Basil plucks the single flower off of the top of the large, richly green bundle of leaves and sets it to the side, down onto the workbench. “It’s important that you move your arm in a circular motion when you’re crushing it,” explains Basil. “Look, like this,” says the priestess, grabbing the mortar and spinning it around the pestle in a slow, clockwise motion. “That helps the oils separate themselves better from the leaves.” Fresh nods, staring down at the bowl that Basil is holding down against the table. “Don’t get too close, this one smells a bit like gunk.”

Fresh blinks, moving in a little closer and then she recoils, wincing as the scent finds her. “Iagh! Ew!” she says, rubbing her nose. “Basil! It smells so gross.”

“Mhm,” replies Basil. “You know?” she asks, tapping the mortar against the edge of the bowl a few times. “You’ll find that the most bitter herbs are the most useful for medicine, for some reason.”

“Huh?” asks Fresh, tilting her head. “Are there any good tasting ones that are healthy?”

“Oh, sure,” says Basil. “Mentha for example.” Fresh nods. They had been using the mint-like plant for a while for their candies and ice-creams. “It has great properties if you’re sick with a stuffy nose.” Grabbing a little spoon, she scoops the brownish-green goo out of the mortar and sets it into a separate bowl. “But as a rule of thumb, bitter herbs that you can’t eat often find their use in alchemy instead.”

“Hmm…” Fresh looks at the bowl of sludge. “I dunno, Basil. If they were good for us, then why did the universe make them taste bad?”

The priestess smiles, pressing down a laugh. “When I was a girl, I was told that the gods made them that way on purpose,” she explains. “So that we wouldn’t waste them, you know? So that they would always be around when we fall ill.” Basil takes another bowl, taking a spoonful of the green pulp and mixing it in, together with some water.

“Aww,” says Fresh, looking at Basil while doing her best to ignore the bad smell of the herbs in the room. “That’s a really cute story, Basil!” exclaims Fresh. “Did your family tell you that?” she asks, thinking for only a split second after the words leave her mouth. Fresh blinks. Shit. “Ah! I’m sorry!” she quickly adds on, catching her own mistake. “I wasn’t thinking,” apologizes Fresh, waiting to get yelled at for having said an insensitive thing once more without thinking. Basil grew up as an orphan, after all.

Basil shakes her head. “I got sick a lot, after I arrived in the church’s care,” she explains. “Most of the children do. Usually most arrive from troubled circumstances as is and it’s cold in the quarters and there isn’t much to eat.”

“Oh,” replies Fresh. She of course already knew that, the eating part at least. Basil had explained as much to her once before. But she doesn’t really know what else to say, so she leaves it at that.

“Yeah,” says Basil. “That’s why most of us get some kind of gathering sub-class,” she explains. “You need it, if you want to find food.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, this here is called goldenseal,” she says, pointing at the goopy herb.

“Because of the flower?” asks Fresh, looking at the long stalk of broad leaves left on the side, that has a single, golden flower sitting atop it.

Basil nods. “Because of the flower.” She lifts the flower up, holding it to her nose and taking a deep smell of it, before holding it over to Fresh who bends her head down forward, warily taking a smell of it too.

“Oh!” says Fresh, surprised, her nose twitching. “That smells really nice!”

“Yes,” replies Basil. “The leaves are bitter,” she explains, nodding to the bowls of goo. “But the flower is very fragrant and rich. It makes a great tea that helps if you have a bladder infection.”

“Neat,” says Fresh. “But doesn’t that go against the bad-smell, good-medicine rule?”

“It’s not a rule,” laughs Basil. “It’s just… a generalization.”

Fresh nods. “What about the goo?” she asks, looking at the bowl that Basil had set aside with the single spoonful of green mush.

“Ah, that’s our bitter,” says Basil, setting the flower down to the side. “See, the leaves of the goldenseal are great if you have an infected wound, especially one that’s begun to swell in an unsightly manner.”

“So you just smear it on?” asks Fresh.

