Guests or not, there were still things to be done, and this late in autumn there was a limited time to do them all. Morgana kilted up her skirts, and taught Marcello how to do the same, put her basket over her arm, and set off over the back fence and down the slope that tapered from the back of her own cottage and into the marshier bits of Ebhot--the infamous knee-deep mud her son so often complained of. It wasn't exactly knee-deep, but it was thick, knobbly, and treacherous, and dotted here and there with watery potholes of surprising depth.

"It's better to do this in the afternoon," she said cheerfully to Marcello, "but as cold as it's been, the dew doesn't really dry much anyway. I think I'll get one last good gathering out of it this late and that'll be it until next year."

Marcello was struggling with her skirts and the uneven ground, in spite of Meg's tutelage. "Will you show me the different ones?" she asked. "I...I suspect that some of ours are the same, but there are likely to be a few different, and the ones here...might work for different things."

"Well, I wouldn't know what they work for anywhere else," she said, sounding both surprised and amused. "I know what I use them for." She cast an eye about for anything that stood out, finally settling on a nest of black twisted roots that looked more like a mistake than a plant. "There's some droseras, but they're just about picked o'er this time of year and these ones have all gone to sleep. Those I use for dry coughs. And there's some bog-moss that's still green, but I've got as much as I need of that just now."

"What do you use bog-moss for?" Marcello asked interestedly. She looked around, then coughed. "Er. Meg?" she asked, a little tentatively. "I wanted to. Apologize."

Meg was in the midst of working out a handful of old, dried moss from beneath the green patch to show her, when she stopped and half-turned, looking up at Marcello curiously. "What for?"

"For..." Marcello shrugged. "Showing up unannounced? Crowding you? I wasn't thinking about that, I was thinking about Niabheara, and getting her away."

Morgana gave a tiny shrug and squeezed the handful of moss like a sponge. Muddy water streamed out of it. "There's no need. We were both in the right, and both in the wrong. I should have received you better no matter what had been happening. You're family, or soon-to-be family."

Marcello smiled at that. "I like that," she said softly, then bit her lip. "Are you...are you well with it?" she asked hopefully. "I know you said I shouldn't propose so close to the season, but...it just sort of came out. Niabheara asked me what I wanted, and I said it."

"Ah, love." She sighed again. "I just had a talking-to from the lady Dierdre about this. More of a scolding. She told me I should act more pleased for you. And I am pleased for you; I don't know how to act what I am." She held out her unmuddied hand. "All I can say is that you make each other happy, and what could I want for her but that?" Immediately her mind popped up with 'stablity' and 'security' and several other seductive words, but she managed not to say any of those out loud.

"A husband who isn't going to turn into a furball?" Marcello joked weakly. "I love her," she said. "I just want to spend as much time with her as I can."