Talent Squandered: Potions?

[breeevil]

A very easily lead and happy lamb.

At least she was. Raia was about to say something about how it would make more sense to let the people who work at the Inquisitory have pets because pets make people happy but they can also make people super nervous. It seems people would be more willing to answer bunches of questions if there was a giant drooling menace of a dog pacing in front of or behind them with big teeth and glowy eyes and some kind of raspy breathing you only run into in the woods at night.
Then again, the Inquisitory sounds worse than it is, right? So maybe the furry beast of burden being absent from the place was for the best.

But she didn't get to say any of those things because Mary asks a question about -what-. And the question about what wipes the smile off of Raia's face so quickly it could have never been there to begin with. The question leaves her stumbling over her own two feet and blinking at the Junior Inquisitor, stopping where she regained her balance.
They had records on her.. so maybe someone just over heard her say that she went places to learn. She had talked about it with so many people.. Zilliah, Endy, Gloria.. maybe even more people, but she couldn't remember everything.
Or maybe this girl was like Endy and she just kind of knew what Raia was babbling about in her brain.
Or maybe it was just totally obvious that Raia was a professional student above all else because she is never sure how to handle a conversation and often comes off as socially inept.

"A lot of things." She says quietly, and nods. "How to make a net with only two knots. Uhm.. how to pluck a leaf from a plant and grow a brand new one. To tie my shoes.." She points at her boots, even though they don't have laces. "And about coins. I left there after I learned about coins and how to trade them for things instead of other things. For things. And stuff."
This is not an attempt at confusing anyone, herself included. But she does looks little lost after that, with her lips pursed and twisted to the side and her eyes squinted and rolled up towards the sky. One hand scratches the top of her head to complete to baffled look. "Is.. is that was the records say?"

[Glenn]

It was a pretty paltry record. Dulcie ran a tight ship, but the Dagger wait staff had such a turn around that occasionally they could slip someone in with her girls, someone who'd be willing to trade tales for money. Bits and pieces could be picked up here and there. Endymion hated to be called a demon. Elliot Brown had some sort of magic weapon in months past. Niall drank much more hard alcohol than she had before. Interesting tidbits about the Whelp girl. More often than not, they ended up with just enough information to confuse them more.

This was case in point. They knew next to nothing about her potions themselves, but they knew that.

It led Mary to laugh at the end of it. Is that what the records say? "The records don't say much, Miss Raia. They say that you might have made boys into girls and girls into boys once. They do say that you talk to a fern, yes." That added almost as an afterthought. "Do you get older? Are you learning for a reason? Don't you worry that you're learning to slow if you're getting older? I always worry that I'm learning too slow."

[breeevil]

Normally Raia would join in laughing because that's what one does when they're confused and a little worried. This time she doesn't.. her lips stay pressed together, her brows remain furrowed.

"I didn't do that." She says, shaking her head. "I don't remember if I told anyone I didn't do it.. I think I did. But I didn't do that. I don't know what did that." She does know that some people had not turned into boys or girls instead of girl or boys and she was glad for it because some people would have been really, really mad.
Mention of the fern does put a little smile on her face, "That.. yes. I do talk to my fern. His name is Ferny and he is my best friend. But I can talk to more than just him.. plants. I mean. I talk to trees and flowers and shrubs and things." A nod.

Then she does laugh. "Of course I get older. Until I got here I never knew people could not get older. There's a lot of people here like that, though. Like Endymion. He isn't going to get older I don't think, but I know he can look different because he doesn't look like a Monk anymore. So maybe he'll just look different later." Her train of thought screeches to a halt, there, though, and she has clearly confused herself again. And it's a long moment blinking at Mary for her to remember the next question.
"Uhm.. I learn stuff because I'm not that smart. So really it's kind of like anything that I can get to stick in my brain is a good thing.. so they said I should just never stop because then I'll always have sticky things. To find, I mean. Not laying around or something." She shrugs. "Some things are easier to understand or.. or learn than other things. It took me a month once to figure out how to get the hair off a sheep, but I learned the way around the forest here in just a couple days. I'm sure you learned the way to the Inquisitory quickly.. that counts."

