Gathering Mushrooms

Spying another large cluster of mushrooms, this time Saffron Milk Caps, Azucena dug her pocket knife out of her backpack and bent over the mossy trunk of a fallen dead oak tree to dig out a few Lactarius deliciosus and gently placed them in a cloth bag she had brought along with her.

Wandering by herself through the main forest on the island, foraging to see if she could find new plants to catalog in her journal, or to gather to make salves, tinctures, teas or to simply eat was something Azucena Price enjoyed immensely.

In fact, she hoped to become a botanist one day and leave the island to go work beyond the veil since she was beginning to feel that Manta Carlos offered very little for somebody like her - a simple human without any powers. How could she ever think to compete with beings who had super speed, strength or could teleport anywhere in the blink of an eye? Not to mention the ones who could transform themselves, do magic, heals others, or were gifted to live many lifetimes, regenerate or never die?

The mere thought lately of even trying to compete with others made her sigh deeply at how inadequate she felt at times. And while she knew her sisters would say she was being silly and that she had lots to offer, Azu was beginning to wonder what exactly could somebody as unextraordinary as herself offer to others on an island full of extraordinary beings?

@Max!!

Azucena jumped and let out a small, but semi-loud startled noise, dropping her pocket knife on the ground at her feet when a young dark-haired man jumped down from the tree directly behind her.

"Azure?" Azucena stated hesitantly, her face flushed red in embarrassment as she looked at her classmate sheepishly, suddenly recognising him from school.

"I didn't know you were up there, in that tree," She admitted gesturing to the old oak tree behind him, still a bit mortified that she had reacted as she had at his sudden appearance.

At the mention of her pocket knife, Azucena looked down at her feet to where it had fallen but made no attempt to pick it up - yet.

"It's okay. I was just, uh,... distracted," Azu admitted abashedly when Azure apologized for startling her. She knew she hadn't been paying attention to the world around her, and being what she was - a defenseless human - that was probably not a good thing to be doing.

"Yeah, we have Math and Language Arts together," Azucena said, naming off two common core subjects that they both had together. "You usually sit near the back of the room," she added as she finally bent over to pick up her knife.

"Collecting mushrooms, edible ones," Azucena replied as she placed her pocket knife in her backpack, adding as she looked at Azure somewhat shyly. "The island is full of them actually," she explained as she glanced around as if looking for something.

"See, those beige chubby, kinda stubby-looking mushrooms next to you, by the pine tree over there," she said gesturing to a tall pine tree to the left of Azure. "They are a type of porcini mushroom called boletus edulis," she explained.

Azucena shrugged a bit awkwardly at Azure's question. "Boletus is just the name given to a specific group of edible fungi, sort of like calling all cats felines," she told him, knowing it wasn't exactly the same thing, but the analogy was close enough.

"I do," Azucena nodded enthusiastically. "It's sort of like I belong here somehow," she admitted, knowing it might be strange to admit to that. She was a human, she had no real connection to nature, not like others om the island.

"How about you?" she asked. "Do you come out here a lot?" she said, sure she had not seem him out here before, but the forest was huge, so anything was possible.