le poison

[Inadua]

Seriph had spent several weeks focusing all of her energy on one thing: preparing plants to be made into poisons. The first several days she'd disappeared from the holdless camp, venturing out to parts of the surrounding terrain where she knew the poisonous varieties could be more readily found. Once she'd collected enough of the ingredients, the journey back to the holdless camp hadn't exactly been uneventful.

Having thought she'd seen signs of other humans, the woman took every effort to approach the camp in round about ways, taking her time to be misleading about where she was going, and cover up her tracks....just in case it'd been Dragonshield following after her. Even though Seriph didn't care for the Shield or dragonriders -neither did she care about the holdless- one way or the other, the woman was certain that leading them to the holdless camp was a sure-fire way to ensure a quick and painful death.

Natural predators on the other hand, she wasn't quite as worried about. Seriph had spent so much of her life in wilderness such as this, that she had become in tune with its inhabitants. She understood how to read nature around her and how to communicate back. Unlike most humans who remained at a disconnect with the wilds, Seriph became a part of it. The holdless woman was no great tracker or hunter, but nature accepted her as she had accepted it. The birds did not alert to her presence like an intruder, nor the lizards scurry away in fear. Seriph could exist within that same natural current of life that they did. Even so, humans were naturally social creatures and that fact alone, had a way of drawing her from her wandering long enough to rest and take a good hearty meal at someone else' permanent abode.

Seriph didn't like to admit it, but being 'social' periodically was built-in human necessity. One could go crazy without hearing another human voice, never making that simple human contact...so here she was again, having found that place temporary dwelling at the Holdless camp. She had no real liking of many of the people there, but at least she got one hot meal every day out of it, and someone to talk to...to interact with.


After her return to camp, her time had been spent preparing the plants for use. She'd kept quietly to her own tent while she worked on the project...but now, a couple of medium sized jars were filled with the finished product. The woman didn't really think about it, but somehow it didn't seem to make her uneasy knowing to what end her poisons would become a means to achieving.


The holdless woman had been to wash at the river already that morning, had her hair combed through and braided. The braid was wraped into a thick bun held in place by long quills and pins. Seriph wore her customary skirt, thigh high stockings and boots, but only concealed her breasts by the drape of long, diaphanous scarves that also covered her head and shoulders, keeping them from too much direct sun. A number of different bangles had been pushed up her arms and crowded her wrists; some adorned with nail-like points on them which could probably be used in some measure of self-defense.

As Seriph approached the council tent, there were no loud voices coming from it, but she had already been to the training ground and practically no one other than the cooks had occupied the mess tent; naturally, this was her next stop in trying to find someone important like Riverton.
The young woman dried sweaty palms off on her skirt where it gathered at one hip with assistance of a skirt hike. The air was humid, but she was also a little nervous approaching a man as intimidating as Riverton -especially when it involved giving something deadly to a man who she felt was too dangerous to begin with. So it was with the same hesitance Seriph brought a hand up to part the entrance of the tent, inviting herself in.

"Riverton? Your task is complete. Are you here?" Tentative steps brought her into the council tent, as the woman glanced about to find the leader of the holdless.

[wolflover1458]

((Sorry this took so long. I have a pretty busy class schedule this summer.))

It was nice to have a time to just relax. A time when plans had already been made, and orders had been given out. A time when he already knew what might be coming in the future, but which needed the expertise of others to be completed. It left him with nothing to do but wait.

The easiest thing to do in such a situation was to worry and wonder when everything would be ready. Impatience, however, would get nothing done quicker, and Riverton had had so much stress already that he had decided against even thinking about the tasks that were laid out. He was just going to wait for them to be completed and, until then, he was going to enjoy the quiet of their lives at the moment. There were some upsides to taking a break from constant fighting. At least it meant he could have a chance to enjoy himself without worrying about everything he worked for suddenly crashing down. For now, they were simply waiting, and it would remain like that for some time. Far better to just enjoy it than get worked up.

That was why he hadn't gotten anything done yet today. There were others with jobs left to do. He just had to wait to hear from them before he could get anything else done. This was the only time he really got to take off; he might as well enjoy it.

Too bad it wasn't to last. It was some time into the day when he heard a voice outside the tent. It was Seriph.

She had had skills he needed to get a few things done, and so Riverton had entrusted it to her, although he honestly wasn't sure just what he thought of her. Looking at her made him feel wary at times, as though he wasn't sure if she was completely with him. Riverton could live with people not agreeing all the way with him, so long as he kept a keen eye and felt he could trust them enough. It just made him wary to charge her with too much. It was always a danger to entrust anything to anyone, but it also had to be done. Seriph had been able to do what he needed. Hopefully he could trust it to her.

"I'm here Seriph, come in," he called out to her. Perhaps the wait was coming to a close now. It might soon be time to remind the Weyrs of their presence.

[Inadua]

Closing much of the gap between them, Seriph's nervousness seemed to disappear. Her manner may have seemed suspicious now; her movements becoming reminiscent of a creature more sly and serpentine.
A hand slipped into a makeshift pocket created by the folds of fabric around her hips. It was only after her fingers lingered for several long moments over the drawstring pouch within, that she snatched it from the pocket in a deft way, displaying the thing within the palm of her hand, holding it up for him to see.

"Good. You're here. Alone, I see. Maybe it's better that way. You'll want to keep this out of the hands of those you don't trust...completely."

Seriph's slim figure blocked the thin stream of light that penetrated from between the door panels of the tent as she moved toward him. Momentarily however, she situated herself upon the table over which councils were held. Sitting with legs crossed, the light filtered through the diaphanous scarves that covered her top half, shadowing what little curves she possessed. The pouch, she held out to him again, this time elaborating.

"I will not tell you the exact ingredients, but it doesn't take much to be effective. Only a little...will stop a beating heart. I'd imagine that enough of it would even take down a dragon; but I'm unsure how much it would take. A full vial maybe? I cannot say.
"As you can see, the vials are limited. The flowers that are most potent for this brew are hard to find and tend to grow in small numbers. Two months time it takes to make just this much. You'll have to use it wisely..."

An almost coquettish, little bit snide grin teased him thereafter, as she finished the thought, "and try not to spill any on your bare skin. It seeps through if you don't use gloves...gets into the blood. And whether you like to think of it that way or not, you're just as human as the weyrfolk are -it can kill you, too."

As an afterthought, the woman gave a tiny, helpless shrug of her shoulders. "Don't ask for an antidote either; I can't promise that I know of one."