RP:Book and Bell
Synopsis: Kyori is in search for the herbalist Penelope to give him more information about Cerulean Flowers. The two strangers end up agreeing to go on adventure to seek the very rare herb.
Kyori’s jaunt to the Cenril library revealed two things to the man. One, the dust that accumulated in libraries was universal and not contained to his former home. Two, map makers are crafty s.o.b.’s with a cruel sense of humor. He’d gone to the man Penelope’d advised, Darryn Wilmore, but his help consisted of giving Kyori a book and another task to find his own answers. If this was his idea of ‘enlightening’ he was worse than the map making stranger by far. That’s what brings him back to Kelay, book clasped loosely under his arm. It took a round of drinks at the tavern (Nancy’s being useless by way of information) but he managed to find out who Yerrel was and where he worked. He also had a rough idea of where her 'Root’s’ shop was but it must be new. She’d said that, you idiot. He swears he’s paying attention. The spellblade cuts through the clearing, noting the magic infesting this place as he strolled towards the hut to ‘knock’ on the structure’s supports in hopes of finding the owner, or more specifically Penelope, inside.
As Kyori knocks, there is creaking behind the door. “Hold on one moment!” An elderly voice hollers on the other side of the frame. Soon enough, the knob turns and an elderly elven man appears draped in robes. “Wuh—“ the older man gazes over the spell blades frame. “You don’t look injured or in misery. I’m gonna send you over to Miss Halifax. She will look at you,” the wise old man does not let the blonde get a chance to put a word in before pointing towards the cobble-stone path. “Follow,” the older man then shuts the door. Rude, but Yerrel was not really the comforting healer in Kelay. Penelope attended to people in grace.
Halifax Roots
There is a cobble-stone trail that leads from the healing hut through the thick brush of the forest to a small square establishment built out of wooden slats with a big sign that was labeled “Halifax Roots” on the lower level. The square appears to be two stories high from the looks of the height of the building. On the first floor to the outside, the building has long windows to make the shop more open. The glass doors are already open for anyone who wants to wander in. The scent of oils are heavy within the shop, but also are powerful enough to calm the nerves of someone who walks in. The doors are held open by tin buckets filled with ferns and snake plants. There is a clear view of the inside which is filled with different plants in various sized grant and hyde pots. The shop would have various shelving around the whole floor full of jars of salves, jars of herbs, jars of oils, soaps, and more with all labels and prices. Each item is decorated with a wine-colored string and gold lids to symbolize that the item is, in fact, from “Halifax Roots”.
The frizzy haired woman lingers within the walls of the open shop. The girl holds a mortar and pestle while she stares at a book. She is grounding down leaves within the bowl to make some sort of concoction. The herbalist appears to be cool and collected and a small humming comes from her chords as she moves rhythmically to mush the substance within the bowl.
Kyori tries to interject, for the record. That elderly man was as shrewd as he was...old. Oh Yerrel, sir, if you could glimpse into this young man's soul you would see incomprehensible misery, irreparable injury, and some other bobbles. His direction inspire one raised blonde brow before the warrior shrugged and moved along. The old grump did say Halifax. The path is short. Kyori could have found the place by smell alone if he'd tried. The same scent of herbs he'd picked up on Penelope in the Tavern wafted out of the open shop door, uninhibited. The blonde slows in the doorway, letting the sound of her humming remain the second loudest in the area. The mortar and pestle won out, by a hair. Kyori, this is creepy, don't just stand in the doorway. Say something. Hmm, good point. The warrior back up a bit from the door, retracing his steps and calling out a hello before re-approaching the shop's threshold. "Halifax Roots." He said, pointing up at the sign proudly. "It's your shop." Great deduction. He taps his fingers against the cover of the book in his hand and looks around the building without entering. "So, Hi. Nice place." He starts, grimacing at his own awkwardness. "Thanks for the advice, I went to the library, went great." He holds up the leather bound loot he'd lawfully borrowed. "Fellow was nice but you were...heh...on the money when you said he'd want a favor." Tough thing was, the favor was both the answer AND the payment. The cover of the book depicts elegant script, reading something something of plants, and shows it's age well. Did he come all this way to thank her?
