“Thank you, I will.”
“I’d talk more, but they’re waiting on the bottles. I better get back to work. Swing by our potions workroom later, if you’d care to join us.” Carla gave him another smile before fetching her box again. As an afterthought, she threw over her shoulder, “And, Ravi, don’t get him into trouble!”
“Perish the thought!” Ravi responded gleefully.
Carla’s expression did not indicate trust. For that matter, Sora didn’t trust that smile on Ravi’s face. He was such a typical wind dragon in this sense—mischief was fun.
It wasn’t just that, either. Ravi, superficially, looked very much like his own kind. His features were distinctly Middle Eastern, the dark hair in loose, short curls around his head, his brown eyes wide and too innocent. Sora found his eyes lingering on Ravi more often than the castle he was touring. Part of it was that Ravi was just so fun to watch. He was like a circus entertainer, constantly in the middle of some extravagant gesture and laughing remark. His beauty was part of it, certainly, as he was a very handsome man and Sora wasn’t oblivious to that. But that wasn’t why his eyes followed Ravi around.
Ravi caught his hand again, the touch light but confident, tugging him gently forward before releasing. “This way, the greenhouse is through those doors. The place is awesome.”
He did that often. Sora wasn’t used to people casually touching him like this. He could tell Ravi didn’t really mean anything by it. He just liked Sora, and it was in his nature to be touchy-feely, so he reached out. But for Sora, the touch was nice. His skin tingled a little where Ravi had touched him. He wanted Ravi to do that more. To let the touch linger.
His own reaction surprised him. Sora wasn’t normally the one who initiated getting into another person’s space. But somehow, Ravi broke the norm on this. He wanted the wind dragon closer. The next time Ravi grasped his hand, would it be strange if he held on?
It probably would be strange. Dammit.
For that matter, it was strange that Sora wanted to hold hands. He’d only known this man for a few hours, so why…?
Sora had no time to really think about why he liked Ravi’s touch because Ravi burst through the doors that led to an outdoor area like a whirling dervish.
The greenhouse was nice, the glass structure dominating the courtyard area, and it had obviously been very lovingly kept up. But it was also rather…small? Especially for a clan’s use. Surely this wasn’t the only greenhouse.
Ravi popped open the door, ushering him inside. “I have to tell you, this place is awesome during the winter. I take naps in here because it’s so warm. Unlike the fire dragons in this clan, snow is not my friend.”
“That’s your excuse for being a heat-seeker?” an amused voice called out to him. “And who are you showing around, anyway?”
“A new friend.”
The other person came into view, a wand in one hand. He wasn’t very tall, grey eyes penetratingly sharp, with a rugged sort of look to him. The mage had smears of dirt and green against his jeans and wife beater shirt, so he’d clearly been hard at work when they’d interrupted him.
Ravi introduced them. “This is Tori, Baldewin’s mate. Also our expert herbologist and the master of the greenhouse. Tori, this is Sora Vo, a visiting mage.”
“Hello,” Tori responded with a quick smile. “I’d shake hands, but you’d really rather I didn’t.”
Considering the state of his hands, likely not.
“Quite alright. It’s beautifully organized in here. Can I ask some questions? I don’t recognize some of these plants.”
Tori nodded, amiable, and gestured him farther in. “Sure, point things out and I’ll tell you about them.”
“This one, for instance.” Sora regarded the purple flowers growing in a nearby box, the petals shaped like pointed fingers, reaching in all directions. “I’ve not seen this before.”
“Ah, the Shooting Star primrose. Kinda fun looking, eh? It’s a native plant in Germany. Some of the species are good for making wine, others are poisonous. That one in particular is good for wine and perfumes, and we use it to augment our product line. Smells great, doesn’t it?”
It did. Sora leaned in to inhale a lungful, appreciating it. “It smells amazing. Product line?”
“Oh, sure, we do lotions, shampoos, all of that for income.” Tori waved to the greenhouse in general. “Hence half of this. Although, I’m not sure how that’ll change now that we’ve come out to the world.”
Ravi gave him a shrug. “Alric’s still talking it over with all of us. He’s of the opinion that it might be really good to offer magical potions again, openly. Instead of sneaking them in like we have been. But on the other hand, that puts a really big burden on you guys. I’m not sure if you have the magical energy to maintain it.”
It wasn’t until he said that that Sora realized what was missing. He looked around the greenhouse with new eyes. The plants were vibrant and healthy, the environment warm and moist to encourage their growth. Nothing was out of place here. But where were the spells to keep them watered? Where were the charms on the pots to keep things from spoiling?
Why was Tori in here, covered in dirt, when there were spells that could be used to harvest? Why was he doing it all by hand?
Sora didn’t want to leap to conclusions, so he asked, “Is it just you managing all of this?”
“Hell no, too much work for one person.” Tori snorted as if the very idea amused him. “We’ve got a crew that comes in on a daily basis. I’m just the mage in charge of the greenhouse.”
The mage in charge. Thereby intimating…he was the only mage that regularly came in here? When he said a crew came in, did he mean that dragons helped him maintain all of this?
The idea boggled his mind. Sora had never heard of such a thing. The mages he knew were always in charge of their own greenhouses, their own plants. They raised, harvested, and controlled their greenhouses on their own. It was essential to do so in order to maintain the highest quality plants. The idea of only one mage trying to manage this entire greenhouse was…Sora couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around this.
When Ravi had first mentioned how few mages were in this clan, Sora had been stunned. It had seemed too few to handle everything. But it was only now that the full implications were hitting home. How were they managing?
They weren’t.
It was as simple as that. They weren’t able to use the spells normally in place, not in areas like this. They made up for it with manual labor in order to not magically exhaust the mages.
Was the whole clan operating on this level? Sora hoped not. He hoped that they’d prioritized what to use magic for and that this wasn’t a high priority. But it didn’t make sense for the greenhouse to be low priority, either. Both men had said they had a product line for income, so wouldn’t the greenhouse be the highest priority?
Sora put the question aside, making a mental note to ask later. For now, he focused on his guides. “Do you grow Japanese honeysuckle here, too?”
Tori blinked at him as if the question had come out of left field. “No…I can’t say that I’m familiar with it. What’s it good for?”