“Well, in principle. But like this, it will go bad by tomorrow,” explains the priestess. “So we need to add some salts and some fats and put it into a dark container,” she says. “That will give us another two to three weeks on the shelves,” says Basil. “Longer if we keep them cold, like in one of your cabinets.” She reaches over to the side. “Do you remember this?” she asks, holding out a familiar flower.

Fresh stares at the thing. It’s the same flower she herself had gathered to make Basil’s medicine once, back when the priestess had come down with a cold in the west. “Ah!” Fresh hits her fist into her open palm. “It’s echinacea!” she says with a prideful smile on her face.

“Mhm!” Basil nods, delighted. “This herb is a very potent medicine for things like colds and fevers.” She sets another bowl to the side, scooping out another spoonful of the original green mush and then hands Fresh the flower. “Break this apart into there, will you?” Fresh nods, taking the flower and starts ripping it apart into small pieces. Basil goes on. “So.” She taps the one bowl that Fresh is hovering over. “This bowl of goldenseal, we’re going to mix with the echinacea and it’s going to be a very strong cold medicine.”

“Mm!” nods Fresh.

Basil taps the other, original bowl. “This one, we’re going to be adding fats and salts to, in order to make a salve.”

“Okay!” says Fresh. “Thanks for taking the time to show me all of this, Basil!”

“Of course,” replies the priestess. “It’s what friends do, isn’t it?” Fresh nods. Basil had always been able to be more open about her feelings than Jubilee or the entirely uncommunicative Shamrock.

“Do you think we could have been friends if I did manage to become a priestess, back then?” asks Fresh.

Basil laughs. “There isn’t much time to make friends at the cathedral,” she says. “But I think we would have managed.” She shakes her head, grabbing a bottle of oil. “It’s better this way though,” says Basil. “There are hundreds of priests and priestesses in the cathedral. But now, I only have to share you with Jubilee and Shamrock,” she says, entirely shamelessly. She looks over, seeing that Fresh has finished tearing apart the flower. “Okay, now stir that around,” she instructs, handing her the spoon. “That being said, I’m sure you would have done a good job. You certainly have the spirit for it,” says Basil.

“Honestly, living in the church sounds kind of sad, Basil,” says Fresh. “I think I’d cry a lot.”

“But you cry a lot now too?” asks the priestess.

Fresh sighs. “I can’t help it. I’m just super emotional,” she says. “I don’t know why.”

Basil shakes her head. “Try to keep that,” she says. “Too many people lose that on the way and by the time they get where they’re going, they don’t even feel joy anymore.”

“I think it is because I cry a lot though,” theorizes Fresh.

“You think?” asks Basil and Fresh nods.

“Yeah, I think so. Every time I get really sad or really happy, I just kind of feel it, you know? Until I’m done feeling it and then, after that, everything is better.”

Basil thinks for a moment. “There may be something to that,” she considers. “You can’t carry your spiritual burdens around with you, if you don’t accumulate them to begin with.”

“Right?” asks Fresh. “I wish we could watch a sad drama and eat ice-cream and cry together, Basil. I bet it would be a lot of fun!”

“Oh!” says Basil, surprised. “Well, in that case, there’s a theater here in the city we can go to?” she asks. “I’ve never actually been to one, honestly.”

Fresh gasps. “That’s a great idea, Basil!” exclaims Fresh.

“Really?” asks Basil, apparently surprised at her reaction.

“Yeah!” replies Fresh. “It’s probably just gonna be the two of us though,” she says, pondering. “We can’t take Shamrock to a place like that with the soldiers everywhere and Jubilee doesn’t seem like a theater type.”

“Oh… no…” says Basil, not sounding as sad as Fresh had expected her to.

She pops her head out of the door to the workshop. “Jubilee? Do you want to go to the theater sometime?”

Jubilee stares up at her from their book, lowering their gaze back down into again without saying a word. Fresh frowns. “I guess that’s a ‘no’ then.” She closes the door. “Looks like it’s just gonna be us then, Basil!” She says, looking back at the priestess who is smelling the flower again.

“I’ll look forward to it then,” smiles the priestess back at her.