Penelope was completely oblivious to the man standing in the door, although wide-open. He speaks and moss doe-eyes land on him. Her humming comes to a slow and her mortar and pestle come to a halt. His awkwardness wafts through the room, but she remains steady. Soft, but it was hard to see what she was thinking. She did not expect to see him again. Not after the last meeting, if it was a meeting. She was shocked he even heard what she was saying that day in the tavern when he was off his rockers. “Hi,” she responds in a small, sweet voice. “I’m glad you found Mr. Wilmore,” her voice begins to slow. The woman was confused on why the blonde was actually there at her shop. “Do you need assistance with something?” The freckled girl comes out from behind the counter dressed in a loose, white; flowy top and fuschia-colored leggings. “Did Mr. Wilmore send you here for your favor? I’d be happy to help,” she inches a little closer to him not noticing the book at first. She is pretty distant. The closer, however, she inches, the more she is closer to the title of the book. She notices the word "plants". “Or maybe I can help you with your book…” Her voice trails before her eyes wander up to the stranger again.
Women, as a rule, don’t unnerve the spellblade. He’s taller than most, armed, and quick on his feet. Even in social situations, he’d grown up around women his whole life. A pack of sisters. You learn the dance and he was an expert. He’d seen Nat as his friend, a younger sister he vowed to protect, and now she’s still missing and he’s here making small talk with a woman he’d yelled at once. Not a great introduction. Penelope is unlike his sisters though. She’s as graceful and calm today as she was in the Tavern. And quiet. She approaches him like he’s flighty and erratic and it makes him nervous. He does not know why. Did he scare her before? She’s moving so slowly towards him. What is she doing? Kyori, don’t focus on that. Ask about the book. “Right.” He says aloud, holding the book’s spine and flipping to the tabbed page. “You said you were good with plants, yeah?” He hoped he’d remembered right. His calloused fingers and sapphire eyes scan the words. “He said there’s an ink on the page that he can’t see. How he knows it’s there but can’t see it is beyond me but that’s his best guess I guess. He said we could make a compound to pull the ink out but it requires a specific plant. ‘Cerulean Flowers’." He looks up, trying to read Penelope’s face. “Do you have any? He said they’re hard to find, which is why he wants me to bring him some back…That’s the payment and the...solution.”
Moss eyes shift back and forth while he flips through the pages. “Yes, I try my best,” she says in a humble manner. Penelope was low key great with plants. The woman rests her eyes on the spellblade in front of her. At the mention of ink, she inches a little closer where now she is about two feet away. She is a lot shorter than him. A whole foot. The herbalist leans to take a peek at the ink-stained parchment. “No,” she says flatly before leaning back. She lets the silence fall before she gives him one of her crooked smiles. “That doesn’t mean I can’t make any.” She looks at him knowingly before shuffling away from him towards the right of the building. There was a staircase and a door at the top. “Let me grab something,” and before he could even speak, which her and Yerrel had in common, she dashes up the stairs. A moment passes and she is coming back down again with the book from back at the tavern. “We need this,” she grins before lifting her chin for him to come over to the counter that she was standing at. The girl licks her finger before rifling through the pages. “Cerulean Flowers are hard to come by, indeed. They like very cool climates, but not too frozen, mind you.” The page lands and there is a sketch of the flower with details of what it is and the benefits it has. “This flower is in high altitudes and needs moist soil. It also loves shade.” She then adds, “Not like the soil matters to you,” she laughs nervously in her own intellectual behavior. “It’s kind of shaped like a blue-looking poppy or lily… I can’t tell by whoever sketched this picture.” She shrugs. "Normally common in later spring. We will have to find a similar... climate to find it." After the jabber, the freckled woman lays her eyes on him to see his reaction.
