Completed In Search of the Divine

[Tsaba]

40th Summer, 513AV Tsaba paused outside the little cottage, momentarily wondering whether her directions had been accurate. Perhaps somebody was having fun with her? She'd been directed to a shrine of Rak'keli, but what she was looking at was no shrine. It was a house. A well-maintained little house, but apparently not an occupied one. She cautiously knocked on the door, which swung open at her touch. Not latched. Okay then. Out of nervous reflex, Tsaba took a breath, and her nose was immediately filled with the scent of herbs and salves. Not the scent of present herbs and salves, perhaps, but the scent that healing huts seemed to acquire; the bitter smell of tinctures worn into the woodwork, the peppery bite of powdered remedies lingering in the air. She didn't smell blood, but she knew that the hut had probably seen it. She stepped inside, something dragging at her nonexistent heart. A lingering pain, memories rising in her mind. She ran a hand along the doorframe, relishing the physical contact, not wanting to pull away. It took her a moment to identify the feeling. Homesickness. It had been a very, very long time since Tsaba had slept at the hearth of a healing hut. But so many of the critical moment in her life had happened there. Before Sahova. Before tedium and guilt and... well, death. She headed over to kneel at the hearth, and traced her fingers over the symbol etched there. Divinity wasn't her area -- that was the purpose of the visit -- but she recognised Rak'keli's symbol. Presumably the winged snakes had some kind of metaphorical meaning. She'd have to find a follower to ask. Tsaba had been wrong. The hut she knelt in was, unmistakeably, a shrine.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba ran a hand over a shelf in the wall. It was empty. That wasn't right, not for a healing hut. It should be covered in little clay jars painted different colours with stripes on them to identify them. At least, that was how Craun, her old mentor, used to do it. She didn't know if it was standard practice among healers. But she did know that it shouldn't be empty. The place was, at least, maintained. Somebody had been sweeping the dust from the floors and preventing the walls from rotting. Tsaba's hand came away from the empty shelf without dust on it, and even the hearth was free of ash. Craun's hearth had never been free of ash; even in midsummer, there were teas to boil, poultices to warm. The bed was clean and made. Tsaba sat on the edge of it, thinking. 'Child. Fetch me the brown jar with the red stripe.' 'Child. Hold his arms down so that he can't fight.' 'Feel the flow of energy, Child. Looking at one part will tell you nothing; you must feel for the disconnect.' Things were a lot busier back then. A lot harder, too. But they'd been helping people. They'd made a difference. The sheer amount of time that they'd been allowed to remain in the city without the hut being burned down or Craun being lynched was testimony to that. Tsaba didn't much care for healing, herself. Nor did she have any particular interest in Rak'keli over the other gods, although it was wise to respect all divine beings. But it was difficult to sit in the little hut, and remember, and not care.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba stood, abruptly. She strode out of the little hut, back to the university, back to the library. She searched. She decided on Plants and Grasses of the Sylira Region. The entries were ordered by location, and it wasn't hard to locate those that should be present around Zeltiva. Not all of them had medical uses. Or the ones that did, she only recognised a handful on sight. She didn't like taking books out of the city, but sometimes there was no choice. Tsaba packed the book along with her belongings and headed for the foothills. She kept her sling unpacked and close at hand, as she always did when leaving the city, but she wasn't going out to practice. She was going out for supplies. The paths and road would most likely be picked clean of anything useful, and Tsaba didn't know the area well enough to know where all the nice little hidden spots were. But she had all day, and she didn't tire. She checked the book and chose a few plants that were regionally appropriate, medically useful, and very common, memorised their diagrams and descriptions, and began her search. Tsaba had always disliked herb-hunting. She had seen it as a tedious chore with too many risks, and a waste of time that could be spent doing something more agreeable. In the always-busy healer's hut, 'more agreeable' didn't necessarily mean 'fun', but copying out medical journals under a nice, sturdy roof was preferable to wandering all over the fields of Sunberth and trying not to run into anybody particularly violent or get caught by an early setting sun. Anna had had no problem with the task, generally looking for any excuse to get outside, and their journeys usually involved Tsaba trundling sedately along playing pack-horse while her foster sister ducked in and out of crevices, and overturned logs looking for mushrooms. She'd seemed to have a sixth sense about where different plants were found, or more likely, intuition born from experience. But Tsaba had never developed it. Not that it would be much help in Zeltiva, anyway. It took about a Bell before she noticed a plant that looked something like one that she was looking for, and only a few chimes to consult the book and learn that it was something entirely different, and useless. She kept looking. By the second Bell, she'd actually found a handful of common, low-grade healing herbs. The third, though, was again fruitless. Tsaba's pace didn't slow as she worked. She didn't need to rest, or stop to eat. That was one advantage over her times herb-searching as a child. She still wanted to be home before sunset -- for one thing, she had to work scribing for the library, and for another, she didn't know what would be roaming the land so far from the main road after dark, nor did she care to find out. By the end of the day, she had a respectable collection... well, what would look like a respectable collection to somebody assuming she'd just been out for a couple of Bells, and not an entire day. She carried them back to the Bivouac, where she hung them above the empty fireplace to dry, pinning a clear identifying note to each -- plant type, location collected (Zeltivan foothills), date collected. With a small smile, she turned and left the hut.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba hurried to work. She took out her materials. She started copying out a book on the illnesses and remedies of goats. She preferred working at night -- most of the Zeltivan population spent those hours sleeping (unless their pursuits were... tasks more suited to those hours), so it was the perfect time to withdraw from the streets herself. She couldn't do herbs. She wasn't a healer, or a herbalist, or a gardener. But she was a scribe. Her eyes scanned the room; her inclined worktable, the stacks of parchment and spare pots of ink, the damaged books that needed rescuing while they were still legible. She knew what she was doing, in that little office, where she didn't have to think about the past, as if the activities of a small family nearly a century ago even mattered. She painted the words onto new paper, but had trouble focusing on them. History did matter. And information mattered. That's what being a scribe was for. Trying to bring realism to some mockery of a healing hut was just another action in profession of the belief that knowledge and tradition and information and resources did matter. Even if it was a stupid one. She got through three pages of goat maladies before putting aside her brush and heading out into the library proper. She'd make up the work time later. She found the medical section and scanned the books, pulling down several selections; basic books, general books. Books that any healer would find both relevant and understandable. After a brief consideration of each, she put them all back except Basic Medical Theory. It was small, general, and without difficult-to-copy diagrams. That seemed like a good starting place. Then she headed back to work. Some things had to be done, because they were a part of who you were. Even if they seemed stupid.

[Abstract]

Tsaba :

Skills

+ Observation - 2
+ Herbalism - 1
+ Writing - 1

Lores

+ Shrine = Healing Hut?
+ Herb Searching is Easier as a Nuit

Other

Notes :

I wasn't exactly sure what was going on in this thread. What was Tsaba doing? Why? It was really confusing... ah well, I gave you what I could..

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about this grade, please PM me and we can work it out!