Araneida or Serpente? [Devandre]

[Cayenne]

When: Winter, 509 AV. Day TBD by Devandre.
Who: Devandre
What: Siku encounter.

It was early winter. There was only a faint dusting of snow to be seen. Numerous trees had shed their leaves, leaving their skeletons exposed, as the colours were beginning to brown and meld with the already-decaying foliage down below. They would eventually disintegrate, their matter going to the ground, and begin Caiyha's long cycle again. A few tenacious survivors still clung to their precarious perches, even as the wind teased them, threatening to send them to the ground. The wind itself carried the chill from the mountains, bringing the cold into the lower regions. More snow would fall soon - Morwen had begun her journey from Avanthal, and she would be bringing with her the cold, pale beauty of ice and snow and frost.

It may have been winter, but business waited for no one, as Devandre well knew. If he intended to sell his wares, he needed supplies, and he knew he could well stand to find out more about the local plants... and just how to apply them to his concoctions. Some plants were only available at certain times in certain seasons, after all. Some could only be harvested at certain stages. Sure, he could just buy already picked and prepared plants... but that cut into one's profit margins, and when you were already working on a limited budget, you needed whatever profits you could get your hands on. Besides, he learned best by doing.

This looked to be a good enough place to start. There was a large clump of green moss that he had seen available before, and it made for a useful base. It looked to be in its dying stages. But there was much to do and see out here.

[Devandre]

Winter Day 5 509AV

The beginning of winter was always the hardest for Devandre. He preferred the warmth of late spring and Summer. Dressed in his usual cloak, it covering and protecting his body from direct contact of the nipping air. The wind ruffled what little leaves where left on the branches of the trees slowly going to sleep till it becomes warmer. Along with his hood positioned high on his head, his face was wrapped with a bit of cloth to keep the cold from his face and prevent his skin from drying more and cracking.

Although the view of the Wintery forest was beautiful, he had other things on his mind, things not as pleasant as the current site. Stopped in between the tall trees of the wilderness, eyes wandered looking and searching for something useful to use in a regulars order. "You'd think I would learn by now to stock up." He mentored himself, finally he found something of use.

"Hmm," pondering as he crouches lower to the ground, he stood already close to the ground but he could stand closer. Hands brushed over the slightly icy and dieing moss, "This could be salvaged and ussed, heh who am I kidding he issn't going to tesst the product on himsself." He smiled under the cloth, which vanished and appeared as the fog of winter formed where his mouth would be if uncovered. The man reached into his pack and gripped a plain knife and some fabric. Using his right hand he cuts away the plant that had already died and blackened, the green was scraped off of the surface it had grown on and into the fabric. This bundle was then folded and put away out of sight and mind. He stood and straitened himself back up, hand move to deposit the knife back into his pack as he prepared to move on and find more ingredients necessary for his profession.

[Cayenne]

Who in their right mind tested poisons on themselves, after all? Wasteful... in so many ways. Some ingredients took a while to get ahold of, and some were harder still, and the costs could be prohibitive. Besides, you never knew what one ingredient might tip the balance past any possible level of built-up immunity. But idiots who dabbled in poisons did not dabble long. They tended to either learn quickly or die quickly. Either way, it thinned the numbers of those who would be competition quite nicely.

As he picked his way through the faint snow, he may have noticed that there was a trail left on the cold, barren ground. It didn't have footprints, but rather, like something had been slithering through... not unlike something a snake would leave. But it was a bit cold for snakes, now, wasn't it? One would think that they would be hibernating from the cold temperatures. But he was half-Dhani, and he knew that not every snake was sleeping, as powerful as the lull to do just that might be.

As trails went, it was a big one - it was a broad snake, although there was no accounting for its length to judge from the trail. But any snake who left such a shape had to be huge. And those kind of snakes, ones he had heard only rumours and whispers of, had to come from Falyndar, the tropical jungle on almost the opposite side of the continent. This begged the question, though... what was one doing here? There was plenty to distract him from the trail. He could see more of the moss he had just harvested, and two other kinds besides, some that helped make some rather disgusting-smelling inhalants and tended to cause a rash if one picked it without gloves...

There was no sign of the snake who had left the trail. Maybe it was cold by now, with nothing to see or find? In any case, he was here to replenish his supplies. There was much to do, but not so much time to do it in.

[Devandre]

When he stood once more he began to take a few steps over a mound. When he had crest the mound of powder his eyes caught something of great interest and curiosity to him. "What isss this now? Trackss, of what?"

Stepped down into the track that seemed to be like something big was drug through the frozen ground. He looked around expecting to see a fresh cut stump, perhaps someone had come out here to collect some timber. But he found none and this only added to his curiosity. He decided without any thought at all to follow the track, after a few steps along the trail a thought crossed his little head. "Could this be a trail of an animal? What animal would leave a track like this?" He pondered that question for sometime as he continued to fallow the icy trail. His curiosity obviously over shadowing his tasks that he had set out to do on this winter day.
"Could it be a sssnake that made this track?" He finally said aloud as he stroked his long hair, "No it couldn't be a snake, it is much to cold for snakes." He dismissed the idea and looked around making sure he keeps his bearings so he could more easily find his way back home.

