The Young Herbalist

Smells of all sorts assail your nostrils as you leave the street and enter the herbalist's shop.

-=--=--=--=--=--=--=<* Lady Alyssan's Herbs and Spices *>-=--=--=--=--=--=--=- Though ownership of this shop has changed hands several times, its original founder was a famous aged druidess who managed to gain accolades among the nobles and entrepeneurs of the local community. Stepping into this shop is the olfactory equivalent of a hammer blow to the back of the head. The individual scents are not unpleasant, and indeed many are enticingly sweet or spicy, but the mixture and intensity is so heavy that it verges on the overwhelming. It is cozy in here, small and furnished more like a modest sitting room rather than a place of business. On the dark hardwood floor is a claw-foot sofa upholstered with soft, slightly worn overstuffed dark green velvet facing a matching armchair as well as a few graceful floor lamps with shades shaped like morning glory blossoms, stitched together from emerald jacquard fabric and trimmed with long ivory fringe. The walls are lined with shelves populated with huge glass jars stuffed with dried herbs, powders and seeds. Careful, hand-scribed labels are affixed to these containers, often accompanied by a watercolor illustration of the appropriate plant. A glass-fronted counter at the back of the shop shows off other items such as mortars and pestles, muslin bags and wooden boxes. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-- Contents --=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=- Svarshan Be a brightscale! Chomp a demon! 0s 5d -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= Exits -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=- Out <O> -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-

Kama'o has arrived.

<Meet> Kama'o joins you.

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At a glance around Lady Alyssan's Herbs and Spices ------------

Kama'o 16s 5'7" 140 Lb Eaglefolk Female Older Egalrin female, greyish-brown in color.

Svarshan 0s 6'4" 274 Lb Sith'makar Male Be a brightscale! Chomp a demon!

Rain swings down, sudden and swift. The chill it brings brushes against summer's heat. It falls not slowly but in a thick, moist sheet--coloring the scene outside the shop window a murky, uneven grey. The cozy interior and cinnamon smells stand at odds with the weather outside. One of the workers adjusts some knitting atop the backs of one of the chairs. A young woman, her hands move softly over the circles and loops of the half-finished scarf, and she looks up with a ready smile as the door--

"Elm. ...slipp..." Svarshan breaks off the words he'd been going to use, and scrubs at his jaw, the front of his neck. He wears the besodden clothes of Am'shere, slightly modified. And the scent of dried blood follows the cracks along his scales. Not fresh, just...well-set, a darker blood, akin to brimstone. "Something...I need...something for a poultice. List."

As if there weren't already enough scents in the herbarium, Kama'o adds to the stench by stepping inside. The water cascades off her own feathers not unlike it might off of a duck's back, but there is still the mild scent of wet bird. That pales, however, in comparison to the stench of wet dire wolf hide, which is what she appears to be wearing for armor. The Egalrin is carrying a spear, which she lazily flicks the water off of before fluffing up her feathers and shaking her head, getting rid of the last little bits of water.

"Lissst. Yess," the dragonkin's words lisp atop one another and mix with the rain. All the sudden the rain comes down again, and swift--a sheet of it cuts through the air as seen through the windows. For a moment, the smell of the City washes away, bringing it with a clean--

His shoulders relax somewhat, heavy and bowed as they are. And his hand goes to his side towards a heavy sash. "Lissst. Sunguard. Lisst." A Sunguard gave him a list. Of some sort, or some kind. Where rain drips from his scales, smoke rises--not much, though faint, indistinct. Barely there, as might a whisper be. "List. ...Elm. Elderflowers." Both of which might be used to soak a wound.

As he fishes for the list, which he proposes to have, the young aid takes a step back. She looks from the sith'makar to Kama'o, eyes slightly..."Oh." The muscles move visibly in her throat. Thought will come later.

Kama'o pauses, halfway through her shake, when she spots Darshan. Staring at him with one eye, she straightens up once again, then hisses, in Draconic, "Kama'o sees you, Dragon-brother." She either doesn't pay attention to or hasn't noticed the poor woman's aneurism.

Svarshan starts. He straightens, immediately, before his muzzle whips around and he stares at Kama'o hard. "...I see you," he says after a while in the same tongue, the words slow but coming more easily. His shoulders relax by degrees, and more drops of water fall to the floor. Others bake on his scales. "...saaa. One sees you, Feather-and-Wind." And then, because she appears to have taken him by surprise, he appears to have nothing else to add--considers words, and discards them.

"Do either of you need any help?" asks the young woman, her voice slightly higher now.

One of the Egalrin's large eyes fixes on the woman, and then a nictitating membrane slides across it. The Egalrin promptly switches back to Common. "Kama'o is looking for her sister-druids. Someone said you might know where they are. Kama'o needs to talk sense into them."

"I...the...oh, you mean the druids! Yes, I--"

"They are outside the City. North."