Kyori closes his eyes and sighs. She doesn’t have any. He’d hoped it would be that simple. In his head it was ‘Plant woman, I need a plant.’ ‘I have the plant.’ ‘Thanks.’ End of discussion. Penelope speeds up the stairs, leaving the spellblade alone with his papers and confusion. Are healers like this? At least she looks like she’s enjoying herself. A plant nerd. She was more vivacious now; pointing at the book and explaining the flower down to the soil type. Kyori did not need to know what climate the thing needed. He studies the picture, nodding like he understood it all (but he didn’t). “What a picky plant.” He frowns. The warrior looks less awkward now that the ‘introduction’ barrier’s past. There’s a conversation to follow. He’d regained his balance until she looked back up for his input. What was he supposed to say? ‘Oh I know the place after being here ten minutes’? “Is there a place like that around here?” He looks around the shop, wanting an intellectual customer to chime in with a helpful observation. There were no plant scholars to save him. “D-do you need them? Do they do anything else?” He’d seen mountains to the west of Kelay, if this damn plant was that prissy.
Penelope Halifax knew she had just bored someone to death. Either way! “Picky plant indeed—also that was sort of punny, was it not?” She lets out a very cool laugh. The girl then slams the book shut for dramatic effect, but really, she just looks silly in her childish ways—she was twenty-seven and still young-at-heart. “Why, yes there is a place I am thinking of. Northern Xalious, just almost reaching Frostmaw. I’ve heard tale that there is a waterfall in the midst of it all!” The herbalist is enthusiastic, but recovers her tone with ease. She walks around the counter and sits on a barstool that settles behind. The freckled woman gets a good look at him from this view. “Well, I haven’t come across one in quite a long time. Before my plant days. I’ve read that they help with burns and rashes. They also benefit muscular heart tissue, so really this is a very, very beneficial little guy, so yeah, I would say I do need some.” She blinks and taps her fingers idly on the counter. “I wasn’t planning on a trip, but, really, I don’t know sounds spontaneous,” beat. “Would you be willing to take a full twenty-four hours or more for a trip to find what you need? Or… are you going to search for another lead for your… cartography issue, was it?” A twenty-four hour trip with Penelope Halifax. A stranger and a plant-nerd. The girl that made him tick in the tavern.
Kyori didn’t get it. Where was the joke? Penelope’s in her element, even a bored man could tell. –He- wasn’t bored but if another customer was bored, the spellblade would understand. Kyori, no one else is here. You’re still alone in the shop. “Right.” He says with enthusiastic force. “A waterfall, for the soil.” You got it Kyori, plants need water. Genius deduction. Sapphire eyes swivel ‘round to follow the proprietor’s position. Burns, rashes, heart stuff, and invisible ink. Weird plant, that. This favor was turning into a full-fledged excursion and the excitable plant woman was making plans. Plant plans. Was that a pun? He plugged away at the math; half a day there, half a day back minimum. That didn’t factor in finding the damn thing or sleeping. Did it? It did, he thinks. Hell, she knew what she was doing. If Penelope Halifax wanted to sleep on the hard ground, who was he to say otherwise? She’s a big girl and doesn’t need his input, but if she complains when they get to the mountains and make camp, he’s gonna be secretly smug about it. Her question is met with no hesitation. “Benefits us both to try this first.” Benefits him the most, honestly. She’s the knowledgeable one; he’s just the customer (with a sword).
Penelope nods. “Then if we go, we should leave in two days. I need time to write out duties for Mr. Erickson while I’m gone for that snip of a day. Plus, recovery time afterwards,” she is nonchalant. Her body was still recovering from the illness she had once before. Her muscles would be sore from all the traveling, and she would become tired fairly fast. All the time she accounted for was physical breaks, especially when climbing a mountain. “I recommend packing warm clothes.” She makes a note. “Also, before I completely agree to all this activity… Are you going to introduce yourself to me?” She pretends to not know his name, although Nancy mentioned it to her in the tavern, she is still going to play this game with the stranger.
