Girls' Day Out [Haeli]

[Tamsin]

Who: Haeli
When: 65th of Summer, 511 AV, late morning

For once, Tamsin was on a mission as she strolled down Lotus Street. She took her time as always, her hair gathered and almost knotted loosely at the nape of her neck, letting its weight hold it back from her face. Six arms were not out of place, each was engaged in some way, shape or form as she strolled. Draped over her upper arms and under her sari was her backpack. She was going to need it for shopping today. She also needed someone to go shopping with, quite frankly, and there was one person in mind that she felt needed it as much as she did, and right now, she was going to fetch her.

It didn’t occur to her that Haeli might not want to leave her store during the day. Well, it did, but Tamsin felt Haeli was starved for interaction and may have been hiding from it in her lovely shop. But the enterprising Eypharian-turned-Ethaefal had a plan. In fact, it was a plan so cunning she felt she might be able to stick a tail on it and call it a weasel. With luck, she wouldn’t even need it, because Tamsin really and truly did not lend herself well to scheming these days. Because basically, the extent of her supremely cunning plan was to coax the young woman out of her shop, and if Haeli protested, use as many of the six arms that she needed to tickle her into submission, and once she was out of breath, she could carry her out of the building.

A supremely cunning plan indeed.

Two hands, one on the handle and one on the door, gently opened the crystalline door, and Tamsin peeked in, the delicate little silver chains connecting the rings in her ears contrasting sharply with her dark hair. She had a pleased smile on her face, her eyes wide with curiousity and delight. This place was incredible. No wonder Haeli liked it so much. It was lovely, truly lovely, filled to bursting with smells and scents and sounds and... delights. Her smile brightened with every step in until she was positively luminous as she gradually tracked down the blonde-haired witch. “Good morning, Haeli,” she greeted her in her usual polite, curious manner. “How are you doing today? What is this that you are working on?”

[Haeli]

Haeli smiled when the doors opened and a familiar face seemingly glided through. Tamsin had a way about her that Haeli enjoyed but thought perhaps she'd never mimic. She was a morpher too, or so Haeli was convinced, because there were no horns and six arms graced her form this time. Haeli would have to try that, but in order to really master it, she'd have to see Tamsin without her clothing on to see how the joints of the arms fit into her torso with so many. It was something Haeli couldn't imagine on her own, though something she'd love to try when she was busy practicing her artform.

"I'm making strawberry lip balm for the priestess at the temple across the street. Did you see how dry her lips were? They looked almost painful." Haeli said, gesturing to the pile of strawberries, beets, and other more odder ingredients sitting on her counter. "Do you want to help? It's really easy to do. I thought I'd take her the balm instead of coin tomorrow when I watch the painter working on his mural and they pass the offering plate. She needs it." Haeli said, gesturing at the ingredients. There was a mortar and pestle set up as well as a small brazier that looked already hot.

Haeli measured out five teaspoons of an oil and showed it to Tamsin, adding the oil to a glass jar. Then seven teaspoons of a white liquid went into the mixture as well. There was already a small pot of water on the brazier boiling. "Almond oil and coconut milk. Then we add five teaspoons of the beeswax to the oil." Haeli's beeswax was scraped and almost powered so it was easy for her to measure. Next Haeli added two teaspoons of lanolin. "This is something called lanolin, which actually comes from the fleece of sheep or Okomo and is great for repairing and waterproofing dry skin. You get it by a special method I'll show you later when we are making up stocks, okay?" Haeli added then took a stick, added the jar into the water that was already boiling, making sure none of it spilled over the top of the jar and flooded the ingredients inside. It was more like a double boiler or a water bath than anything else. "You just melt everything... all of it. The beeswax will take a couple of minutes before it turns into a liquid. Once everything is melted, I add one tablespoon of honey to make it sweet, then add in the beet juice to color it.. as much as you want the tint to be, then strawberry juice to give it a good flavor and to compliment the honey." She stirred the mixture until it was completely melted. Then she took the jar from the boiling water with a hand towel and sat it aside.

Once she was ready, she laid out small shallow glass jars and gently divided the liquid between the jars, filling them full. Then, she set the now empty glass jar aside and carefully screwed on the caps to the dozen still hot jars she had now. Digging under the counter of her workspace, Haeli pulled up a cooled jar of lip balm that was marked with a mint leave pressed into the top and handed it to Tamsin. "You can keep that one. I made it earlier so its cool and you can see how it looks and feels. But its mint instead of strawberry and without the coloring. Your lips need none." Haeli said, as she began to clean up.

"And, then you can tell me what brings you over today? Or did you know I was just about done with my work for the day?" She added, as she cleaned up the tables, put ingredients away, and banked the fire for later.

