Aiko was completely ecstatic. Here she was expecting that she was going to have to do all kinds of things in order to convince the council to let her stay but with one simple display of her Green thumb ability, they simply gave her exactly what she wanted. She was a little bit disappointed that they did not seem very concerned for the life of the person that she had seen eaten before. However, she could understand that if they were not part of the same warren, they might not be very interested.

They did however seem to be rather interested in what she might have to trade and so she told them about the various seeds that she had and they seemed rather keen on trying some of those. Aiko wasn’t very thrilled about the idea of giving away the food that she had been given by the elves But she did have another alternative.

She asked if they would be interested in a few of the nuts and berries that she had come across and at the mention of that they all seemed to perk up a bit. Seeing this reaction she got rather curious. Are you all interested in nuts and berries? I do come across those pretty often.

Several of them looked a bit sheepish as though they had just been caught doing something they shouldn’t have. Even though she couldn’t read their faces Aiko could tell because of their body language. It was interesting that their body language was pretty much identical to that of the elves even though their faces were very vastly different.

Finally, after a long pause, the slightly older male of the Council spoke up. “I don’t know about the rest but for myself, I have always had a bit of a soft spot for a good wild nut. The flavor is just so different and then there’s the fun of getting it out of its shell. You see I can’t speak for everyone but I like to know on the shell a bit. Probably about as much as I enjoy eating the nut afterward.”

The man proceeded to show her his rather impressive set of incisors and explained that, if they didn’t chew on things, their teeth grew too long and would cause problems. Aiko couldn’t help but grin at this and even went through the trouble of taking off her helmet to show them her own set of incisors. She told them that she perfectly understood how they felt and that she would be sure to get them a good supply of nuts. Another one of the council members told her that they would be very appreciative of that since the nuts would keep so well compared to most other types of food.

Aiko was then shown to a room in the warren that was not very far from the entrance that she had entered by. She profusely thanked Brimit for all his help but he sheepishly waved her off. After settling herself into the slightly dark room, she sat down and pulled out some of the items that she had brought with her. He might have been dismissive of all the help that he had given her but Aiko really wanted to thank Brimit for his help.

The item that she pulled out of the bottom of her bag was her mortar and pestle. What she had in mind to use it on were the various grasses that she could make tea out of. On her journey, she had come across a few of the fragrant grasses and tree leaves the elves introduced her to as various types of tea leaves. In the morning she was planning on making a fragrant tea brew and sharing some with the taciturn guard.

Aiko spent the entire evening grinding the many tree leaves and grasses that she had plucked to make tea into more manageable coarse powders. It really didn’t take all that long but it also wasn’t very long before dark crept up on her since she was down in the darker warrens. Finishing up for the night she carefully put all of her work away in small thatched bags for steeping tea before pulling out her blanket and snuggling up in the corner of the room she had been given.

The next morning she went around the warren exploring a bit. Rather quickly she spotted what she was after. In one of the shops to the side of the main thoroughfare, she found one of the people working around a kiln to fire a bunch of clay pots. Among the many clay products that they offered were a few teapots.

When she asked about the teapots the people working the kiln seemed rather anxious. Mostly they seem like they didn’t want to deal with her for some reason. While it did make her a little bit sad it also had the side benefit of getting her a teapot for the small price of a bag of tea. She considered that a small victory and set about finding a place to brew her tea.

The room she had been given had enough ventilation in it that she could easily make a fire in the center so that wasn’t a problem. Also finding wood to make a fire wouldn’t be too hard since these people lived right next to a forest. She just had to be careful when She was using it for the first time because she could tell that this pot hadn’t been seasoned.

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Aiko went out and gathered up a few small branches to use for her fire and grabbed a few types of plump grasses for seasoning the pot. She wanted the types of grasses that would get sweet the longer you chewed on them. All of this was stuff that she had learned in the Elvin Village while she lived with Atha.

The next thing that she did was take out some of her carving tools and begin paring down the branches of one of the more fragrant trees that she had gathered wood from. She knew that certain trees were good for cooking on while others were not and was very careful what she brought back to cook with. Likewise, she knew these trees to be good for carving things out of that you were going to eat or drink with. She quickly whittled out a pair of cups and then thought better of it and made another pair besides.

After quickly building up a fire Aiko put the teapot above it and held it there with a stick. The flames barely leaked at the bottom of the pot and she was very careful to keep it from getting too hot this first time. She carefully dropped in the packet of tea that she had ground up to steep and set the pot aside gently on a small pile of wood so that it wouldn’t cool off too quickly.

She immediately said about serving up the tea that she had just brewed before it had a chance to get cold. She took two of the steaming cups of tea to the front of the Warren and handed one to Brimit. She didn’t know the name of the other guard but wanted to be polite and offered the other cup to him but he waved her off saying that he didn’t like bitter things but thanked her anyway.

The two of them enjoyed a quick cup of tea before she took the crude mugs back inside. When she got back to her room she discovered several of the people gathered around sniffing the air curiously. She offered a cup of tea despite it being a bit tepid to several of them and a couple even accepted.

After her many guests said their goodbyes Aiko poured the remainder at the tee over the fire. She then got another batch of water from the small stream that ran through the back of the warrants. Carefully she split open the starchy grasses and left them soaking in the pot to give it a nice natural glaze. It would have to soak for the next couple of days but after that, it should be perfect she thought.

The next thing that she did was go out and forage in the nearby trees to see if she could find any nuts. The trees in the direction that she had come from were not ideal. Most of them were smaller thinner types of trees that didn’t produce nuts.

However, when she went to the other side of the clearing most of the trees there were of the taller thicker variety that produced good nuts. She checked on these but as she had feared most of them did not have any nuts yet. Some of them were not even in bloom yet.

Figuring that this would be a project for the next few days Aiko said about creating her own small garden patch for food. Not only was she interested in keeping herself fed but she also wanted enough to trade. Before going down to make her garden she had advanced the growth of some of the nuts in a few of the trees.

Both the nuts and the vegetables would take a few days to ripen and she figured she would have to find something else to do until then. When she checked about the berry bushes she found that her help wasn’t really needed there. There were plenty of women going to and from those bushes every day.

Her next thought was that she might be able to help in cultivating a few of the fields. The only problem was she found that these people didn’t keep fields the way that the elves did. In fact they had no concept of gardening. She tried explaining it to a couple of them but soon gave up because they were so unreceptive.

She was just about to give up on the idea of helping all together. Nobody seemed to have any use for her and most of them regarded her with weary glances and few words. In all her time walking through the warren, she had yet to see anybody using magic the way that she did.

She was sullenly making her way back to her room when a large branch blocked her path. Several of the people were trying to lift the branch and having a hard time of it. Without much regard, Aiko quickly used her chaos grasp spell and lifted the branch easily out of the way depositing it at the edge of the forest a good distance away.

Aiko was about to continue on her way back to her room when one of the rabbit people suddenly ran up to her and started thanking her Profusely. After a moment the rest of the group came over and started doing the same. All of them were curious if she was able to do the same thing again and she told them that she could easily live that much and maybe a bit more.

They all seemed duly impressed and she was happy to have gotten to show off her magic. That is until they began asking her if she would be willing to move a few boulders and a few more branches for them. She was a little bit taken aback but decided that she might as well since she was looking for something to do.

The next couple of days went by in a flash as Aiko moved heavy items around and tended to her new garden. She also spent time maturing the nuts in the trees in preparation for her upcoming trades.