The Nuit definitely was a conundrum for Isalie, that was for sure. Being the first that Isalie was truly meeting, or at least the first that she was conscious about what the being actually was, she was soaking up all of the information the Nuit offered her, whether knowingly or unknowingly. It was news to her about the Nuit's slow reflexes but, as the ex-salve digests this information, she realises that it was really the only thing that made sense; Isolde was, for all intents and purposes, dead, as was the body in which she was residing. It logically followed that Isolde would have slow reflexes, which might even get slower and slower as her host continues to deteriorate. The young woman takes a few minutes to debate whether or not to ask the question, wondering whether or not it would appear rude of her to do so. But she finally makes the decision that she had nothing to lose; they were, after all, learning about something which, by its very nature, was dark.
"How... uh... how long do you have?" She stutters as she asks, "I mean... how long in that body? Do you change it regularly? How do you? What's it like? Do you change each time your body does? Your personality that is, does it change?" The questions come out in a rush, and Isalie is aware of how rude she was being, straying so far from the topic of poisons, but curiosity was getting the better of her and her burning desire to know the answers had to be quenched. Isolde had seemed friendly and open enough so far, and she had even offered to teach Isalie how to write. Heck, the Nuit had seemed thrilled when the human had reluctantly agreed to be taught, so Isalie had decided to push her luck just a little, to see what she might learn.
The brown haired girl tilts her head to the side as she ponders the rest of Isolde's words, however, about wanting to only incapacitate others, for her own defence. It was curious that Islode felt the need to qualify her desire to learn about such things, as if Isalie might judge her for learning about poisons. She stifles a laugh at this idea; as if the runaway slave, the homeless girl with nothing to be proud of, nothing to call her own, had any right to judge those around her. But she doesn't voice any of this, having long since noticed Isolde's extraordinary capacity for compassion and pity, she didn't want to receive any more than she already was from the other woman.
"Well... I'm not an expert, Isolde... but from what I learnt on my travel here, and from deducing meaning from Ninus' own words... a poison, by its very definition, is meant to kill. And a poison that doesn't kill isn't a very good poison at all." She smiles wryly at the subject matter, still finding it hard to believe that she was even discussing such things. "But one might assume that if the dosage was small enough, any poison would be able to incapacitate. Even alcohol, if someone spends too much time at a tavern, and they drink too much, don't they fall unconscious?"
Isalie was definitely thinking on her feet now; her knowledge was strictly based around plants she knew she shouldn't eat, as her only desire, the single driving force around gaining this knowledge, was to stay alive. It had nothing to do with how to use said plants. Thinking on it, the girl realises that Isolde had the same motivations as Isalie when it came to learning about poisons. Except Isalie's were purely passive and Isolde's were aggressive, no matter how the Nuit dressed up her reasoning, that was why she was learning. Not that it bothered Isalie in the slightest.
"I suppose, in the situation you are describing, it would be very difficult to get another to..." she takes a moment to think of the word; with Myrian as her first language, Isalie struggled on occasion in this new land, "Eat... ingest! Ingest the poison. Your best bet would be to find a poison that acted if it were to touch the skin."
Isalie bites her lip, not sure of how to answer the Nuit's own question, merely because she wasn't sure of the answer herself. It wasn't something that she actively sought out to learn, she sort if just... Acquired it over time. And she says this, adding, "I've been sick many times. You learn through your mistakes, as they say..."
