Completed Roots

[Ari'Ellin]

31st Fall, 521AV

Ari’Ellin had gotten to the Healing Hands earlier than usual, and so she ended up spending several chimes slowly pacing along the street, waiting for any sign of Kita being inside the shop so she didn’t feel quite so awkward walking into the shop and heading for the back room.
It wasn’t too long until she spotted the older woman approaching the door with her arms filled with various plants, and Ari’Ellin quickly made her way over to the woman, extending her arms in a silent offer to carry some of the plants, quickly taking what was handed to her so that Kita could open the door and get inside the shop first.

Once they were both inside, Ari’Ellin carried the plants to the back room and placed them on the work benches, aware of Kita having followed her.
“What plants?” she questioned the woman, looking between the plants she was holding and Kita while she waited for some sort of answer.
“Well there’s some Bulboru that we need to dry the roots of, some Kariino, some Leiyona, and some Zujin flowers. There’s more I brought in earlier but these are the last of what I harvested this morning.” the woman smiled as she spoke and Ari smiled in response, looking at the mass of leaves, flowers, and roots as she tried to work out which was much.

“Bulboru roots dry?” she questioned before smiling. “I can try prepare, okay?” she offered and the woman smiled, nodding at her.
“It’s past it’s best, I’m surprised I could find any, but it should be enough to keep us going over winter.” the woman said calmly and Ari nodded. “Make sure to clean the roots well before you start to dry them, okay?” Kita said, nodding and then standing to sort the plants out, dividing a few dying plants from the others and handing them to Ari.

Ari grinned as she set to work, first grabbing a knife and tentatively cutting the roots away from the rest of the plant, moving the stems and leaves to somewhere out of her reach so that she wouldn’t get confused later.
Then she retrieved a large bowl, from a shelf just above her, and filled it with water, picking up the roots and submerging them into the water, moving them around to try to get some of the dirt to separate from the roots.

Then she began focus on small groups of the roots, using her fingers to rub the dirt off. Most of the soil came off easily, and once the roots had been freed of the dirt, she lay the roots to the side of the bowl.
Soon all that was left was a small handful of roots with soil stubbornly clinging to them. Frowning, Ari’Ellin found a bristled scrubbing brush and began to use that to forcibly scrub the dirt from the roots, and as they finally came clean, a triumphant grin spread across the Konti’s face as she finished cleaning the roots and turned her attention from cleaning to chopping.

Word Count509 Words

[Ari'Ellin]

She used a knife to cut the roots into inch long sections before humming to herself, trying to decide whether she should cut them finer, and so she did. She went over each small inch long piece, cutting each one in half to make them into half inch long pieces, that she was certain would dry faster.

Humming a tune to herself, she glanced around until her eyes landed on a metal sheet tray and a clean cloth. Drying her hands on her skirt she quickly grabbed the tray and the cloth and bought both back to her work space.
She set the tray down and then picked up a handful of roots, patting them dry with the cloth and placing them into the corner of the tray, then she used her hand to spread them out so that each piece of the root was exposed to the air. She repeated the process with more pieces of the roots until she’d managed to arrange all of the roots onto the tray.

The next step could take anywhere from 3 to 7 days and Ari frowned at the thought of spending so long waiting for the roots to dry. Still she picked up the tray and placed it onto a shelf near the hearth that also seemed to get a good breeze from the door.

Then she glanced around the rest of the back room and hummed, trying to work out what they need more of. Nodding to herself, she grabbed a stick of charcoal and a piece of parchment and began to count the various concoctions that were being stored in the back room.

Once she was finished, she looked over her notes, looking for the ones with the lowest numbers, before moving to the main room and approaching Kita.

“We don’t much of these… Lillan Tea, Mandrake Tonic, and Filan Essence.” she stated, taking her time to read the words that she still didn’t fully recognise. “What is important?” she asked, looking at Kita and waiting for an answer.

”Mandrake Tonic is usually more in demand, especially with things getting cooler. People get sick more often and want Mandrake Tonic. It also takes a little longer to make.” Kita explained before humming to herself in thought. “Have you make Mandrake Tonic before?”
Ari’Ellin shook her head in response and Kita nodded before smiling.

