She had worked hard on this, it was true. The early lavender she had managed to find had been fairly small and fairly weak. She had been forced to let the other lavenders continue to grow, the few that she had found in her less than extensive searches. Mostly, she looked for early blooming flowers the warm streak of weather had been encouraging. Honestly, she was not surprised to find the warm weather had let a few grow though most of the most fragrant were not yet showing themselves. But she had found lilac. It was a large bush, full and fragrant. It flaunted it's light blue-purple blooms at the cold breezes and the still chilly air. The scent was strong and Isabella found herself with a woven basket full of the flowers. In a rush, she had collected as much as she dared, as well as taking a sprig for her home.

Recent events had been trying on the Salsolan family, and Isabella kept her head down to disguise her fairly neutral position. It was not a worry for her that she would be harmed, for she was certain she could discourage any man from touching her with a weapon of death. Well, to the best of her knowledge, at least. Instead, she focused on figuring out how to cultivate more lavender and roses, as well as looking for potential flowers and herbs. She wished she could have a greenhouse or something well heated in winter, just to have southern flowers like lilies and even lemon.

The Auxiliary was not in a happy place, with her mate dead and gone with an attack. He defended but lost his life. Isabella could not feel the same pangs of sadness for anyone as Eris must have. Regardless, she figured it was a good opportunity to kiss some powerful ass. The lilac had been stripped of it's oil. She had even acquired some flavorless and odorless alcohol to create the perfume. She joined the alcohol and the oil and then let it sit. Somehow, she had found a dark mason jar and put the perfume into it. Almost all of the oil had gone into the perfume, but lilac was easy to raise here and it was so common. There would be more bushes.

Unsure of where to find the Auxiliary, Isabella wandered to her home and gave a soft howl, hopefully not to reach many others. She held the mason jar against her waist as she waited, bi-colored eyes scanning the area for the dark woman.

Isabella did not expect to find the other woman on all fours, though she supposed there was level of primal comfort to be found in such a form. Isabella felt terribly out of place in comparison to the dark woman, whose words were to the point and brief. Eris did not turn her away nor did she bark at her to get on with it. Instead she let the gypsy woman enter her home. Isabella ducked into the rooms, holding the heavy mason jar steady against her breast. It was cold against her, despite her silks and her much thicker pelt. The liquid sloshed inside gently, though thankfully the only scent coming off the jar was from the residue on the outside.

Eris's home was dark and dank and it worried the woman that such a well groomed creature had let her home fall apart at the death of a loved one. Her own mother had not set about in the dark when her father had passed away in a fight. Or had she? The memory was fuzzy, as preoccupied as she had been with her training. Had she looked drawn? Worn? Lost? Isabella did not remember. Her brows furrowed as she thought about it, then let her face fall back to it's fluid neutral.

Isabella looked down at her hands, at the jar, then back at the dark woman. The memory of her father's death gave her eyes a sadness that she knew would be necessary here. "I come to offer my condolences, though I suppose nothing I say will be of much assistance." Isabella shrugged, looking at the dead fireplace and the small bones. Her strange eyes looked back at the black pelted woman. "I have made a scent for you from the early lilacs." She nudged the jar lightly, and waited for the woman's orders.

Silently, the gypsy woman took the mason jar of the perfume and set it with a soft and gentle clank on the stone shelving. "If it is too strong for your liking, dilute it with water or scentless clear alcohol if you have it." There was nothing she could really say to this woman about her loss, losses. She let a hand linger over the top of the jar before turning back to the woman whose loss Isabella could not very well understand. Regardless, the woman moved to sit herself a respectable distance from the four legged Auxiliary. Perhaps Eris would not like her company or for her to sit her presence, but Isabella could tell that the woman was not in a state to protest too much. If she complained, Isabella would rise and leave. She smoothed her skirt over her legs and coiled her scarf in her hands as she peered at it.

"I'm sorry, ma dame, I am not a magician. Were I one, I could fix a great many wrongs in the world," she said gently, and with honesty in her tones. Isabella was a fortune teller, nothing more than a soothsayer. There was no magic in her work other than the support of the earth. The Mother gave the signs and Isabella interpreted them only. Nothing else. "If I could be so bold as to say that though the pain you feel now hurts, ma dame, you will be made the stronger for it." Isabella understood the pain of loss well enough to remember the numbness her father's passing had caused. But then she remembered the death of the man who dared to claim her as his own without her consent. His blood on her hands had been nothing to her. What was it like to feel such affection for another?

Isabella gave a small knowing smile, letting serenity radiate from her body. Perhaps that was what the other woman would need most. Distraction was certainly important for anyone suffering a loss and Eris suffered a loss clearly greater than many had ever felt. The words the dark pelted female had said were more an order than anything, though something else entirely was behind them. Something desperate and lonely was peeking through her tones and Isabella could feel a faint pang of sympathy and a bit of pity for the depressed creature before her.

Nodding, Isabella smoothed her skirts some more in an absent-minded habit. "I shall do my best, as there is little else I can truly provide for you," she said softly, her voice tinged by her French-afflicted tongue. A fortune reading would have been something else she could have done for Eris, but that seemed like a bad idea. Not to mention she had not thought to bring her cards. Talk would have to distract the woman.

