Gabriel climbed into the hot spring and drank the rest of the tea. "This is nice, but the urge to paint is there and I want to do it but all my supplies are back home and I am here to get Amelia the herbs that are necessary so that I may heal her." Hearing another knock at the door Gabriel looks at the door and yells, "Come in!" Subaru opens the door and comes into the room to see that it is empty. He walks to the outside towards the bath. "She really did wind up giving you one of the best rooms in the inn. When you are dressed and ready to go I will take you on a herb hunting adventure."
"Perfect just what I needed. I cannot tell you how happy I am to be able to start. I want to get back home to my beloved as fast as possible." Gabriel stepped out of the water and went back into the room. He changed into the hunting herb clothes that he had and looked at Subaru. "Sorry for making you wait.
"No, I am sorry for showing up so early. I just forgot to tell you about a time. I thought that maybe Mari would wake you up by mistake." Subaru got up and walked to the door.
"I was still waking up when Mari showed up. I had a long night the night before. I didn"t sleep a lot from worry." Gabriel followed Subaru out. "Normally, I am up hours before this. I have a lot of work that I take care of."
"You are too young to be taking care of things. You should be living your life but I get it. You are the heir to a hospital. I will help you as much as I can." Subaru took Gabriel and led him back to his house. "First, I want you to get a better look at what is growing here."
Gabriel went to the side of the house and looked on in awe. "I wish that I had enough time to grow my own herbs. This is truly a work of art." Gabriel walked the path through the herbs and listed in his mind what he had here. "I do not see any green tea leaves."
"Ah, that is because I do not grow it here. There is a place I can show you where it grows. The townspeople do not touch it as they let me dry out what I need for medicines and to make the tea leaves for them. It is a pleasure to do it for them. This town is full of good, kind people." Subaru leaned on his place waiting for Gabriel to react.
"I like that you are the town that has a system worked out that works for all of you. I absolutely love this and I would love to do something like this back at my place so if you do not mind teaching me that would be awesome. I will still work out the deal with you to get herbs but I think that having some that are grown at home would be good. This might give my girl something to do when she is feeling well." Gabriel blushed and smiled at Subaru.
"I think it is a good idea. It is not easy to grow everything but I am sure that we will be able to grow a lot of different goods at your place but there are a few that I struggled with and that is the one in the forest." Subaru stood up and picked up his harvesting supplies. ��Alright, let us go and get what we need for your girl."
Gabriel stops looking in awe of the garden and turns to follow Subaru. "I know that by helping me start a garden it might cut down your profit but at the same time I do not want to take from your people."
"Now I understand why you want to grow some of your own. I am glad that after the last five years I got that plant to grow like a weed." Subaru walks through the woods leading Gabriel to where the herb that he needs the most is.
"I am unable to affect your little town like that. I would not forgive myself if I took the resources away from your people here that could need it. I do want to ask… are there many children here?" Gabriel followed Subaru and made sure that he took in the surroundings.
"Children? There are six maybe seven. Why do you ask?" Subaru was now curious.
"Ah, I only ask as it reflects on how I made the medicine yesterday. The satonis.h.i.+ki cherries take the bitter bite of the medicine and if you have a young child that refuses to take the medicine they will not get better. It would cause everyone some grief." Gabriel followed and saw a clearing up ahead.
"That is remarkable. I never thought about it that way but you are absolutely right. That is how they would react and they usually refuse to take the medicine as soon as they start to feel better." Subaru reaches the edge and steps to the side. "Thank you for sharing that tip with me and I will ask you to show me how it is made."
"Certainly, I can and will do that. Do you have a lot of dried satonis.h.i.+ki cherries? If you need more let me know and I will trade it with you. We have a cherry tree and when the cherries are ripe we pick all that we can and whatever does not get eaten gets dried." Gabriel steps up and inspects the plant and pulls out his book. He examines it and sighs. "This is exactly what I thought I would have to travel far and wide for. To think that it was a hop, skip, and a jump away is mesmerizing."
"I am glad that you are happy. How much would you like to dig up? The roots can be rather deep in some places." Subaru pulls out that closest plant and it comes out of the ground as long as his hand. "This is a small one. The more inward we go the bigger they get."