Kyori gives the woman a confused look. She didn't want to leave now? Of course she didn't. She has a shop and a life, both of which he's intruding upon. He has no way to know about Penelope's illness so he calculated the time differently. He'll be relieved with the pacing. She starts making a to-do list and his face stays frozen. Warm clothes? He barely had -other- clothes. Where did you buy warm clothes in autumn? "Sure?" He shakes his head, she sounds so serious. Was the trip dangerous? It had to be if no one did it, he guesses. Before she finishes her demands, he tries to speak over her. "-No funny business." Whoops. That's not what she said at all. Oh hell, did he walk in here and act familiar when she didn't even know his name?! He forgot to tell her?! The warrior's screaming internally. "F...I'm sorry," he rushes through his words, "Kyori, but you can call me idiot. All my friends do." Self deprecating joke ahoy. "I'm scrambled by this map, damn it, that was rude. My bad. I'll pick all the flowers you want?" He shrugs. Does this constitute an apology? "I don't have much money to pay you." If that's a thing she wanted and now he had to buy warm clothes too.
Penelope squints at him as they speak at the same time. No funny business? Well, what was the fun in that? No funny? Seems like these two were the polar opposites. “I’ll try to tame myself,” she says in dry humor. Either way, he has her now grinning from ear-to-ear at his apologetic demeanor. “Well, you’re not a true idiot because you did say sorry,” she leans an elbow on the counter and rests her freckle-dusted cheek. “Kyori the local idiot? Myself, I like alliterations. How about Kyori the Crazed?” She teases. “All jokes aside, don’t feel bad. I pushed you anyway to make you go bonkers. Plus... I mean, I guess you never really told anyone what was going on. Because you don't know.” She pauses. “And I don’t want your money. I genuinely want to help. It’s kinda, err, what I do. Every local here knows that. I would’ve helped you even if you did not have a name, stranger.” Her small hand extends out revealing scarred arms and a tattoo of an octogram on her wrist. “But since we are moving forward, I guess I’ll say it’s nice to officially meet you—again,” her voice is silk, her eyes gentle, and her smile is beaming all the same. The girl had always grown in an aura of light. If anyone knew the herbalist, they knew she was safe to be around and would always keep the mood light.
Kyori's meant more on -his- behalf as in HE would behave himself. Now it's jumbled and she thinks SHE better behave herself. Not that he had intentions but it's emasculating. He can't catch a break here. "It ain't like that-" he starts before she starts inventing nicknames. Kyori the crazed huh? "Kyori the crazed Coyote at your service." He mock bows. It's not a distinguished look, having a woman think you've gone bonkers. Geeeez. Her justification for her frustration was on the money; he couldn't explain because he didn't know. That's what all this was; trying to KNOW. He didn't know what an alliteration was but adding Coyote to the end had a good ring to it. Felt right. He hoped it wouldn't keep growing until he had a kingish lengthy name. Kyori, crazed tavern man of the Kelay region, first of his kind, etc. "Same, plant-nelope." Is this how puns work? Halp. She turning her juniper eyes up at him again and being so nice but not too nice but still nice? He shakes his head, rewiring his brain back to working order. "Not to put my nose in your business since we're just now officially on the level -" He clicks his tongue "-but what's the tattoo for?" No way in hell is he going to ask her about her scars. Nuh uh. He knows better, thanks to his eldest sister.