[Glenn]

"We traced it back to some sort of liquid agent," Mary sighed, but just a little. It was a strange thought, an unsettling thought, to have everything you were changed. That was only physical though. The ripples going through Myrken Wood were something else entirely. She knew which would be worse but that didn't make either particularly pleasant. "There was very reason to think it was you. Since it was a pretty small thing, just one place over a few days, there just weren't the resources to trace it down further. I think the Governor found it amusing."

Her mentioning the fern causes a rather bemused look to cross her face. "Does the fern feel the same way about you as you do about it? I mean, it's just that I could see someone deciding to be friends with something that's not like them, but sometimes it's hard for that other thing to feel the same way too. How did you learn to talk to plants anyway?" It was best to humor the person in this case. In Myrken, they actually could do what they said about 60% of the time.

She talked about learning and things sticking and, even as they were approaching the inquisitory, she had to ask. "The school's right over there, though. I'm sure Miss Olwak would be glad to teach you things."

[breeevil]

A liquid something in the bottles of liquid somethings behind the bar, from what Raia understood. That's what the pirates had said. And after they'd said it, they drank. And changed. But Niall didn't. The potion maker nods a bit, "Oh, I never blame people for blaming me for things. I'm so clumsy and, well, dumb.. really I understand the whys." A shrug, again. She goes back to her careful steps, one foot in front of the other, arms held out at her sides for balance that she shouldn't be having to grab for. "He wasn't the only one." She says, giggling a bit again. "To find it funny, I mean." Another shrug.
Should she feel so stressed out? She'd been just fine prancing down the street with Mary not even that long ago, but something has her heart beating too hard now. Maybe she should have not mentioned the lack of questions. What if someone else did ask her the same thing and she forgets what she did tell Mary and says something else and then it's going to be like one of those books. OFF WITH HER HEAD!

Raia clears her throat, fingers poking around to make sure she is not, in fact, only keeping her head on her shoulders with hopes and dreams.

"He does. Ferny, he does. He says it is better than still being in the dirt, to be with me, and he likes when we brew things. He says it's fun to help me remember things, too.. he used to make games of it but I think he's been very tired since we got here and he died and then someone made him green again. And then his pot broke. But we got a new one.. so.." Another nod. She confused herself again, but tries not to let that bit show.. continuing to focus on the ground in front of her.

"They say I'm half a druid. It's been that way for a long time. The plants don't really like me because I'm not ALL druid and because I can't turn into a bear or a deer or whatever they usually turn into and stuff, and I can't just make things grow, like other druids. Because half." Again, she nods. And her eyes pull away from the ground to look at the school and she smiles a bit, "Hmm. I thought about going and talking to her.. but I'm old. And she works with children and she is very busy. Teachers get very frustrated with me, see? Because I'm not sticky enough under my skull.. and it would be not good to frazzle the Governor's lady. And I've been busy, too." Wedding stuff. Friend stuff.
"Does she teach you? Or did you get all of your sticking from somewhere in the North?" That's the question she manages to ask, even if the one burning her tongue is are we there yet?

[Glenn]

She hadn't been behind the gender switching. That was pretty much the one thing they had thought she had been behind. She could hardly imagine how the talk with Giuseppe was going to go. Thankfully, she didn't need to be in the room for that. She tried to force a smile as she talked about it, and pirates, and then about the fern. Maybe they could plant a tree somewhere that they wanted to hear things and she could talk to it later? Somehow, she didn't think it was that easy.

Finally, though, they were there. The front door. "I'm sure Lady Olwak could stick all sorts of things in your head." She said, though then softened somewhat. "If you wanted to remember things, she'd be the person to go to. I think she does want to help people," sometimes at least. "I think if you went to her looking for help, it'd be different than her thinking that you needed help on your own and deciding what that help should be." She knew Raia didn't understand, but that was alright. She'd go or she wouldn't. Maybe Giuseppe would make her, independently.

She opened the door for Raia, revealing a long room full of desks where people who looked like they very much belonged there quickly jotted down this or that or combed through pages of a book very quickly. All heads shot up at once as she entered and most looked back down with some sign of recognition and dismissal. "It's just this way," Mary said, not unkindly, as she started towards the back of the room. "I had to teach myself, Miss Raia. There was no one to do the sticking for me."

