and herbology. It was interesting hearing about the uses of the berries, and it looked like she was going to lecture him about the plant, which was good. If he was going to live in a forest with no money, he may as well learn more about the plants, and he didn't care if the information would only be useful to him next year.

He moved his elbow to his knee and his chin to his hand. "So, how do the berries work?"

[Anonymous]

He was actually interested! There were few things Ulma loved more than a captive audience for her plant-related ramblings, and she had one right here. Her smile only got wider, her wrinkles creasing her face in strange and not entirely appealing ways. She leaned on her walking stick as if it was a podium, and launched into her theory.

"The berries, you are to be seeing, are sweet but..." She rubbed her fingers together. "Feel like sand, ah, gritty, when they are to be dried and eaten, and this, I am to be thinking, is how they cure the stomach ache. I am no doctor, but it is clear that stomach ache is from bad foods, and the berries help to be digesting, so the bad food is not long in the stomach. There are people who are to be saying different..." She narrowed her eyes and spat onto the ground. "But those people are stupid, wrong!"

[Anonymous]

So, the berries help digestion. That was a plain enough reason why they work. Her insistence that she was the absolutely correct one seemed a little off, but she was the expert here, not him.

Marten looked around. "Are there any other useful plants around here?"

[Anonymous]

Ulma laughed. "Lots! Lots and lots! Roots, leaves, seeds, flowers... Many plants have medicine, if you know how to be using." She held up a warning finger and raised her eyebrows. "But also, many plants are poison if you are wrong. You must be very careful, you must know what you do exactly, number one rule of herbalism."

[Anonymous]

Marten definitely wasn't going to ask the uses of all the plants and how to exactly use them. He had better things to do.

"I best be leaving now. Thank you for the information about the berries."

[Anonymous]

Ulma shrugged. It was disappointing, given that he seemed so interested a moment ago, but she was used to people getting bored in the middle of a lecture. Usually they didn't even listen this long. "Fine, please yourself," she grumbled. "But if you get sick and you die, you not blaming me."

She was just about to turn and leave when something by the man's foot caught her eye. It was just a tiny little flower that she couldn't identify from here, but it looked similar to one she'd last seen years and years ago. "Wait!" she said intently, holding up a hand. She couldn't be sure, but she wasn't going to take a chance and let it get squashed. "Do. Not. Move."

[Anonymous]

Marten stopped mid-stride. "What is it?"

[Anonymous]

"Not sure yet," replied Ulma as she moved closer to take a look at the miniscule bloom under the man's raised foot. "Could be very rare, very expensive, very useful flower. It growed here long, long ago, not so much any more."

She kneeled to peer at it, swatting the man's foot to the side. "You can to be moving now," she informed him flatly. The flower was her concern. She gently lifted the delicate sprouts, scrutinised the markings on petal and leaf. She couldn't be sure yet. It had been so long since anyone had seen this plant that it was almost a legend among her profession; the flower that could bring back the dead. Of course, it probably couldn't do such a thing and chances were that this was just an ordinary flower anyway, but it was worth studying, just in case.

This could be the find of her illustrious career. Except... Her old hands weren't as steady as they used to be. This would be a painstaking operation, and she couldn't risk any mistakes. She sat back up. "Boy!" she commanded. "How good your hands?"

[Anonymous]

Marten stood still in shock for a moment. "My hands..." he said looking at them "They're okay, I guess. They can hold a crossbow steady."

[Anonymous]

Ulma considered this for a moment. Not being all that well-acquainted with weaponry of any kind, she didn't know just how much steadiness the crossbow-handling entailed. However, it was probably better than she could do. "Good enough," she nodded, standing up. "Do not move still."

With that, she strolled over a little way to an animal which looked vaguely like the offspring of a giant lizard and a particularly mangy donkey and started rooting through some packs strapped to its back. It completely ignored her, preoccupied with picking small rocks from the ground and chewing on them. A short while later, she pulled out a ceramic pot and a small trowel and marched back over to the man.

She shoved the items out toward him. "You know what these for?"

[Anonymous]

Marten looked at the odd beast. It had an odd diet.

He looked at the tools the old woman handed him. He remembered these from his mother's garden. "For potting plants."

[Anonymous]

Ulma nodded. That was good. Hopefully it meant he'd do it right. The plant was so small and fragile, and she couldn't have someone just hacking away at its poor roots. She sat herself down and stared expectantly at him. "You put the little flower into the pot, careful to not hurt it."

[Anonymous]

Marten was careful not to hurt the plant as he took it out of the ground and into the pot. When he looked at it in the pot, the earth was lop-sided, uncompressed and there was not very much of it. He thought the old lady could probably fix it as he handed it back to her.

[Anonymous]

Ulma took the pot and inspected it closely. While it wasn't quite full enough, the plant itself didn't seem to have been damaged and that was all that was important. The soil in the area was fairly loosely packed anyway, so another scoop from the hole where the plant had been was enough to hopefully keep the little flower happy.

She gently patted the dirt down to finish and nodded. "Good job. I can work with this."