Hideaway Strath you were never meant to be a tragedy

The brumal sprite felt herself react subconsciously, her usual mask of stiff composure dropping to the earth in her surprise. Moonstones widened a tic of their own accord, like full moons of pale light, and she struggled to keep them from wandering along the esoteric lines drawn neatly over his countenance of marble as she listened attentively. 

It was clear to her that the shaman was one of the most skilled healers she had met by far, if not chief amongst them.  He even surpassed the cutwife who had tutored Aerin herself, when she had been the slave-girl of another life -- the one they called Hui. 

Though the healer wanted to bombard the icebear with a million questions, she settled on one for the moment: "Vhat is..eh, 'ow ye say? Tea?" Her slender crown of hoarfrost canted aside, cocking curiously at the term -- which niggled at a long forgotten memory somewhere in the hazy recesses of her childhood. The word like one of her first Masters' language, the two-legs who had enslaved her dam. 

"Ehm, vell yes, but I'm afraid it is too far to be of much use to ye," the doe's tiny paws patted a regretful tune as she grimaced apologetically. "It is in ze 'eart of ze grasslands east of 'ere. Ye vould 'ave to follow ze river north all ze vay to ze sea an' zen journey around ze mountains," here she gestured towards the peaks edging the Strath, "south into ze Flatlands." 

She cast a curious glance about their surroundings afterwards, then looked back to the winter goliath's gilded gaze with a bright smile. "Perhaps we might find some 'ot springs 'ere though, no? I am rather new 'ere myself an' 'aven't 'ad a chance to explore ze land in depth." 

"I could 'elp ye look fer one if'n ye'd like?" The midwife offered, rising to her feet with a few eager wags of her tail.