[breeevil]

How often was it that someone was innocent of something they were suspected of doing in Myrken? Raia didn't think it would be very often and was rather happy, if she was being honest, that this was not the first time she could say that she was on the 'not guilty' side of things around here.
Mary was lucky, really, that she did not actually suggest the planting of a tree around the potion maker.

"Maybe that's what I'm worry about." She says, in an offhanded and overly-quiet kind of way, eyes moving around that door. Big Witch. Someone had called her that once. Not Raia, not Rhaena. And damned if she can remember who said it.. it might have been some drunkard at the bar, but all she knew for sure was that it was -not- Endymion who had called the Governor's Lady such a thing. Big Witch. Eyes move from the door to Mary and she blinks, one brow lofted. "Is that what normal teachers do? Decide when people need help and how?" Raia knew the answer to this question, at least the answer that would be given in most of the rest of the world, but she asked it anyway. Big Witch.

When the door opens, Raia turns away from it for a moment to look down the street. To look back where they had come, but her smile only fades away when she does look inside.. when she does see the people and their writing and their quick looks for her. There is a nod before she follows after Mary.. maybe she would have just tossed a vial to the ground to get away if it wasn't for the fact that this girl, this Junior Inquisitor, was -one of those people.-

"At least you've uhm.. you've done a good job, right? That's something to be very proud of, to learn everything on your own. I would have wound up tending piggies and chickens if it wasn't for the people who made.. make.. me learn. You say teach like you're all done with it. Are you all done learning things now?" She thinks for a moment before asking, "Is this a school, too?" Because that is what desks and books usually mean.

[Glenn]

"Maybe." Mary answered. Normal teachers. They never had too many of those in Myrken. "They have to decide what's worth teaching, decide what's worth knowing, even decide what's true. I think in some ways, a teacher makes reality more than anyone! There's no real book to guide them. Not with reading, maybe, or arithmetic, but in everything else." She spoke softly, because while her views were pretty good, she knew to parade them around in this building would just lead to ridicule. "That's semantics though. I'll tell you what semantics means later. It's a lot of what gets argued here."

They walked down the long path between the desks. "if it's a school, it's one that studies Myrken. It's not really that, though. It's part of the government. And, i do learn things, but I mainly apply what I've already learned. That's the point of learning, sometimes at least, to be able to use it in your everyday life, I think." There was a pause as she knocked upon Giuseppe's door, as a gruff response emanated through the wood. "So yeah, I did my job and here you are. Good luck." She opened the door, whispering. "You'll probably need it."

[breeevil]

Maybe. Everything was maybe. "I guess.. but teaching something false is begging for disaster later when those children are grown and stuff, right? When they figure out if things were wrong.. or something." The walk had been fine but now, being in here and hearing the paper, she felt a bit weirded out, the top of her bag twisting between her fingers while she intentionally keeps her eyes on Mary and not on the other people.
Semantics. The promised definition is nodded to, and totally needed because Raia has no idea what that word means and she doubts she is going to want to ask Endymion later. The fact that the semantics are argued, though.. almost makes her not want to know.

Apply what she had already learned. Raia was not so good at that, something that came with having a bad memory. Yes she could read and write, she could do math, she could make a potion to keep someone warm from things like bits of cookie and a candle and just a few other things. But she could not do things like strategize or make plans based on the actions of her past. The fact that she had never been around more than a couple of people at a time, before coming to Myrken at least, was also not a point in her favor in terms of using what she knows, either.
Raia is dumb. She knows it. It's okay.

Her mouth opens to say something else.. something about applied learning and Myrken schools and schools about Myrken but Mary is knocking. And whispering things about luck. "I don't think I'll need it." She says, forcing the smile back to her lips. Before she even looks in the door, let alone moves through it, she reaches out to wrap Mary in a loose, and fast, hug.. if the Junior Inquisitor will allow it, that is. Because Mary just looks like she needs a hug.
Only -then- will Raia look for this Giuseppe person, stepping through the door, with her bright smile still plastered to her face, "Hi! I'm Raia.."

