What an interesting combination of work! She can see how it would work well! 

She wanders in, pausing to take a look at his wares before she speaks with him. She doesn't think she needs anything in the genre of ink and paper, but maybe something will catch her eye. 

The front room is stocked with shelves.  Most are stationary supplies of various types.  Many kinds of pen, from quills and dip pens to modern pens out of Kor with their ink supplied from within.  Empty journals, scrolls, and stationary pads, as well as stacks of plain paper and rolls of canvas.  Inks, paper-wrapped charcoal sticks, and even a few proper paints.  There are also a handful of other odds and ends in smaller displays:  Dried pressed flowers, boxes of teas and dried herbal mixes, soaps, honey, and candles.

Not far from the entrance is another door, the building divided in half.  The door is shut, but has the unmistakable symbol of medicine painted onto it.  

The man behind the counter is middle aged, wearing a patterned wrap in white and gray.  "Welcome to my shop, miss," he says, then bows as he notices the wings.  

She smiles at him, "Good day," she greets, "I am Erin, daughter of Paean - a traveling healer. A woman in the square told me you are the one they go to for healing in this village?" 

She has her token - a pendant bearing the symbol of Paean's temple - out again, to prove her claim. 

After determining that there's not an emergency to respond to, he begins speaking of the town's health.  Mostly fine, other than the river.  These villagers at least seem to be listening to the advice to use the wells.  There are a few special cases he'd appreciate her looking at or offering reassurance to, and he sends her off with directions to where they'd be this time to day.  

She's happy to do so!

At the end of the day, she returns to the outskirts of the village, settling by Sam to tell him of her day, and ask after his. 

Ara'Vine gets back just a bit later, carrying ingredients.

"Hello Erin, Saman."

"Good evening," Saman greets him. He peers with interest at the things the things the man is carrying.

"Good evening!" She greets in unison with her brother, "Oh, are those for dinner?" 

"They are, and some for breakfast."  He divides a portion from the rest to be stored.

All of the ingredients are familiar, but they're being put together in an unfamiliar way.  The result seems to be aiming for some kind of savory, meat-and-vegetable-filled oatmeal.  Presumably this is a common dish in Mesasoth.

"Did anything interesting happen today?"

The meal is interesting! She's eaten mostly Garnethold cuisine, throughout her lifetime, even after leaving Elgea. She watches as he works, trying to learn the recipe. 

"Nothing unusually so," she says. "The healer in this village is also the stationer, which is a combination I had not thought of, but which makes sense, now that I've seen it."  

"It does.  Around Soth they seem to like to combine healers with people who make dyes or ink more often than not.  The last time I was in Veth they were usually the tailors.  It's interesting how different cultures link things."

"It is! It's barbers, in Garnethold," she adds. "Is it the same in Mesasoth?" She asks, "Stationers and dye makers?" 

"Pretty much.  Mesasoth isn't too different from northern Soth countries in that."

She nods.

Then, after a moment, a little uncertain, but wishing to keep the conversation going, she asks, "What was Veth like, last time you were there?"

"A lot of wild, empty forest," is the first thing he remembers.  "Not many people lived there, and those that did were often hunters and trappers living off of the land.  Most of the buildings were log cabins, or ancient ruins.  The Cataclysm of Veth was only a century beforehand, and people were moving back now that the deathspores were gone.

"The place I stayed in was being colonized by a highly-religious subculture worshipping Blue Mist.  They had a strange thing about gender, the way that merfolk do, but not quite the same exact things.  Women were expected to do certain tasks and men were supposed to do other ones, though they both lived in the same towns together for their entire lives.  I don't remember the full list, and they were split bizarrely - I remember that diagrams and scientific drawings like anatomy and botany were masculine, and decorative drawing and painting were feminine - unless they were painting walls of a building, which was masculine again?  It was almost like a caste system, which makes sense considering they were originally from eastern South Cardinal...

"In particular, they didn't like men marrying men, or women marrying women there.  Or polyamory, though that one didn't affect me personally.  The villagers didn't much like me being married to Elias.  I would have left, but he wanted to stay and be an example to the colonists and try to influence their culture into flexibility.  We couldn't be pushed around as easily as others."

She leans forward, arms curled around her knees, listening raptly to his descriptions. 

"Strange," she murmurs, of the gender divisions, and, "That sounds very uncomfortable," of both them and the marriage restrictions, "What did they do about demigods? It sounds as though my path would have been forbidden me, had I been born there, despite the fact that I am daughter to the god of healing." 

"I'm not sure.  Maybe the gods only sired demigods of a single gender?  Or maybe they were divided in some arcane way that never came up around me - male demigods to become wandering healers, female ones to go on Quests to discover hidden artifacts?  Unless those artifacts were specifically orich-brass harps, which is obviously male to find."

She snorts a laugh, hiding a smile behind her hand. 

"If artistic drawings were feminine, were the other arts as well? No one could ever play it!" 

"Men could make three-dimensional art like statues and vases, while women made flat art.  Mostly.  Everything had exceptions, which was why it is so hard to remember.  Instruments were split too, but I don't remember who got harp."

"That's bizzarre!" She laughs. 

She asks about other places he's been, while they wait for dinner to finish cooking and then while they eat. His stories stir up the wanderlust in her - she had many reasons for choosing her path, and the desire to see far off places was one of them. 

He hasn't been everywhere but he's explored much of North and South Cardinal at some point or another.  Much of his memories are about the land itself, rather than the people:  Shattered badlands with their canyons and rock pillars.   Wide, flat plains going on like an ocean of grass.  Complex palaces of coral, cultivated over generations by the merfolk living there.  

The people are less interesting to him, though he has a few anecdotes on the cultures he's seen.  Elias was with him for over 700 years of Ara'Vine's 1766-year life, and plays a role in many of these - setting up in a single town for several decades to adopt a dozen children and two dozen barnwyrms.  Picking up art forms and joining in with local sports.  Running afoul of some local superstition.  

She is just as interested in his description of the land as of the people (and Saman tunes in to listen with great interest when he begins describing the coral palaces). 

Elias sounds like he was amazing. She wishes she could have met him. She's not sure about a dozen children, but if she ever settles down for a while she'll definitely be following his example on the matter of barnwyrms. 

"What kind of superstition?" She asks as she reaches the end of her meal. 

"He was a necromancer, and some cultures read into that.  In particular, with the relationship between undead and necromancers.  Some places assumed he was controlling me, or that one of us effectively owned the other.  Setebre in particular had strong beliefs about it, that having been one of the defining things about the old Setebre Empire before it, uh, became the Diamond Scar.

"Which reminds me - keep an eye out for anyone who seems more charismatic than they should," he adds, now that the thought's been brought to his attention.  "People who are more attractive than their features should be, shopkeepers who you really want to buy things you don't want from, and so on.  It's hard to pick out without practice.  Not all necromancers know they're necromancers, since many people are never tested and undead are fairly rare."

She makes a face at the mention of Setebre's beliefs. 

At the second part she has to pause, suddenly realising that, yes, that is likely to be a problem. 

"Oh. Oh, of course, an exact copy - and the Weakness - of course I will have the attraction to necromancers as well. It hadn't occurred to me." 

She does not really like this idea. 

That was a kind of strong reaction.  "Is Elgea one of the places where necromancers are considered wily and manipulative, then?  They aren't that bad.  No more than a very attractive person in a revealing dress.  They aren't liches."