RP: A Walk Among The Moors

Rim of the Wilds

Synopsis Clovelia is lost! But she soon meets Joan as the vampiric healer is out gathering plants and herbs for her own collection, Joan asks if she can help the teenage dryad and helps her find her bearing and way back home,

Clovelia pokes at a loose vine hanging in front of her face. "Pffttsppft. Spiders. Ugh," She mumbles to herself when a web laces onto her hair. Dirty, but otherwise happy, the young druid wanders through the woods with no sense of direction or haste.

Joan moved along the hauntingly surreal moorlands with an easy pace the vampiric healer stopped now and then to harvest a corpse flower here and there. Sure, the Necromancers' guild had their own private garden as well as the Healers guild she was both involved in but once in and awhile the bookish undead woman liked to go out and gather her own to get a better baring of the lands outside of the few towns she stuck too. Having a good amount, she would open up her satchel and stuff the flowers into it, since it was enchanted, it could hold any number of the many items one needed while out and about just enjoying nature. Hearing the few lines of speech, she would draw up short as she lifted up her right hand and call out "Oh hey there! Do you need any help?" Her gaze fell on the small young woman in a curious manner as she tilted her head a bit.

Clovelia stopped her fingers in mid-fix of her hair. "Uh..." Quickly she cleared her throat while her hand dropped to her satchel strap. "I'm alright." called back. "Just wandering around." A small chuckle to herself ended the understated sentence. Soon, the ground crunched and rustled when steps carried her toward the studious woman's voice. First, a hand, then a sleeve, then a leaf-clad leg wearing a wooden shoe poke through the final bushes a few meters away from Joan. "Oh! Hello." The rest of the "teen" appears, grinning. "Say, maybe I do need a small hand. How embarrassing, but would you know where you are?" How many months had it been since she'd seen another person? It seemed sort of odd to hear a voice not her own while excitement crept in at being found. One of the vines behind her tried to sneak up to grasp her ankle when she stopped. Quickly she used one foot to stomp on it just as it curled around. Instead, it decided to retreat. Had Joan noticed this naughty plant? Clove bit her lip in an awkward smile. Nothing to see here folks!

Joan blinked as the aura magic smoked out from the corners of her voided light violet eyes, curling up around her head and disappearing into the air. "Hmm, below the moat in Enchantment, this little area is rather neat and has the most interesting plants." Joan answered as she moved her opened satchel a bit for the much younger female to glance at what Joan had harvested so far, she did notice the creeping vine, and her only acknowledgment of the vine and it being stomped by the teen then watching it retreating from the girl was one amethyst finely shaped brow arching upwards.

Clovelia dips her waist, the hem of her leaf skirt crinkling until her curious peer is satisfied. A couple of flowers larger than her head seem to be piled in the bag. Oddly, they weren't squished together but comfortably lying as if the bag held far more room than the size implied. The smell that wafted to smack her face into dislike promptly did so with all the anger of a mother squirrel. Curiosity won the first peek, but the answer, now was something of note for the druid. "Wait, Enchantment?! I've finally made it back?" The squeal formed from disgust to elation following may require earplugs. Surely there are some mushrooms to offer their services nearby. "Oh my gosh! And - And what is today?" Clove's head swiveled, looking for any signs of civilization that she was familiar with. Finding nothing, she turned her blue eyes to Joan's violet. It seemed so bright, almost too vivid. A little disconcerting but people cannot be helped by how they look. "I'm sorry, I did not mean to intrude on your walk. Do you need help finding those horrible things?" she gestured to the bag.

Joan arches her other brow, it rises up level with her first as the older woman gives a shake of her head, "Yes, Enchantment and I suppose so, if you were lost and now found your way back, welcome back. In answer to your other question, I believe it is Monday, it's about a week and a half till the beginning of true fall." She did give the teen a much closer look as she noticed the outfit the other wore. Sure, her hearing was sensitive, but a few minor squeals were not going to cause much harm. Joan gave a rolling shrug of her vested shoulders as she didn't mind much if at all that she ran up along the missing but now-found teenager. "Sure, if you want, I'm just collecting the plants here for my personal use, I'm a healer with the guild and I just wanted to have my own personal little stock of herbs and plants. I'm Joan by the way, you are?!"