[Glenn]

"Apparently truth is relative. The governor used to go on about how we make our own truth all the time, and how," she coughed a little and shifted her voice to make some sort of impression that wouldn't mean anything to the woman she was speaking to. "we work with what we have and we do whatever works." Mary nodded, satisfied with her obvious talent in this area. She had a few moments to be pleased with herself before the hug turned her red. Another embarrassing moment in front of her peers, the eternal lot of Mary Ford.

Raia's interactions quickly went from red to white, for there he was, sitting in Burnie's own chair, the Southerner, wine-glass in front of him, filled, papers stacked neatly in three stacks before him, clad in quite possibly the nicest white suit of clothing she'd ever seen, looking young and vital, save perhaps for the eyes, which occasionally darted this way and that. "Do you know, Raia, that I cannot think I've seen anyone so happy to see me in a good long while? Years." Perhaps Mary bribed her to come here with the promise of candy and she was expecting that now? Or a pony? "Sit down and then we can see if we can either widen that smile or wipe it off your face completely, yes?" The chair across from him was surprisingly comfy though not nearly as broken in as it ought to have been.

[breeevil]

Poor Mary. There were such good intentions behind that hug, too.

White. It was a color Raia liked to stay away from. She spilled many things like -wine- and ink, she ran around in the woods.. dug in dirt and climbed in trees. It's that suit that gives her more pause than anything because it would be bad, so bad, to spill something on that. Strange things happened around her, after all.

"That's a shame." She says, releasing the bag from her grasp so it can swing and so she can fold her hands in front of her. As her head tilts to the side her hair falls from it's knot and tumbles down her back, and she thinks to herself what good timing that was because it must have her looking less like a crazy person to not have a big red blob on top of her head. "Have you tried smiling more? Or.. or they sell sweet smelling oils you can put where your pulses are. Maybe people will look happier to see you if you smell like a flower or a piece of something yummy." It had worked for others, why not him.
No bribing. But now that she is thinking about it, maybe it would have been wise to leave a more detailed note for Endymion. Errands.. the parchment had said. That could mean anything.. and it definitely didn't mean I'm at the Inquisitory, help me if I'm not home for breakfast.

Raia nods a bit, turning to glance at the door over her shoulder as she moves for the chair. A more normal person might have perched on the edge of it or even hovered above the seat. But not Raia. She flops down in the chair across from him like they're old friends having a drink, one of her legs crosses over the other and she leans her head back.. smile continuing to shine flawlessly. "They should have more chairs like this at the inn." She nods, ignoring what she thinks is a question that she's not actually supposed to answer. "The Broken Dagger, I mean. Have you been there? I'm sure you've been there.. you live here. Not here." She motions around them, sure he doesn't live in this office. "But in Myrken. Or maybe you.. do.. live here.." She should be quiet and it takes too long to realize that.
"Does it bother you when people smile a lot?" Why else would he want to wipe it off her face completely?

[Glenn]

The odd woman speaks.

Words flit freely from her face.

Entropy lingers.

Giuseppe stared at her as she spoke. It was quite the sight. He waited until she was done, but did not give her a moment longer lest she start up once more. "I should invite Miss Ford back in for a drink. She likely needs it. No matter. I applaud your attempts at conversation and in fact, would be almost happy to retrieve the Governor just so that I could watch the two in a room trying to outtalk one another, yes? We could charge money," and then charge extra from the crowd to have both of them riddled with arrows at the end.

He then summarily ignored all of her questions. Somehow, he didn't think she'd mind. She might not even notice. "Did Miss Ford tell you why you were here? If not, why do you think you were here?" He was smiling at her, for what it was worth, though it was a languid, relaxed thing, hardly bright like hers.

[breeevil]

She speaks too much. All the time. It's a wonderful defense mechanism, really, and she has found that it keeps the people only seeking bad things far away from her. Bad people tend to lack the patience to deal with her stupidity, all her questions about anything she can think up to ask about. All the silly suggestions she will make for things that are far more complicated to fix than she can, or will, or admit to, understanding.

