“That’s good,” Ber said in response to both of her explanations as his attention shifted to another container of potion ingredients. Fair men were few and far between, especially, in his opinion, among nobility. While the work itself sounded boring - in terms of menial tasks, taking notes and fetching things was about on par with his work these days - it was nice that she got to be out doing things. “Yeah?” He asked of Morrigan talking business with other boat owners. “How’s he talk to them? He probably meets with a lot of different people from all over. You go with him when he travels?”

An amused exhale. He had never personally met the Morrigan who employed Shannon, but he didn’t have to in order to imagine the scene. Ber had interacted with many nobles, and they were all similar enough anyway, particularly with regards to how they liked to hear themselves talk. All self-important and superior – it didn’t take much to imagine one of them talking for hours about a fishing boat that was functionally identical to the one beside it but just looked a little nicer. “They do prattle on,” He agreed. “And we certainly can’t let them fetch their own refreshments. Imagine the horror.”

A job was a job, however, and it wasn’t as if he had filled his days with anything more exciting lately. Whatever it took to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Certainly no one was going to do that for free – not here, at least. He thought idly of what Zevran had told him of Dresmond before shoving the thought aside.

“What else do you need for your potion?” He asked, returning to the reason that had brought her here in the first place. If they were both stuck here until the rain ended – he, at least, had no intentions of leaving until he could do so without looking like a drowned man – then he could at least try to help her find what she needed.

Ber nodded sagely. “That’s exactly why they require us to do it for them,” He explained, with the air of an elder speaking to a pupil. “Their jewelry weighs them down so much they cannot walk. They only have the strength to talk, point, and look down on the rest of us.” After all, what else did nobility do anyway?

When Shannon listed the remaining ingredients, the soldier nodded. After spending so much time with Temperance, he recalled the names even if his recognition of the plants themselves was a little more uncertain. Chamomile was one of the teas that the apothecary liked to drink, he knew, though he didn’t remember ever seeing it in a not-tea form. Juniper berries were—

Shannon’s own question interrupted his thoughts, and he glanced first out the window, then at her. Head tilting slightly toward the downpour outside, Ber shrugged. “Not like there’s much else to do until that stops anyway. Nettle’s the one that stings, right?”

Though the sarcasm in her voice was not lost on him, Shannon seemed not to mind his admittedly less than inspired reasons for offering his assistance too much – at least, not enough to immediately curse him – so that was good. Even if she had minded, he didn’t think he would have had much more to offer her than a shrug and a half-hearted apology anyway. Given that their interactions had the cordiality of near-strangers, he didn’t think that either of them could reasonably claim to be friends.

Still, he listened attentively as she described the scent of nettle, trying to imagine something that was herbaceous, kind of bitter and salty, but still pleasant like she described and wondering if perhaps he ought to rescind his offer to help anyway. Barely up to identifying various plants by their appearance, Ber certainly wasn’t up to doing so by scent. Luckily, Shannon offered an alternative, which he accepted with a nod. “Chamomile is tiny white flowers,” He repeated. “I can do that.” Turning away, he scanned the shelves both for ingredients that matched that description and any container that might be labeled as such.

Tiny white flowers. Tiny white flowers. He could do that. Silently repeating the description to himself, Ber began searching the shelves for jars whose contents matched that description, and when he found the first in the row of jars, he grinned as success flared in his chest. Removing the jar from the shelf, he turned it in his hand to find the label, only to find the little piece of paper missing entirely. Hesitant now, he looked back at the flowers as if they would reveal to him what kind of flowers they were before looking up to glance around the shop for Shannon— only to notice the second jar of tiny white flowers on the shelf.

Heart sinking, Ber returned the first to its place in favor of picking up the second. The label said ‘Parsley’ and the flowers within looked different from the first, with five white petals surrounding odd, pale yellow centers. Was this what Shannon had meant? Both were tiny white flowers, but they were clearly different, and— Oh no. The second jar was returned as the soldier looked further down the row to see an obscene number of jars with contents that matched the vague description with which Shannon had left him.

As he stared at each, noting the differences and wavering between all of them - of those that were labeled, none read chamomile, and he doubted he could trust the labels anyway - Ber tried to remember if anything else the witch had said could help him differentiate between the equally likely options. Alas, she had left with him nothing more than “tiny white flowers”. Temperance and a dash of common sense had made clear the perils of mixing up ingredients in potions, so with a sigh, he resigned himself to having to ask Shannon for help. He had just started looking around the shop for her, however, when a tiny voice piped up at him from the side.

Ber looked down at the girl and offered a small smile, though his wasn’t missing any teeth. “If you could help, that’d be great,” He said, also quiet, as he bent enough to not be towering over the child. He gestured to the row of jars. “You probably know a lot of your mom runs the shop. I’m looking for some chamomile, but I’m not sure what it looks like.”

After waiting patiently for the small child with the equally short attention span to answer his question, Ber resisted the urge to sigh. Pretty white flowers. He should have seen that one coming.

“I bet they’re really pretty,” He agreed, looking at her with another smile. “There’s a whole row of pretty white flowers right here.” With one arm, he gestured to the shelf of jars. “The hard part is I don’t know which one is chamomile. If I show them to you, could you tell me which one is which?” If she agreed and the shelf was too high for her to see, he would remove the jars from the shelf and place them at a lower height for her perusal.

With a sinking heart, Ber watched as the girl ripped off the label from one jar and stuck it on the other. Utterly unfamiliar with the flowers in each, he had no idea if she had corrected the problem, made a new one, or simply moved the tag from one incorrect jar to another. Needless to say, he now had a suspect for why the ingredients in this shop were so uselessly labeled.

His smile took on a slightly pained quality as he took the jar from the child and looked inside. “These are very pretty,” Ber agreed, crouching down again beside her. “But I’m looking for chamomile, remember?” Setting the jar back on the shelf, he quickly surveyed the other ones for pair of jars with white flowers that looked the least similar. Then he grabbed those two, one with flowers that had many small petals and another filled with those who had fewer petals, and crouched down again, showing both to the girl. “Does chamomile look more like this or like this?” As he spoke, he indicated each jar in turn by lifting it slightly in his hand.