A hum comes out of her lips. “Ooo, I like that Kyori the Crazed Coyote. A very good alliteration. Do you shapeshift? I’ve read about lycans,” she babbles, but she does not linger on the subject. He does not have to answer, for she is talking too fast. Unfortunately, with Penelope, he will never know. No one ever knows with her, nor dared to take a step deeper with her into her past and her vulnerability. The girl then lifts her head up, points at the man, and laughs. “Plant-nelope, I love that,” she then begins to come to a slow. As if her motors are rusting, but she falls back into that peaceful state. Her emotions were whiplash. Green eyes move down to her wrist. “Oh, this,” she pauses. “I’m a twin or… was a twin. It was about three years ago.” She appears calm, but internally a wave crashes over her. Tragic, dark, and twisted. That was the story of Pakellin Halifax. What was a worse question? Scars or a tattoo? That was always a mystery with Penelope. “Either way, we both had this tattoo. We got this to guide each other back to one another because we were like glue.” Beat. “I have two others on my back and upper arm.” Short and sweet with little detail to cut out the sour and depressing details of why Pakellin died. To anyone, the herbalist would never let her guard down. That was why she left Linken, the metal-armed elf, behind. Her small shoulders shrug and her voice is still light all-the-same. “You have any tattoos?”
Kyori did not shapeshift but he laughs supportively. "Not a lycan, unfortunately." Most women loved dogs, he wasn't -that- kind of dog. He watches her chipper mood even out, though he swears he hears her heart skip a beat when he asked about the tattoo. The spellblade doesn't try to interrupt her this time. He's silent while she talks about the twin that was and feels the ramification for his question expand in his throat like a cheap balloon. Kyori, would you like to tell her about your sister? The memories drudged up by her bittersweet recounting? Her voice can be light all it likes, he can -hear- how her heart physically reacted. It was her story to tell. "I'm sorry." It's all he can offer before she drags the topic, kicking and screaming, back to the shallow end of the emotional pool. "Uh yeah, here, on my back." He reaches over his head and yanks up the fabric of his rusty shirt to reveal his tattoo. Nestled neatly between his shoulder blades, hiding a mangled knot of a scar, was a circle. Or more accurately, a wheel. A generalized image of a steering wheel found on any ship in Cenril harbor. The ink was faded, no longer black but browned with age. "I wanted to be a pirate when I was little," He lied, not willing to draw them into deep waters. "Anything else ya need to know before we travel together? I'm not lycan, vampire, fae, witch, or heavy sleeper."
Penelope shakes her head. “Life happens, you know?” She inhales deeply and exhales to gain silent composure. As he reaches and pulls up his shirt, the girl fidgets a little, though the fidgeting stops once the tattoo is revealed. She takes in the scar and tries to process what she was actually visualizing. “Pirates life wasn’t for you…” she trails. Whatever that meant. Every scar had more of a purpose, but they were strangers and would perhaps always remain that way. Her mind refocuses and the smile on her pale, plump lips forms again. “Oh, well, let me just pull out my list and check it all off,” she smirks. The healer stands up. “Well, Kyori, I’ll see you in two days. I’ll pack extra just in case you need it,” she teases, but with all jokes aside, she is serious. The woman always over-packed. “Meet me here at dawn. I’m pretty demanding when I want to be,” she grins. “I’ll have the coffee ready,” she speaks playfully. "Until then," she keeps her eyes on him--maybe for too long before getting out of her seat to grab the mortar and pestle that she had been working prior on.
Kyori tugs his shirt back down and turns back to Penelope. He didn’t have anything against lycans, vampires, witches or heavy sleepers. Fae was a long story, but ultimately it was for honestly sake that he’d clarified himself as ‘not’ supernatural. Nothing wrong with being it, he just wasn’t. Either way, his blabbering list resets her smile and frees them from further deep conversation. She dictates her last instructions and he almost laughs at her. “Plant plans, two days.” He holds up two fingers, why yes he can count, and picks his book up to leave. What is she over packing? Books? Her goodbye is light but clearly dismissive. The spellblade could be thick headed but this wasn’t one of those times. “Until then,” he mimics, hands in his pockets as he goes.