Faith smiled at Hookor when he spoke about serendipity being the father of invention. He could well be right, in fairness. Her smile widened as Padraig spoke of kidnapping her and she perched herself solidly on the stool. "That would be most inappropriate behaviour for a professor, you know. Besides, I don't go easy." They both knew that, more than one person had tried to kidnap her after all. She lifted her two small hands in mock fists and raised an eyebrow. "I get quite scrappy." But then, she listened as Padraig spoke and her face settled into the slight frown of concentration which both men at the table would recognise as more her norm.
"Padraig was my tutor, it's how we met," Faith said, by way of an explanation. "I wanted to learn everything and he seemed to be able to provide that knowledge. What alchemy I know, he has taught me and it seems to me that it is about essence. Understanding the absolute essence of a thing, a reagent." In the restaurant she owned, Faith said, they served an ice cream which kept its form in a hot cup of coffee but melted in cold. That was alchemy in action, Padraig had created it. An alchemist, Faith believed, made it their job to understand the very essence of a lot of things. When Padraig said it was craftsmanship though, Faith nodded. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a piece of fabric, a handkerchief and she handed it to Hookor. It appeared to change colour as it moved, swirling through every colour of the rainbow. "I use it to distract the babies, when I'm changing them," she explained. "That isn't alchemy, it's sewing. As a seamstress, or a chef, I understand what I'm working with on a level which is born from having done, and done, and done. As an alchemist, Padraig could put that effect on to a piece of cloth, maybe using the essence of a flower which changed colour or from the rainbow sands here, or some such. A reagent."
The piece of cloth was a miracle of craftsmanship and Faith shoved it into her pocket when Hookor gave it back, completely unaware that her talent was what it was. Padraig spoke then about identifying a problem and coming up with a solution and Faith smiled slightly. "For me, it's about identifying a problem, but then defining in detail what the problem is. Operationalize your variables." It was a phrase they used as scientists, the need to truly and scientifically define the nature of a problem.
"Bandages, traditional bandages, can be breeding grounds for infection. They get wet, they get dirty, they let infection in and they have to be opened in order to check them. Those issues were where we started with the raft." She'd been working in a restaurant in Rharne, she explained, and she'd learned how to make a consomme, a clarified broth with all the impurities taken out of it. This was done via a technique known as a raft. It sat on top of the broth and it drew all the impurities to it. She'd gotten to wondering, she explained to Hookor, if the same could be done over a wound - something which pulled out infection, impurities. Then, that had led to all the other issues which had been addressed. So she hadn't started from her knowledge of chemistry or any such thing. She'd simply identified a problem and mostly, Faith said, Padraig had solved it. That she said with a smile to her husband.
When Padraig suggested that he consider a problem Faith nodded, encouragingly. Anything, she said, from suturing to bedbaths. Identify a problem, they could start from there.