“Well, make something like a tea but use alcohol. The Mandrake we have is dried so fill a jar somewhere between halfway, and two thirds, then fill the jar with alcohol. Then we just leave it for a few weeks.” Kita explained before her face grew more serious. “Mandrake is poisonous, so do not touch anything near your face, not until you’ve washed your hands and good few times, alright?” Kita asked.

“Wash hands well, no touch face. Poison is bad.” Ari’Ellin summarised the last point and nodded, smiling as Kita nodded in response and turned back to her work, allowing Ari’Ellin to go back into the backroom to start preparing the jar and the Mandrake Tonic.

Word Count511

[Ari'Ellin]

Her light blue eyes glanced around the room for a few moments, thinking of where to find anything before she started moving, heading first to a series of shelves and taking two large jars from the shelf, carrying them back to the area she liked to work in.

Everything was beginning to get a little monotonous to Ari'Ellin. She enjoyed her work, but so often everything felt the same, as though she was just doing the exact same thing over and over again. She'd mixed herbs with either oil, water, or alcohol and let them sit for a few weeks before straining the solid parts out and bottling up the liquid for Kita to check and sell at the front of the shop. Then again she didn't really know how to do anything else, and she was too old to join the Alluvion Academy. She wasn't confident enough in her common to try to learn from the books at the library on Tenten peak.

Sighing, she shook her head trying to push her thoughts away as she found the dried Mandrake. It was in large pieces and so she grabbed a knife and began to roughly cut the dried herb to be smaller, watching as it broke down messily into smaller pieces, shattering around where the knife hit. After a few chimes, she decided that the pieces looked small enough to speed up the process so it hopefully wouldn't take months to complete.

Sighing to herself she started tipping the Mandrake into the jar, being more careful than usual. She never wanted to spill and waste herbs, but know that this was poisonous, she wanted to be even more certain that she hadn't spilt it and risked contaminating the area for any future work that she did.
She wasn't certain just how poisonous the Mandrake was, but she knew enough to know that different medicines should be kept away from other mixtures to avoid causing bad results, and that poison was even more important to keep away from everything else.

Once the Mandrake had been added to the jar, she checked the workbench just around the jar and nodded to herself, happy to see that it appeared clear of the specks of Mandrake that could have fallen there. Then she looked at the jar, checking the level of the Mandrake.
Carefully she picked up the jar and gently tapped it against the workbench, watching as the herb shifted to level itself out in the jar before she checked again, nodding to see that it was just over halfway full. Happy with her work so far, Ari'Ellin glanced around, finding the alcohol that Kita had mentioned on a shelf just out of her reach, causing her to frown slightly as she made a detour to get a chair she could climb on to reach the bottle of alcohol to bring back to the jar.

Humming to herself, she began to gently pour the alcohol into the jar, carefully watching it from the side as it seeped into the Mandrake and began to fill the jar, mixing with the Mandrake until it reached roughly half an inch from the top.

Word Count528

[Ari'Ellin]

Nodding to herself, Ari screwed the lid onto the jar, shaking it gently to make sure the pieces of the Mandrake root was mixed well with the alcohol in order to pull as many effects of the Mandrake into the liquid as possible in as short a time as possible. Sighing she finally placed the jar onto a shelf away from the light. She wasn’t sure exactly why, but the things kept in the dark seemed to work better than ones exposed to light or heat, and so Ari’Ellin saw no reason to keep things in the light.

Frowning slightly, she realised that she needed to remember when she had mixed the alcohol and Mandrake root. She glanced around and quickly rushed over a set of shelves, checking over each shelve until she found a small scrap of paper and a quill. She grinned, straightening up and putting the paper on a shelf that was a comfortable height for her, and carefully she started writing the date, mumbling it as she did so just to make sure she knew what she was writing.

“Fall, 3… 1… 5-12AV.” she mumbled at first, nodding to herself as she wrote it before she grinned wider and started trying to attempt a harder word than she normally would have done. “Man-dr-ay-k To-ni-ck.” she mumbled as she tried to spell the words out. Looking over what she’d written, something seemed wrong to her, more unfamiliar than it should have been. She couldn’t quite tell exactly what was wrong and so she picked up the scrap of paper ran to the front of the shop, looking around for Kita until she saw the woman with a customer.