[Cayenne]

"The itssssy-bitssssy sssspider climbed up the water sssspout..." There had been nothing there a moment ago. Much less someone. Standing directly in his path was a woman, broad and ample-bodied with thick hips and shoulders. She was almost completely naked, the sole garment she wore was a short sarong of gossamer-like cloth, if indeed it was cloth, around her round hips, the blue-green garment clinging to her curves like a second skin, barely concealing anything, considering its angles. What exposed skin she had was pale... milk-white but for an odd tinge of green that seemed to come and go in patches. Her eyes were green, lacking normal pupils, but were slitted, like a snake's, edged in black and blue... but patterns beyond had white hatch marks that almost made it look like she had scales. Her hair was a rich ink blue, almost black, coiled and hanging loose. Around her shoulders, and indeed, draping over the rest of her body, was an impossibly long, lanky snake... possibly the one who had made the trail he had noticed... black but for alternating bands of crimson and gold. On both forearms were coiled bands of gold meant to resemble a snake, with glittering black eyes, extending to rest on the backs of her hands. Whatever jeweler had made them had clearly been a genius.

She stepped delicately through the snow and mud towards him. "Down came the rain, and wasssshed the sssspider out. Out came the ssssun and dried up all the rain... and the itssssy-bitssssy sssspider climbed up the sssspout again," she sing-songed at him, her eyes glinting. He felt something moving around and over top of his feet, beginning to constrict at his ankles. A glance revealed it to be another snake... quite thick, with mottled grey-green scales with flecks of gold banding around its expansive girth. It was slowly beginning to coil around him, but if he chose to try to move... he could likely get out of it.

She approached him slowly, her hips swaying, one of her fingers caressing the jaw of the snake that was draped around her as it hissed, its fork tongue flickering in and out. "Tell me, Devandre... half-blooded though you are... You like poissssonssss, yessss? Sssso tell me..." there was a wicked smile on her face, rich and full, beautiful and cruel. "Araneida or sssserpente?" she held her free hand out, palm up, and between her middle three fingers were a pair of corked vials as her eyes watched his face. The vials looked to be the same, right down to the same sort of fluid in them. Nothing set either one apart from the other.

[Devandre]

As the short man moved over the frozen landscape, sounds of the ground crunching beneath his leather covered feet reverberated off of the skeletal brush and trees. A landscape that in it’s own way was beautiful. Hibernation, death, silence, the sounds of animal life void the air. This had set an eerily peaceful atmosphere as snowflakes lazily drift in the wind.

Devandre soon heard a soft sound, which soon turned to a voice. Serpentine, a tune unfamiliar to him was being sung. A strange hymn that he soon pieced together into meaningful words, even though they may not have been, he felt they were about his symenestra bloodline. Someone knew, and she sounded Dhani.

His head turns toward the slithering sounds that were gracing his ears. Eyes focusing on what he could only describe as a beastly beauty. The complexion of her pale skin and scale like face told Devandre that what he was looking at was in fact a Dhani, the first Dhani he had ever met. He feels something against his feet, looking down he sees a snake, green and gold, sliding around his ankles coiling around. His first instinct was to move away from the creature. One foot steps out of the coil but he soon feels not so threatened seeing the strange women holding a snake of her own.

The goddess of a women approached Devandre who only looked at her with a fake, translucent smile, beneath this layer of feigned politeness was puzzlement and curiosity. Why where there snakes here during winter? He didn’t ask however, he was out in winter as well when he would rather be sitting next to a fire recording notes and experiences. He was only out because there was work to be done. This he figured was the reason why he had come to meet this woman with little modesty.

His analysis was confirmed when she asked him about his hobby, herbalism of a darker kind. He watches as her pale hands unfurl and reveal two vials, from her words he was guided to believe that one contains venom of a serpent, the other of a spider. Always one to help out someone in need, he begins to speak trying his best to keep his composure and professionalism despite the cold and the appealing woman before him a client was a client. There was however something that bothered him, it being how did this woman find him?

“I prefer to work with sserpente’s venom, but it all depends on what you need to have done fair lady.” While he was speaking he took in more of the sight of the goddess before him. This was when Devandre, had a thought that slammed into his head much like a sledgehammer. “Pardon my tact but what did you say your name wass?” He looks a little concerned now; it couldn’t be his idol of worship could it?

[Cayenne]

“An odd pairing,” the woman smiled at him her nightmarish smile at him. “Sssspider and ssssnake… ssssnake and sssspider. Unussssual. Ssssome might even say sssshameful. Tainted. Weakened. Maybe. Ssssome cannot ssssee ussssefulnesssssss if it sssslapped them in the fasssce…” Around his legs, the mottled snake continued to curl, albeit loosely. Its quarry wasn’t going anywhere. The python made its way towards the pale woman, its muscular, heavy body cutting a wide swath as it moved towards her. So that had been the one that had left the trail. The one draped over her, while being an impressive size, wasn’t necessarily thick enough to have been able to leave that track.

“But I do have ssssomething that needssss doing… and time issss of the essssence.” She closed her fingers, enfolding both vials into her palm before holding her hand out to him. "Thesssse." When his hand was within range, before he could even blink, the golden snake on her wrist moved up her hand, and bit him in the wrist, leaving a painful, burning sensation... right over the vein in the same movement she pressed the vials into his hand. When she drew away, there were two needle-like markings on his wrist, each marked with drops of blood. "Find out what they are... and how they pertain to your ssssituatsssion... ssssinsssce you work with poissssonssss... you sssshould have no problem, ssshould you?" The vials held a milky substance, which, when tested, would prove each belonging to a different source. One held snake venom. One held that of a spider. It would be up to him to figure out which was which.

“You assssk who I am… and yet, I think you know me, half-blooded child,” her eyes glinted and she tossed her inky hair as her head fell forward and she fixed a vicious smile on him. “My name issss Ssssiku. But whether or not you sssshould even be called one of my children hassss yet to be sssseen. You have two bellssss to ssssolve that,” she indicated the bloody marks on his wrist with an almost lazy gesture. “Or else you will losssse your arm, and maybe your life, if my ssssnakessss are hungry. Trial by fire might burn, Devandre, but the sssscarssss are neat reminderssss.”