His words, though, are not answers to her questions or even anything relating to what she'd said. Rather, it seems he is mocking her like most people do. Sometimes it's offensive, but with this man? Giuseppe? She'll take it and be glad for it. When people say things like that, it means they know they are better than you. Or smarter, or just something more in general than she is. It's okay for him to know that. She has a feeling his words would be less kind, and his actions would be bigger, if he thought differently. if he thought that way at all.

She waits for him to stop talking. Waits for him to ask her something before she speaks, but it's not the question that she answers first.
"Don't they call that debate? I'm sure the governor would win, he must have done it before. As long as the money is admission money and not betting money, though, I think you would make out pretty well." She laughs, her shoulders lifting a bit and one hand comes to cover her mouth as if she would like to hide the mirth.
And then Raia nods a bit, looking down at her hands, at her bag, and still she smiles.. glad that the cramping that used to creep to her cheeks after she beamed so brightly for so long had gone away many many moons ago. She could do this for hours. It was like her own 'quiet game'. She always lost that one, but in a contest of smiles she would always win.

"To talk. That's all it should be, a talk." She repeats Mary's words as close as she can, blinking at her fingers a couple of times before looking to Giuseppe again. "Isn't that why you appreciate my attempts at conversation?" Intentionally misunderstood, his words were, and her question did hold genuine confusion.. not a hint of sarcasm. Save, maybe, for the fact that she still smiles.

[Glenn]

"I don't know if I'd say it would be a debate necessarily," she was a rarity, a strange creature the likes of which Myrken rarely saw, a female that he did not sweettalk and call names. Even the ugly ones he tended to do that with. Even the elderly, he found something. She, though? A dull lingering pain through the temples. Still, he would persevere. "More of a.. how-do-you say.. ah, Raia, it hardly matters. You've walked all the way from the Dagger So let us focus."

He needed to focus. He ought to call Mary back in, perhaps use her as an intermediary. Maybe she'd learn something in their walk. The girl was rough but she had her uses. It was too early to tell whether or not Raia would as well. "Do you like it here, Raia? Here in Myrken? I won't lie to you." For some reason, lying to her just seemed like a backfire waiting to happen. "This is a talk, yes, but it is to test the waters. I want to know about your potions, what you can make, what they can do, how they can help people. I understand that your potions are not conventional, yes? They are like you. Unique."

[breeevil]

She was really waiting to hear what it would be called, if not a debate, but there is no disappointment on her face. She'll just ask someone later. Well maybe she wont, because this conversation might be best to keep to herself. She'll see.

Focus. Not her strong suit, she does tend to lose track of things quickly and keeping a steady conversation is taxing.. and not for her. Raia's foot bobs in the air while he speaks, her eyes moving again to her bag in her hands. While he asks his questions about liking it here and her potions. If she was being honest she would say no, she wasn't very thrilled with Myrken, but that would be rude.
Raia is anything but rude.

"I'm still getting used to it here, I think. There are lots of people and lots of stuff happens here and it's hard to keep up with it, you know? But it's a very nice place and I.. I do like it. Yes. Usually." As honest as she can be. And then she nods, giggling a bit. "I guessed." More nodding. She guessed it would be about her bottles, about what she can make and do. She assumed it because it didn't take Mary much time at all to bring up something that could have been her fault. If this had been about anything else, nothing about the potential boy and girl disaster at the Inn wouldn't have come up.
Assumptions. But right ones.

There is a small sigh, as if she is gearing up for a long winded speech. She could make so many things. She could give people music in their ears, or give horses wings. She had potions to find something that has been lost or lead you to someone who has wronged you. "I don't know if I'd say they're unique.. but I also don't really understand what you mean by -not conventional-." No magic was normal or easy to follow for Raia. Giuseppe probably had a way better grip on other peoples abilities than she would ever dream of having. "I have a book, but it's not with me, that has my lists in it. I don't make poison, and I've never had much luck with things to heal and they don't.. the brews don't work on everyone. I have potions to.. mend something broken, to summon a friend.. to get away. There are ones for finding someone who is guilty of something and to.. to leave you unseen. I make many things, Mister Giuseppe." She just keeps smiling.