bethen avilla ; the circle mage (bethe) wrote in thedas,
"Well, I'm no botanist," Beth shrugged, though somewhat flattered that he thought of her as knowledgeable on the subject when she had barely seen as much of the outside world as he had. Possibly even less, if one were to take into account that he'd traveled roads she'd only seen labeled on maps. But she had read many books and seen many diagrams and illustrations, knew the scientific names and genus of species and so on and so forth from herbalism lessons, but she hadn't held a real, fresh branch in her hand since she was a child and hadn't the faintest idea what to actually do with one aside from try to use it in a potion. And yet, he was looking to her for advice, and she was never one to turn down a request for aid. She tapped a finger on her chin in thought, "Perhaps you could wrap the branch with something pretty? Hmm. I...might have a bit of left over fabric in my room that I can fetch."
It had seemed far too wasteful to simply throw away the robes that had been torn only a few days ago in her conflict with the other mage; they were unwearable and a little stained with dirt, but she didn't have the heart to just dispose of them. It now seemed to be good forethought to wash the cloth and fold it for storage. The yellow silk would look nice set against the viridian leaves and wound around the dark twigs. Another thought occurred to her, though it wasn't as immediate a solution, "If we had more time, you could preserve some of the leaves by pressing them between a book and some added weight. But it takes a few weeks to allow them to dry, and you don't really have that long."
"Still," she continued to ponder, "if we found you an empty book, maybe she could carry it with her until they do dry? Then she would have something that lasts longer than this branch, and she could add more leaves on her journeys if she wanted to." Of course, there was no telling if this Falina (whom she'd heard about from Coan a little earlier, but Rhocanth was the first dwarf she had officially met) would really appreciate carrying something like that around with her. Bethen liked books of all kinds, but others were far less keen on collecting them as she was, even if this one wasn't meant for reading. She let the idea go, and began to walk back in the direction she had come from, indicating that he should follow, "But for now, we can make you a nice ribbon. I'm sure someone must have scissors laying around here, somewhere."