Chapter 54

Full Bloom

Hawkin

Brewer’s Reputation: 260,781

Dream Cutter Stone Shard Quest: 1/15,000 shards.

Mash Master, level 1300. 701 levels away from gold rank.

Year after year, I would melt snow over a fire which would be my source of fresh water during the winter. This morning, instead of my old tradition of it, I used my Mash Master skill to quickly melt the snow. I worked around the firepit, scooping up snow with the blade of my axe and adding it to my floating Brewer’s Bubble. Scoop after scoop, until I amassed 15.5 gallons of water before storing it in a fresh sapling bound barrel.

Thrush and Barnacle-eyes were across the way, hidden by the rows of goldenrods flecked with snowflakes and beyond the pastel cosmos. I smelled fresh smoke from Thrush’s smoker. Abigail smelled it too and couldn’t help herself from asking for a piece. She returned to the firepit empty handed and said, “not ready yet.”

“He smokes them whole so it’s going to take a while.”

“Fresh water?” Abigail said after I used my cooper’s hammer to drive the head back on the barrel.

“They’re going to need fresh water,” I said. “Well Barnacle-eyes will.”

I heaved the barrel on its side and rolled it off to the side. I began collecting more snow and using Brewer’s Bubble and Mash Master.

“Have you seen the fourrure flowers?” Abigail said. “They’re really opening up.”

“More than yesterday?”

“Come.”

I guided Brewer’s Bubble over to where the asters grew and let the flowers have the water I’d just collected. Then I followed Abigail as she disappeared down a walk path. We wound around tall black cohosh until arriving at the fourrure blancs. They were higher, reaching for the top of the sheltering bubble. Each vine held thousands of flowers. I hadn’t seen them since yesterday and it felt like I’d missed a whole month of their growth.

Each of the flowers were as long as hawk’s feathers and as thick as snowballs. They were furry and downy, and moved with the slightest passing breath of air. To keep them still, I had to hold my breath. Snowflakes appeared matte against the bright white of the fourrure petals.

Seeing these for the first time would make for a fantastic golden chapter ale. I wanted to share this beauty. The gentle movement, the slow float of the furry leaves entranced me. These flowers were loved. How else could they seem to come alive, reach into my soul, and unburden the heart of life’s hardship—even for a moment? They entered my eyes, that’s how they filled me. I could only be as equally entranced with Abigail and the work and labor she gave in tending to such beautiful plants. Nothing could be more entrancing.

Abigail smiled a new smile. An expression I’d never seen from her before. I couldn’t place what type of happiness it was. It almost reminded me of Dellia’s joy when she showed me how Landmark ales worked on the ethereal plane. An uninhibited portal from which her very heart—her true nature—could show itself.

Abigail gestured to the fourrure flowers like I should be seeing them. She said, “aren’t they enchanting?”

“Enchanting. That’s the word.”

I touched one of the flowers. It took me several tries to realize I was in fact touching them and not moving my hand through hard air. I couldn’t believe how fast they flowered. Those that I passed my hand through dropped a few tufts that journeyed to the ground. I crouched to pick the tufts up, taking soil with them.

They swayed like cracked gold foil in my palm, rooted by a pool of soil. They would blend well with the similar white flowers of the black cohosh on my ethereal plane. I could have them vine on the oak and mix with the moss. It would forever rain leaves and tufts of fourrure there.

“They’re supposed to shed,” Abigail said as I rose, still cupping the fallen tufts. “Corylus will be pleased how much these have bloomed. By the gods, I dearly love flowers. Something about them. Their fragrances. The colors. They just feel good to be around. To smell. To see. To plant.”

Abigail crouched to the base of the vines. She picked at the evading tufts that seemed so sensitive to movement, that even the tick of a passing second startled them like a rumor of wind. But she caught them, still. Her care in the fourrure blancs was evident. It was evident in the flowers all around us. I wished I could give her more opportunities to grow flowers. She’d been looking for spots around the sheltering bubble, trying to squeeze plants in. If she could garden on something as expansive as ethereal planes, that would be a nice gift to her. A proper thank you for all that she’s done to help me become a greater Brewer.

Not a moment later, I brewed an ethereal landmark ale using the fourrure blanc tufts with the bit of soil in my palm. Separating them would have lost me the tufts. The recipe was a rye ale and after using my Alchemical Control skill, Abigail looked up when the implosion in Brewer’s Bubble drew her attention.

I told her, “I’d love to see how these turn out on the ethereal plane.”

“I’d like to come with you,” she said.

“I’d like that. Maybe we can grow something there together. You can help me. Cabbages. Cardoons. Potatoes.”

“Worried about food?”

“I’ve been distracted.”

“By me?”

“Everything. Thrush. Barnacle-eyes. Ranking up. Brewing. …and yes, you.”

“The last thing I want to be is a distraction.”

“I’m ok being distracted. As long as I compensate with more foraging and fishing.”

“I’ll help,” she said.

“I’d be happy to have you. I know where the pear-bolete’s grow every start of winter.”

We pulled ourselves away from the flowers. We walked away with tufts clinging silently to our clothes, melting into the fabric. Abigail went to dress for cold weather, and I donned my coat. After meeting at the trail bordered by marigolds that went north, we sipped a waterskin of warm warm beer and left the sheltering bubble. We followed the trail for nearly an hour. We veered off trail before passing by a cleaved, rotten log. The hemlock’s grew there and their branches reached into each other’s boughs. We hunted until we found the pear-boletes growing from the forest floor. They were green like goblin skin and stained with the colors of a rising sun. There were enough to make a city for small chipmunks. After collecting six bushels of pear-boletes, we returned home.

Abigail helped me hang them in baskets over the stove in my cabin. While they dried, we began to smell the faint aromas of mushroom and pear. We shared chicory tea and talked shop for the rest of the afternoon until we both began to yawn.

After she left, I left my front door open and sat on the edge of my bed. There was one more thing I wanted to do before going to sleep. I wanted to use my new Landmark ale on my ethereal plane. So I sipped my Beyond the Cabin ale.