Ber could clearly see the pride and excitement written in every line of the girl’s little frame. Well, that made one of them. With a sinking feeling, he suspected that her hesitation while studying the two jars in his hands did not bode well for the answer he would receive, and the reiteration that both were pretty did not disappoint. Ber let out a quiet breath. The friendly smile had frozen on his face.

“Yes,” He agreed again, wondering belatedly if he could trust anything the girl had said or if she had simply been judging the flowers off of personal appeal this entire time. “They’re both pretty.” Pretty tiring to look at. Tiny white flowers. They would be the death of him. Still kneeling in front of the girl, he glanced around now for Shannon and saw her investigating a jar of presumably-not-chamomile. Maybe she was having better luck than he was. Ber turned back to the girl. “Since you’re being so helpful,” He said, working to keep his tone light. “Can I ask what your name is?”

Provided that they were above a certain level of functionality – walking, talking, and old enough to have developed some amount of common sense – Ber had never particularly minded children, but in the years since he’d entered the military, he had clearly forgotten the amount of patience necessary for interacting with them. “That’s a very nice name for a very nice girl,” He said, resisting the urge to ask if her mother happened to be available to help him right now. “My name’s Ber.” As she removed the label from another jar, he watched as the little slip of paper fell dejectedly to the ground much like his hopes for finding chamomile easily and quickly.

Hazel looked supremely satisfied with herself. Ber couldn’t relate.

“Well, Hazel,” He began, looking back at her and resigning himself to his fate. “I know someone else who I’m sure would really like to look at the pretty flowers, too.” Still crouched down beside her, the soldier turned and pointed to Shannon. “See that woman over there? Why don’t you go bring her over here so she can also look at the pretty flowers with us?”

If the girl did so, as soon as her back was turned, Ber would finally give in, cover his face with his hands, and let out a long-suffering sigh.

By the time Hazel had brought Shannon back with her, Ber had recovered his composure. Still crouching, he had his forearms resting across his knees and fingers loosely laced together, but as the two approached him, he looked up, put one hand down to the floor, and pushed himself to his feet. While Hazel swooshed her skirt with enough enthusiasm that the height of its hem was rivaled only by the jar of flowers that she waved in Shannon’s face moment’s later, Ber crossed his arms and gave the witch his most unimpressed stare over the child’s head.

“Tiny white flowers?” He mouthed, the words soundless but pointed. A rude gesture, flashed when the girl wouldn’t see, accompanied them. The amusement written across her face only confirmed what he had started to suspect the moment he’d realized that multiple ingredients fit the remarkably vague description she’d given him.

The girl turned back with the second prettiest jar of flowers and a question that had him breaking his silent conversation with Shannon to look at Hazel. “No,” He told her, shaking his head before returning his gaze to the former soldier. Definitely not. “Your chamomile is probably on this shelf, Shannon, once you’re done looking at the pretty flowers.”

Naturally, Shannon was utterly unapologetic. Ber hadn’t expected any remorse from her in the first place, but at least she hadn’t seen fit to make it worse by entertaining the girl’s question about their marital status. The emphasis in her reply made him briefly wonder if she was courting someone, but he decided rather quickly that he didn’t particularly care enough to ask. What she did in her personal life hardly had any bearing upon his.

When Shannon held up the jar of chamomile, he noted with a distinct lack of amusement that it was the very first jar he’d picked up. “Yep,” He agreed for the child’s sake, though his flatter tone was counterpoint too the witch’s sing-song voice. “They really are pretty.” He glanced around for the girl. “Far too pretty for a label, right, Hazel?”

Gratified to see Shannon’s smirk freeze in place before transforming into something more pained, Ber stayed quiet and considered his options as she tried to reason with Hazel. As he saw it, he had two options, and it didn’t take long for him to decide which one to pick.

When the girl stomped her foot and scowled up at Shannon – Ber could relate to the impulse – he crouched down beside her. “They really are prettier without the label,” He agreed, glancing up at the older witch while he spoke. Two could play at this game of weaponizing the child. “You get a much better view of all the flowers inside. I think you may need to show her a few more examples before she understands. How does that sound?”

There had been two options: the high road and the low road. On another occasion, he might have picked the former, but he rather thought that after all of this, he owed Shannon a headache of her own.

Watching the girl skip toward another shelf of jars, Ber shifted from crouching on the balls of his feet to kneeling on one knee while they waited for her to return. When she did so, he only caught glimpses between her fingers of little yellow flowers in the jars as she showed them to Shannon, but he nodded his agreement with her claim all the same. Another label fluttered to the ground. He hid a grin at the look on Shannon’s face. “You’re really good at finding the prettiest flowers, Hazel.“

In an attempt at responsibility, the witch tried to reason with the child, and Ber barely managed to turn an entertained chuckle into a cough when Hazel made plain her indifference toward potentially hurting people. Poor Shannon, hoping to appeal to the morality of a child only to be so bluntly reminded that children were little menaces in their own right. “Do you think she understands yet, Hazel?” He asked innocently, turning toward the girl. “It sounds to me like she still wants the labels to block the view of all those pretty flowers.”

And so it went.

Taking advantage of the girl’s apparent preference for him over Shannon, Ber shamelessly encouraged her to continue her label-removal efforts until he felt that he had paid the witch back for the headache she’d given him - and then some, just for good measure. Only at that point, when they’d moved on to little blue flowers, did the soldier pause as if an idea struck him.

“Hey Hazel,” He said, trying to catch the girl’s attention from wherever it may have wandered. “You’ve shown us a lot of pretty flowers today, but I don’t remember what a lot of them are called.” He picked up one of the many discarded labels from the ground. “This tells us what they are, right?” In theory, anyway, though who knew how many jars were mislabeled at this point. “What if we keep these somewhere on the jar so people know what their favorite flowers are called, but we found a place to put it so it’s not blocking the view?”