Now she hung back, listening to the conversation, or at least the parts she could get the gist of from the familiar words and sentence structures, as she waited for Kita to become free again.

“Of course, you just add it to his food and he’ll have some respite from those pains.” Kita said to the customer with a smile. “I do hope that your grandpa is better again soon. It’s strange not having him come in as often as he did.” Kita sighed, shaking her head slightly. It looked as though Kita knew the customers family somehow, and as the customer left, Ari’Ellin chose to wave a farewell before turning to Kita.

“You know grandpa?” she asked, tilting her head as she watched the older woman.

“Of course, he’s come in practically every day for the past six years. Until last week. Poor man is getting a lot of muscle pain in his legs, fatigue we think. So they’ve bought some Taka Moss and a few other things.” Kita smiled and Ari’Ellin furrowed her brows slightly. Kita seemed to notice this and the woman laughed gently. “The light yellowy-green moss that covers the rocks and most of the floor in the Misty Peaks. It’s thick and strong though, so you need a knife to cut it away. Maybe one day you could keep an eye out for it, especially if you ever do start trying to teach yourself to hunt.” the woman elaborated and Ari couldn’t help but grin widely.

Word Count532

[Ari'Ellin]

The woman had been listening to her when she had spoken. Ari wasn’t exactly used to people listening to her rambling on and on about things that she wanted to do, even when she doubted she ever would, but knowing that Kita was listening to her touched her in a way she hadn’t expected.

“You remember…” she mumbled before shaking her head and moving closer to the woman to show her the label she’d written. “I want label Mandrake Tonic, know how long kept. Easy know how long. Not need remember. But… not right? I not know which. Please show?” she asked the woman, looking up at her.

Nodding gently, Kita touch the paper and looked over it, taking the quill and making a few corrections and handing it back. “Here, I’d copy it down somewhere. I can explain it to you another time, okay?” the woman offered and Ari’Ellin bowed her head to the woman.

“Ah, thank you Kita.” Ari smiled, nodding at the woman, before rushing back to where she’d put the jar and her rucksack. Carefully she pulled her journal from her rucksack and dipped the quill into the ink to make sure she could write as neatly as possible before she opened the journal to a blank page, copying down the words that Kita had corrected for her.

‘Mandrake Tonic’ she wrote as legibly as she could, before she called out to Kita.

”Kita, Mandrake tonic good what?” she asked, waiting a few moments before a voice replied.

“Sore throats, coughs, lost voices. It’s poisonous if you use too much though!” the voice came and Ari’Ellin carefully noted it down. ‘Sore throats, coff, lost voice, poison if too much.’ she noted before glancing around.

“I feel thanks.” she replied, grabbing the scrap of paper and finally leaving it on the shelf with the jar of Mandrake tonic, one of the corners of the paper just underneath the jar to keep it in place. There was a chance that people wouldn’t see the notice, but Ari knew that she was likely the only one that would deal with this batch, and if they didn’t see the note Ari didn’t doubt that they’d question when the mixture was put onto the shelf and left to sit, and then Ari herself would be able to point out the note.

Sighing to herself, Ari’Ellin glanced around, quickly moving to wash her hands and the tools she’d used to chop the Mandrake root with. She was thorough with it, washing each thing three times just to keep herself and both Kita and Remus safe. She might not have known much about poison, but it wasn’t something to play with.

Once everything was clean, she briskly dried the tools and put them away before finding something to do.

She’d check the mix of Mandrake and alcohol every few days and lightly shake it, just to keep everything thoroughly mixed as it all combined. It would probably take somewhere from two weeks to a month for the alcohol to finish absorbing the effects of the Mandrake root. Then she would strain the liquid through a cheese cloth and collect it. She knew the process fairly well, even if alcohol was a mostly new liquid to use. It seemed very much like the things she’d done with oil, or even boiled water over a shorter period of time.

Word Count564