Clovelia introduces herself as "Clove" along with a bit of a bow/curtsey hybrid which shows off her clumsy nature. "Healers guild you say. I know a few fae that have been members but that was quite some time ago." Her mind went to the stories she heard as a sprout. One of which describes a battle and the atrocities for which a healer was called. Her head shook out the conversation she was never meant to overhear at such a young age. "That's a very grisly job." A smile, out of respect for the profession came. It seemed this cheery girl was just that, just a girl, who hadn't had too many real problems in her days. Sheltered, one might say. "Over this way, and up on a cliff there's a small patch of about a dozen." Clove points off to the east where said cliff could be seen a quarter mile away protruding away from them. Before it, a hill of large rubble, which would need climbed, or wings, to pass over. "That's where things smell the worst." With that, the fae seems to have found her barring in relation to her hometown. It wasn't often she went this way, due to the scent of death and decay. "Pine essence is easy to find too, but more north." she offered. However, if Joan would have passed through the Kelay forest, she probably already knew that.

Joan rubbed the pad of her icy cold thumb along the edge of her nose as her sight followed the direction the young dryad indicated. "We seem to have a huge turnover of members every so often as folk wander off to other lands seeking adventure or well...pass along. It can be, but it does have its rewards." Joan said, she flashed a quick smile with a hint of fang as she moved to quickly climb up the cliff, harvesting a bit of the mandrake, which goes into her satchel. She closed the flap over the case before making her way down towards the teenager her interest perked at being told there was pine essence around, but this was the first time she really bothered to pay attention to her surroundings.

Clovelia ventures to the suited woman's placement near the rubble and watches her climb. Rewards, she thought. Immediately a small shiver made the gills on her sleeves rustle like the wind. It seemed horrible to go into action and see blood on the ground, insides on the outside, and limbs strung about. What could be rewarding with that? The fang took her a little by surprise but only enough to note. Was Joan a wolf? an undead? She had seen such people recently and learned even snake people can be decent folk. "There are all sorts of things around here. Usually, I pick them for when we go into town." Clove spies up to the mandrakes climbs over to the plucked plants, and crouches down. "They always have to scream but if you..." Concentration takes over, just as her tongue pops out the side of her mouth. A tender hand caresses a leaf of the closest while she struggles. A couple of moments pass, then, nearly audible, fresh mandrake sprout tops pop out of the ground surrounding the specimen she held. "If you get them young," she says proudly, straightening, "They are not as loud." One of the new sprouts is plucked, along with its initial root system. The mouth has barely raised above a squeak. "In a few months, you can have as many as you need. Just need to wait for them to grow. Best to take some dirt with you. They like this dirt."

Joan tilts her head slightly as she studies the dirt the young dryad pointed out, with a nod the vampiric healer kneels to scoop up the soil with a small trowel she produced out from one of the many pockets from the front of the satchel, she produces next a small empty planter that she dumps the decent scoop of soil into. Away goes the small trowel followed by the soil-filled planter into one of those magical storage pockets. "Hmm, yeah. Are you a plant mage or dryad by the way? The way those mandrakes sprouted back up was nifty."

Clovelia watches, nodding approvingly at her advice being taken. It didn't dawn on her that this stuff wasn't common knowledge since most everyone around here knew how to work with these local plants. When asked if she were a mage, her birch tree coloring seemed to grow a pink shade along her neck while her mossy cheeks hid behind green. "I am a Dryad." she confirmed. "I like to make things grow, though sometimes, I wish I had not." A little confession for such a large idea. "Have you ever seen a creeper vine be creepy? Upskirts and all. Never make those come up unless you have pants." It's then that Joan may notice that her skin is not just pale, but of smooth white bark. "Saucy troublemakers, they are." Clove looks around, now on higher ground, peering off at the tip of the Enchantment castle. A few sprites dapple glow around the city as the way streetlamps would appear from the edge of towns. "Are you heading into town?"

Joan dusts her icy pale hands together to get any lingering soil off them as she follows the teenage dryad's line of sight. "It happens, tho I gotta say I have not, I was friends with Artia." She grows quiet for a moment as she thinks of her friend who left for other adventures elsewhere before picking up the dropped conversation, "Sometimes plants are well naughty in behavior as you said." She chuckles softly as she now nods, moving to swiftly climb down the cliff and plant her shoed feet back onto the moor. "Yeah, I suppose it's time to head back, would you like to come along?" She said kindly to the teenage dryad.

Clovelia comments "Aye" and exhales after following down the rocks. Home, finally. How many months had she been gone? Most of the year, it seems. If fall was next week as Joan had mentioned, it had been quite some time since seeing her tree. Clove longed for her tree, just to check up on her and make sure she was happy, but she instinctively knew that it was fine. Clove offers her hand to the taller person in that fast-friend sort of way. "This way is easier." she beams down the barely detectable path.