[Tamsin]

Tamsin wasn’t entirely certain she had noticed that the priestess across the street had dry lips or if such a condition actually hurt. She pursed her own lips before flattening them and touchin them with her fingers. Her lips were dry, surely, but not painful. Weren’t one’s lips always dry unless you were drinking or outside in the rain? Either way, she thought it was quite kind of Haeli to make up a herbal remedy for her - that was an interesting skill, and in a lot of ways, Tamsin admired the witch’s ability to interact with the world around her so much, mixing together combinations that she could never have begun to guess at.

So much learned. So much lost.

She leaned in, though, and watched, deft hands holding her swathes of silk at bay and away from the brazier and Haeli’s workspace. When the opportunity presented itself, though, curious, but careful fingers inspected the ingredients, touching, tasting, feeling, smelling, while she quietly repeated the names back. Almond oil, coconut milk, beeswax, lanolin. Her dark eyes were enormous, and the Eypharian was clearly captivated. “I like the way it smells,” she told her as the pot bubbled and boiled. She taste-tested the beet juice and the strawberry, just as she had the almond oil, coconut milk, and beeswax. “Where did you learn to make this? Have you been making it a long time?”

But the Eypharian’s delight at being presented with her own jar of lip balm eclipsed even her former smiles as she held it with two hands, turning it over and around, feeling the glass jar before opening it and inhaling its scent, closing her eyes at it before before folding her hands over the jar and bowing to Haeli, her other four hands touching each other now. She straightened, and touched the balm with a finger, testing the substance and finding it very much to her liking. “And you put it on your lips, yes? Like so?” she applied just a bit to her own before using another hand to try to apply it just as carefully to Haeli’s lips. “I like this smell even better than the strawberry,” she admitted to the witch. “Mint... where does that come from? Is it a plant?” she remembered the leaf on the jar as she carefully placed the lid back on, having finished her invasion of Haeli’s personal space for the moment. The jar disappeared into the backpack she wore, five of the six arms working in unison to place within the leathery depths, tucking it away safely so that it would not break when more contents were added to it.

“You are done? Good,” Tamsin extended her lower two arms to Haeli. “Will you come shopping with me? I would like to see the city with you, and we will get the midday meal together, at the very least, and likely the evening, if you can tolerate my questions that long.” The Ethaefal, Eypharian by day, celestial being by night, wanted to see the town through Haeli’s eyes, to listen to her observations and hear her thoughts about what went on around her. She wanted to know more about the Witch and her life and her experiences. And she, like Haeli, wanted someone she could really talk to.

[Haeli]

For all her serene divine facade, Tamsin was like a quiet storm blowing in. She touched everything, asked a remarkable amount of questions, all of which Haeli answered as best she could. "I learned in the swamp. We traded with a lot of sailers that would stop by close to where we lived to resupply for water and medicines. We'd give them fresh fruit and things they needed, like cream for their lips - balm its called - to protect against the wind and salt water. It was how we got cloth and metal, especially the tools we needed. The swamp provides a lot of things for us, but some things are very hard to get." Haeli said, looking thoughtful.

The witch found Tamsin easy to talk to. Her questions were a natural progression of her interaction, not something forced or demanding. Haeli rather enjoyed talking to her, almost like she used to talk to Ozantha - open and unguarded - even though Tamsin was still somewhat of a stranger to her.

Haeli had to get used to her arms though. They were disconserting to someone who'd never seen more than two on a person before. She truly wanted to see how they all worked, but was far too polite to ask. When Tamsin moved in close, Haeli didn't even flinch. She had no concept of personal space though she was unused to being touched. The girl offered Tamsin a smile and nodded. "Yes, a plant. There's a whole wide variety of them that have slightly different flavors and colors to the leaves. Some are wintery and some are peppery and some are even fruity in their tang. I like to cook with mint and put it in things that are considered sweet too. Things you smooth across your lips should be sweet. Always." Haeli agreed, looking pensive. "I'm glad you like it. If you have a plant you like I can always make you a balm that tastes accordingly. I hope Lhavit gets a glassmaker soon. Glass here is expensive... but if we had a local glassmaker, the containers I need for my potions and brews and glosses would get a lot less expensive. So would the glassware the tea houses and places like Illuminating libations needs. It is the only frustration I've come across since moving to Lhavit and opening this place." The witch admitted.

"Yes, I'm just about done. Let me clean up just a bit..." With that, Haeli went into a whirlwind of activity, putting things away, banking embers, blowing out candles, replacing the lids on supplies... all in the name of a quick effective cleanup.

"Where are we going shopping at? And what are we shopping for? I'd love to come with you. I don't often go out except to the new place to listen to the music that is often there or perhaps to the market to get fresh things I can't get in the mountains." Haeli said, her excitement starting to build. She looked around, checking for last minute things, then went to get a bag that would hold all her coin and anything she might decide to try and trade coin for while she was shopping. She didn't change her clothing. The truth was Haeli had nothing fancy to wear other than a really nice festival dress and her half-worn out shifts.

