“The pleasure is mine, Dominus. May I be so bold as to inquire as to your own?” That was a gamble; some might answer it, some might not. But Hilana liked to know names, and she knew that those above her were usually pleased to be remembered and recognized… or they might not. This Elf seemed amiable enough, though, but if it was too much, it was too much.
“If everyone has to squeeze down there, Mount Sorokyn will erupt from the sheer amount of energy,” Hilana shook her head. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. That would be too many people for anyone. But the smoke is being pushed northwards. If I have time tonight after work, I may go look and see how they are faring and if they need another set of hands…but hopefully it’s being pushed away as it is here, too.” Otherwise…there was going to be an awful lot of lives lost. But only time would tell.
She listened attentively as he spoke of magic helping get around the need for sunlight in the Umbrium. “You know, I know that there’s plants down there, and people have bought them and never seemed to have had any complaints… so if you’d like something more colourful, there’s always other things to look at, too. I keep thinking I need to go down and really look at them to try to understand it, though I would suspect it’s over my head,” she didn’t seem upset about that, but the words she spoke inferred that she had no Runes, and possibly little training in the Arcane arts. “Still, if they thrive, that’s all that matters.”
“I learned that lesson the hard way. I took a leaf of the Moonshine home that fell off while I was repotting it, and and Vasilei told me not to put it in Ecithian soil… well, it was as tall as I was in five days, the Radiant Father is my witness,” she sighed. “So that little project is back in the greenhouse. It took me half a day to repot it that time.” But she was of good humour about it, at least.
She was nodding in agreement as he spoke of the heat and humidity; and then he mentioned those detestable, horrible Orks, her nod was quite firm. “I’ve been all around the Expanse, but I’ve never visited Ecith. For that exact reason; those awful, stinking, horrid creatures. I saw them once in the Expanse, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it, even if by some reason I lived a thousand years. They interrupted one of our gatherings and a fight started,” she shook her head. “There is a reason every single tribe of Vastian nomads will tell you just how wicked those beasts are,” this was a topic the apprentice took very seriously, it seemed. “Just as they were back in the beginning, so they are now.” Hilana, for the first time yet, was actually frowning. “May Her Imperial Radiance keep their shadows from our borders.” She exhaled, shaking her head.
“As for what we have, as you can see we also have a number of teas and powders and already made for different ailments, or even just for flavours and feelings,” Hilana turned, pointing out the packets. “But with everything on the walls… I like to come up with solutions too, if something doesn’t quite fit to your liking. Do you enjoy tea, Dominus?” She asked him, her eyes roaming around the plants in the pots.
“These are violets, we call them. They came from seed from Ecith, and they’re pretty easy to care for. They don’t need direct sunlight, so magical light might just do the job. And as an added bonus, you can eat them,” she told him, indicating an assortment of colourful flowers in the same pot. They all had yellow centres, but their petals ranged in shades of purple to blue to pink to red to white. “They can go on salads, or you can take the heads off and candy them in a solution of sugar and water, then let them dry a bit and use them on desserts,” she was thoughtful. “They also smell quite nice. I don’t know how well they will do in the Umbrium, but they might be worth a try. Even if you don’t want to eat them, who wouldn’t enjoy having a rainbow in a pot?” She had recovered her cheerful manner, at least.
“This one here is an hibiscus. They always make me smile when I see them, I have three or four pots of them in my apartment,” she admitted. Apparently, the budding herbalist was well on her way to living in a greenhouse. “They’re a native plant, and they make great tea,” she was thoughtful. The small tree was in a larger pot yet than the snake plants or the much smaller violets. Its flowers were quite showy, a bright pink with yellow stamens. “You can eat them dried, too, or candy them the way I mentioned with the violets. They’re very hardy…oh, look, we got a tag-along from the greenhouse,” Hilana seemed delighted. He hadn’t minded listening to her so far. “Dominus, there’s a wrap-around spider on the trunk of it. They’re great for taking care of pests and they’re not venomous. They’re really cute and so shy, they’re ambush predators,” whatever Hilana was looking at on the trunk of the little hibiscus tree was not visible at first, until she held a finger just off a brown patch… and when Æros looked at it… what had to be a dozen shiny eyes actually looked back.