Rapidly, the gypsy woman thought of recent activity in their kingdom of thistles, searching for anything that would be of interest to Eris or something she would know well. She thought of the coast and of the construction that had been there. "I hear you have constructed a weir on our coast. Will you tell me about it, ma dame?" Fishing was something a few people did in Salsola, though Isabella could not say she liked the food it provided very much. Despite that, anything to help Eris and win some points was not remiss.

Isabella nodded at the other woman as she explained the tide. It was not a concept she was terribly familiar with but she had seen it in Montreal. When the heavy winter snows melted, the rivers surrounding the bay city would rise and flood. She also noticed that there were hours when the water would be a little lower, especially on the lake she had traveled along to reach this place. The water there had gone up and down oddly. She had not figured out why, but she knew that sometimes it was hard to see the beach for the water covering it that would later recede from it. "Is that what it is called?" she muttered, more to herself than to Eris.

Eris had accomplished building a fishing weir, so that they may fish during the winter months. The sea would be certainly more forceful then. Even the lakes had been grey and raging during the cold months. "That is certainly a comfort in case the moose and deer are harder to find this summer. Plenty of packs starve when they change their movement." But they were the Thistle kingdom. They would starve for they were prepared. They had fish and they would have meat. They deserved no less. "Perhaps our next project ought to be a pen for deer?" Isabella gave a light laugh, at the audacity of it. Deer ran free. Who had tamed them? Who could tame them in such a way? A year round herd of deer would be certainly nice. Though raising and feeding them would be an annoying, especially the winter months.

Unfortunately, the gypsy woman knew nothing of animal domestication. Her own horse had come broken and trained, ready to be ridden from the moment Isabella had slit that man's throat for good measure. No, animals other than her meat were not her forte in the least. Isabella had to give the woman a shrug and an apologetic look at her questions. "I am by no means qualified to answer such a question, madam." She returned the woman's gaze calmly, albeit rather sadly as she did not have an answer to a question that could provide the kingdom with a constant source of meat. Horses were not to be eaten, for their usefulness alive outweighed the amount of meat they would provide.

"Perhaps with some time, deer can be tamed much as horses. Once, they were just as wild as the deer so perhaps all that is needed is patience and carefully picking sires and dams." That was probably the extent of her knowledge of breeding, but it had all been something she had overheard with Visionary at his brothels. "If a horse can be penned, then a deer can be penned," she said as she adjusted a lock of her hair on her shoulders, trying to keep her lack of knowledge from frustrating her.

Brows furrowing, the woman remembered the meeting with Rekyr. The creature with him had not been known well to her, as she did not often hunt in groups and she could not kill a large deer on her own. "Rekyr's creature is no horse, but it is so large. What about the white-tailed deer? They are smaller, fast, but they won't be able to jump a fence made for a horse." Isabella leaned forward toward the woman, hands on her legs as she sought the other woman's opinion with a poorly hidden eagerness.

Isabella leaned back, sighing at the Auxiliaries comment. Of course the humans had helped them a great deal before they fell from the face of the earth. She swept her legs in front of her, letting them tuck beneath her skirts so that she might lean back casually onto her arms. There were no men to impress here, and there was almost a sense of camaraderie here between the two dark women. Perhaps she was imagining it but there seemed to be nothing to fear from Eris, not only from her current situation and pose, but also from the way the two conversed. "I'm sure they must have somewhere. The world is a large place and the humans were too intelligent not to try."

The gypsy flicked her eyes to the shelves, absently wondering the importance of each little thing the woman kept. Isabella knew that Eris practiced some sort of religion where ritual was highly important and highly kept to. Perhaps one day she'd ask what it was but what she heard of the rather bloody aspect of it, perhaps she would keep her questions to herself. "Yes..," she agreed rather thoughtfully, thinking of the last white-tail she had seen. "If we can get a few fawns, perhaps already weaned off their mothers, or perhaps ones that can be raised with a particularly motherly mare with foal. Maybe that would help?"

Brows furrowing, the woman peered at the dark Auxiliary. Books? Yes, a book would do wonders for them now, especially if there was such a miraculous book somewhere. But Isabella did not know the land as well as the others here, and she did not know where to even start looking for books. Most of the books in Toronto and Montreal had been bartered back and forth. There was even a clan of dogs who ran a library, though they guarded it fiercely for all the books they had acquired. Isabella wasn't even certain that there would be a book on deer farming. Cattle and horse books were more likely to be common, though the land was not suited to large tracts of nothing but cow farms. Still, there would be a source somewhere, if the humans were as prolific as they seemed to have been. "I wish the one sent to look for such a book luck. Perhaps I should make them good luck charms," she added, her voice lilting toward the sarcastic.

Isabella smiled at Eris, glad that her little side thought managed to get some approval. She had been entirely offhand with it and was so surprised it was getting serious consideration. Isabella noted the change in the woman's voice, and assumed it to be the widow in the Auxiliary peeking through again. "One is bound to come along. Perhaps an Associate looking for more prominence might be roped into such a thing?" The Associate would not be treated as a slave would be and they would be motivated with upward mobility if they succeeded. If an Associate with the qualifications appeared. If not, that glory would go to some higher ranked canine with more skill. What a pity. "If my mare was put to stallion, she might be docile enough to accept a fawn. Though perhaps there are mares now?" Isabella wasn't sure when the deer bred, but it felt right. "It is early enough in the oncoming summer, so the females should be birthing. Perhaps if we can find a doe freshly after her birthing or perhaps a very young fawn, it might work. "