for sonofstorms

The apothecary didn't look like anything special from the street. The outside was nondescript and a casual observer might miss it entirely. In addition to that, Liling kept irregular hours. She didn't get many tourists, and she liked it that way. The place saw enough business from local customers both mundane and otherwise. But she didn't really keep the shop for financial reasons. She didn't need the income so much as she needed the front for her real business. More than that, when she had arrived, fresh from the Horizon realms, she had needed a place to call her own, a familiar one where she felt like she belonged. She didn't like change. Her life recently had been full of change, and she had stubbornly put down roots in an attempt to control something.

Where the outside was plain, the inside was warm and inviting. Someone had obviously put some work into the place. It had character. It was also warded with a number of protections including but not limited to a host of sympathetic spirits, but most people didn't pick up on that.

Liling was fussing with a particularly tall plant. It dwarfed her, and standing behind it, she was hardly even visible from the entrance. Unsurprisingly for a Life Mage, she was good at growing things. Sometimes a little too good. The plant was overgrown. They tended to do that eventually in her presence. It was a little annoying. So, she'd taken to the thing with a pair of gloves and pruning shears. Again.