"Ready! Where too?" She asked, excited.

[Tamsin]

She absorbed all this information with a degree of fascination. It may have been simple facts that Haeli had lived with all her life and never found out of the ordinary, but to Tamsin, it was the opposite - she found it extraordinary. There was so much to learn, really. It was at times like this that she truly envied the young woman her ability to recall such things. It surprised her how much people took such memories, such knowledge for granted. Had she done that once?

You never know what you have until it is lost.

A plant.

Maybe she would be able to keep one, to grow it, so that the scent could fill her room. Now that was an idea. Another day, she would have to ask Haeli if she had any such mint plants for her to smell to liven up and brighten her room in the Tower. In pots, she was sure they were kept. She’d seen some, in great giant clay containers that were lovely, but she didn’t need anything so large. Just something that she could smell and enjoy. And maybe flavour tea and such with it. Now that was an idea. And while she could carry it easily, she would be carrying it the rest of the day, and going shopping for food and clothing was not conducive to carrying around a plant, however lovely it was.

Perhaps at the conclusion of the day, when she walked Haeli home before going to the Tower. Then it might be ideal. “...Did you have a glasscrafter in the swamp?” she didn’t -think- one would, but still, life was full of surprises. She watched as Haeli tidied up, lending one or six hands where she could to pass her things and help tidy the counter. “We are going everywhere,” Tamsin was bright about this and very certain of it, even if they spent the entire day going from shop to shop. “I want to see everything... especially the clothes,” Tamsin smiled at her. “I know it sounds vain and prideful, maybe, but I would like to get something new to wear, and to see the cloth that I can make into things. I would like to learn to sew. There must be books in the library on such things, patterns and suchlike. It would be a nice way to relax, I would think.”

With six arms, well, that could be interesting. She vaguely remembered sitting in the shade of a canopied dais, reclining while she used her arms to hold the cloth, to cut and stitch and sew... Perhaps it was another tie to her past, and exploring that, reflecting on that, would help provide a link to her past that might help with her own memories. Besides, it might feel nice to do something beyond the metaphysical with her hands again. “First stop, somewhere for clothing,” Tamsin was decisive as she smiled at Haeli and offered her her choice of three arms to link up with.

It was time to go shopping! “Thank you for agreeing to come with me,” she told Haeli as they were leaving All Things Wild. “I wanted a friend to go with.”

[Haeli]

Haeli watched Tamsin delight in the newness of things she'd never experienced and it reminded her acutely of herself. But the likening was only for an instant, because Haeli knew that Tamsin was everything Haeli was not. Barefooted and dressed raggedly, Haeli's hair was a wild tangle. Her clothing was barely decent, by Lhavitian standards, not for its cut but for the amount it was worn. Threadbare, not because Haeli was poor, but rather because Haeli was indifferent.

Appearances didn't matter to her.

At Tamsin's question, Haeli shook her head. "We did not use glass there. We held things safe in natural containers - gourds, ceramic pots, wooden vessels - that were easily acquired. Glass was rare and something we only received in trade. Here there is more of it and so I use it. I use it because it is beautiful." Haeli said softly. She smiled when Tamsin continued on, speaking about her shopping.

Shopping was something alien to Haeli. She simply did not go to shops even though she ran one herself. There was very little she needed. In fact, the last time she'd been to a shop was with Brig to pick out the mantel and couch for the landing above the shop. She'd been nervous there, hasty, wanting to pick and get out. Brig was better in crowds and she missed his presence acutely... but she knew he had good reason for being away. Practice, with Tamsin, was definitely what she wanted. For Haeli, the need to blend into her surroundings was important. Just the act of stepping in a shop was a struggle, and with Tamsin along it might be easier.

Haeli didn't much care what sort of shop. She had no idea what sewing was or really what a clothing shop entailed. She trusted the Ethaefal and knew she'd not steer Haeli into any danger.

When they were done cleaning up, Haeli took Tamsin's offered arm, and they closed the shop, neatly flipping the sign Haeli used to signal if All Things Wild was open or closed. Once closed, she allowed Tamsin to lead on. To her the whole idea seemed like a big adventure, but then again they were shopping for Tamsin and not for herself. That made all the difference in the world.

[Elysium]

Character: Tamsin
XP:
Socialization +2
Observation +1

Lores:
A “Supremely Cunning Plan”
How to Concoct Strawberry Lip Balm

★

Character: Haeli
XP:
Herbalism +2
Socialization +2
Observation +1

Lores:
The Priestess’ Chapped Lips
Female Bonding Rituals

Other: Very well-written, albeit short. I enjoyed the lesson on how to make lip balm!


and so, the journey continues...