The Dryad 65 Recipe

Emily was at the stove, finishing cutting some of the ingredients while the ones that took longer to cook were simmering in the pot. I once again filled my role as a teacher and silently watched Emily work. I really have not given much thought into medicine preparation or cooking. I had been so busy off in my own thoughts or instructing Emily and Leafia that I did not pay any attention to it as we traveled. It was clear that Emily had great skill. More than I think I could show if I had to make medicine the way she did.

However, I kept finding myself wishing I could just speed things up. It was so much faster to just grow the medicine than to do all this compounding and steeping. I knew it would not do for me to speed things up, but I really wanted to go find Faun. We were so close.
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About ten minutes later, Emily let out a sigh and sat down on the stool next to me. "The medicine just needs to steep for fifteen…" Emily caught me shaking my head head next to her. "...Ten minutes and it will be as good as I can get it.

"Mind if I take a look at it now?" I asked, more for show since there were others in the room, than for teaching as I pretended.

"Go right ahead," she replied. I grabbed the wooden spoon and started to stir as she said, "I made a large enough batch to last a week since I know that is about how long my medicine will keep. I was figuring that even if the additions you make to this will not keep that long we can ask them to store this as a base so we do not have to spend so much time making it again."

"The finished medicine should keep, as long as the base is fine," I said. Once again, I reached into my pocket to pull out an 'envelope' of medicine and poured it into the pot. "My medicine powder should keep good forevvvv…" Why was Emily shaking her head at me? She pointed at a head cook who looked like he was listening carefully to our conversation. For the moment, I backtracked the conversation in my mind. Aaaah… "...vvvvvery long time." The head cook resumed his duties and we continued brewing. That was close.

Once the medicine was finished, we asked for Jennifer to be brought to the kitchen so we could explain how to handle the medicine to her. We were not entirely sure who we should ask, but since Jennifer seemed to be running the house, Emily thought that she would be a good place to start.

I was a little surprised that Lillian showed up with Jennifer, but seeing how excited she was that she finally had medicine for her daughter that would work, I should have expected it.

"She will need to take a half gla.s.s of this," I said pointing to the medicine in the pot, "twice daily. This will be enough to last her for a week. At that point you will need another batch."

Lillian looked concerned at this statement. "I did not think you were planning on staying that long?"

I was afraid that we might be overstaying our welcome and said, "We have business with the magician a.s.sociation but once that is done we will need to return home quickly. So we will not be imposing on you for long, I hope."

I was not greeted by a relieved face like I was expecting, but by Lillian breaking down into tears. I could somewhat make out through the sobs, "The medicine… my daughter…"

It did not take long for me to realize what a fool I was. She was a mammal mother, of course her greatest concern was her daughter. What did a few more days of having a guest compare to that?

I looked Emily for a second as I was struggling with what to do. She also seemed at a loss. It was really only the base that Emily made that had a limited storage life, but I thought it would be good to keep up the act. I knew that dried ingredients kept better, so I said, "The recipe is not hard for someone with skill in the kitchen. I will prepare all the steps that can be done ahead of time and leave directions with your staff on how to prepare it."

"Thank you, thank you," Lillian started to cry. She was not really calming down any but at least her tears changed from despair into relief.

"Are you really alright with leaving your recipe with us?" Jennifer asked. "I thought most apothecaries kept them as their most closely guarded secret."

Emily panicked a little at this. It seemed like she was not willing to let her centuries of work go that easily. To calm Emily, I said "I will provide the main ingredients already mixed. You would have to spend most of a lifetime, if not more to figure out what is in it. And if you did that you would not have enough for your daughter." Jeniffer seemed to understand why I was willing to leave them with something so valuable, but I heard Emily whisper barely audibly, "What about my base???" I turned away from Lillian and whispered to Emily, "Just give them a soup base, they don't need to know the difference."

I showed Jennifer how big the serving should be and she was quickly ushered off by Lillian to get the medicine to Camilla. Once Jennifer had left, Lillian wiping the tears from her eyes said "Please stay for lunch, it should be ready shortly. How can I ever thank you for helping my daughter? Do you have everything arranged that you need for the day? If you are missing anything, I am sure I could help."

I was not really wanting to wait any longer, but I was the only one that did not have a need for food, so I just had to wait on them. I did not have much interest in the food or the meal. But there was one good thing about lunch: we got some useful information about getting to the a.s.sociation.