When You Know What Tisane You need
Written by Xenmyh Sah after a visit of Space Grandma's to the fruitful and gnarled forest of Gewareh Glent.
This short story was included in the Oraean collection about discoveries of love titled Love Knows, Love Grows.
My friend didn't really want to go out that night.
Even if it was the time of year when the Gavinogia trees glowed their brightest plum-reds, and the beckonberries bounced in the sweet winds that come up from Aliat Erren, and we had a bright blue-haired visitor from another planet hosting a party, my friend only had eyes for the ground, for a glimpse of the sky, for a glance at your eye. I'd met Grandma before, I'd tasted these tisanes with their far-out flavors from far-flung worlds, and knew well what we were missing with every moment longer we waited.
However, it wasn't that my friend really didn't want to go out; they just didn't really.
And it was on that sliver of hope I worked; first to get outside, then a little farther, then farther still, until we were wandering between the trees and the sun was setting amber on the western stones and the laughter of music wound its merry way to us.
This visitor - Space Grandma, ze called zirself - was an old friend of our forest, here on Oraea to stock up on tisane ingredients and hear the new stories. There were, in their way, many kinds of music there in the glade where Grandma hosted zir party; the musics, harmonies, melodies of good food, kind company, pleasant wishes, camaraderie and companionship, sunset and nightrise, the dancing of insects.
None of it seemed to reach my friend.
None of the favorite tunes or unfamiliar faces. Nothing at all. Not even Grandma, resplendent in zir tall hat and bandolier of ingredients, full of light and welcome.
Still, step by lucky step, we were at last where I'd certainly been looking so forward to being: standing in front of seven kettles, each one warm with care, all seven of them Grandma's own and glorious tisanes recipes.
Now it was me who didn't look up, who couldn't be drawn away by the world. I knew which ones I liked. Which one did I want?
"Which one do we want?" I asked.
Could be the effervescent clarity of River Bath . . .
Or the toasty and fond-feeling Fall With Friends . . .
Or the spicy warmth of You're Welcome . . .
Actually, more importantly, which one did I need?
Yes, yes of course. That's it. None of these.
I knew which one it had to be.
So I poured us two cups.
My friend barely accepted theirs. Barely disengaged from gazing at the ground.
"Taste it and guess which one it is," I offered. "You've never tasted anything like it!"
My friend held the cup, listless.
Well. There's only so much you can do. Especially when there's tisane at hand, and Space Grandma's at that. So I closed my eyes and sipped for myself, enjoying the gentle refreshing awakening that washed into and through me.
"Holy wow," said my friend.
"That's right!" I exclaimed. Eyes opening, I asked "how'd you – "
But my friend was paying no attention to me.
They were frozen, cup held in front of them. Apparently the act of tasting had caused my friend to, at long last, look up.
And there, across the party, was someone - even with there being many party members in view, it was clear to me as fruit on a tree who my friend was looking at - someone whose very presence had moved my friend into a state of wakeful alertness I'd never seen before, while at the same time there was a kind of calm, a meadow's breeze, that brushed, in and out and gently in again, over and through their whole body.
This same someone was looking our way. At my friend. And they looked the same as my friend, overcome in a way they clearly hadn't expected could happen to them.
Sometimes a seed recognises the sky it's meant to see.