The woman looks at Svar at the interruption, and after a moment, nods her head in a way that says--you're rude, but you're the customer.

"North," Kama'o repeats, turning her head slightly so she can include Darshan in the gaze. "Thank you, Dragon-kin." For a moment, it looks for all the world as if she plans to step back out into the rain after that brief exchange, but her pupil suddenly changes size, and she pauses. "Is that...alerian root? From a swamp?"

"...I do not know," Svarshan says after a time. A trace of humor comes with it--the tightening of scales along one side of the face. "The names...they are different, so the Sunguard gave me words. He wrote them on a--" he breaks off then, having found the thing in his pockets that he'd sought. And he slaps it onto the counter with simple finality, an I-have-found-it. The young woman glances downwards at The List, and puts on her best smile. Curtsey.

"Why don't I go find these?" she suggests, and then flees to the back room.

Kama'o slowly approaches the jar containing the root, as if it might bite. "It -is-," she confirms. "I do not like to find this root. It is in low places." She prods the jar with a taloned, scaled hand that does not look too different from Darshan's, and eventually picks it up and sets it on the counter. Her feathers raise briefly, and she shakes them, sending up a puff of dust. "I think she is afraid of Dragon-kin," the Egalrin says. There are no human 'tells' to show she is joking, but her body language is telling Svarshan just that.

He snorts, and the smoke around him jumps with the gesture. Noises come from the other room--a thump, an opening of a jar. Footsteps. "Saaa. I think the TreeSpeaker is right." And then, "...I have not seen that...root. When I have seen it is thin, but..." a wry twist along the side of the muzzle that could be a smile. He looks towards the back, where the clinking sounds continue. "...green."

"Alerian root does not work as well when it is green." Kama'o seems completely relaxed as she fixes one large eye on him. "Here. You have some blood, just there. Let Kama'o get it." She fishes a slip of blue cloth out of a pouch and then puts it in her mouth, eyeing him all the while. Yes, she's totally going to try to scrub his scales with it.

Svarshan's heavy frame freezes, and he begins at first to relax. And then takes a step back, lowering his head and shaking it. "De--" he starts to say and closes his muzzle on the word. Slowly. "The rain will get it."

Probably the wrong thing to say.

"Here you go!" comes a voice, almost breathless. And then the young aid's hurrying into the room, carrying five...or six...jars.

Kama'o makes a cawing noise, and steps forward, insistently, holding the blue cloth out. "Do not be shy. Kama'o was wiping faces before your mother's mother laid eyes on your mother's father. She will get it." Aaaaaand...now he can probably place her. Matriarch of some sort, or perhaps grandmother, or... In other words, living terror of young people. For now, at least, her attentions are focused on Darshan and not on the clerk.

Clink. Clink. Clink. And then the rustle of cloth as another item's laid out. And then another. The smell of slippery elm, of other herbs related to infections, wounds, pain...touch the air around the counter as the young woman begins the best part of business...

Adding the tally.

Svarshan grimaces, and looks outwards towards the rain and the pouring outside. Escape is so close.

Kama'o does what she can to wipe the blood off, radiating pleasure...almost entirely nonverbally. It would seem that lizardfolk body language is not that different from her own. "There now. That is better, is it not? What -have- you been eating, anyway?" The old Egalrin tucks the cloth back into her pouch. "When you are done, I wish to have two of these roots. I have some mountain lace to trade." Mountain lace is rare, on account of not many people want to risk their lives climbing mountains to try to get it.

"...ssss. Demonsss..." he says, fending off the last of the spit-cloth. And a slow grump, more a thick, heady sigh comes from him as she tucks it away. And the store clerk looks up, and nods her head, a smile appearing now instead of the...whatever expression she'd worn previously. And then she looks at Svarshan and names a total.

Who blinks.

And says in the way of one descended from diplomats: "That is too much."

Kama'o looks between them, tilting her head first one direction, then the other. Then she bends her head down, and lifts her leg up, and scratches at her head with the talons on her feet. One of them is serrated slightly, and it's this that she uses to comb through the feathers. "You are trying to take advantage of this nice young man," she agrees with Darshan. Apparently she is similarly diplomatic. "What would your nana say?"

The young woman stares at them both. Her cheeks kind of...purple. "It's...it's a fair price!" she blurts.

"The Temple...has authorized only..." and he names a much lower price, Svarshan does. It has the same level of diplomacy to it, a: I was told to pay this much. I have no imagination. That is how much it is SUPPOSED to be.

...why is it not this much?

"Hmph." That sound should not be able to come out of Kama'o, but it does. "Not where I am from. I will come back for the root. I should go try to find my sister-druids." She bobs her head once, to Darshan--apparently the shopkeeper does not merit such treatment--and pushes the door open, heading back into the rain.

Kama'o goes OOC.

Kama'o has left.