crooked

[Caspa Al-Fateh]

She left a beat after the child's words, a pause where her lids drooped to make her eyes even blacker than ever, the pupils indistinguishable, although they were trained steadily on her questioner. The request for information was impossible to ignore, and here by vague association was Caspa's field of expertise, though she would not mention the liquid in her possession. She had been trained in butchery, had tanned the leather she now wore, but had also learned much about the fittings of skins and organs belonging to a variety of creatures. She knelt on knees very used to kneeling and took the head of the snake in one hand, gently turning it to face upwards at the canine pair. A small squeeze opened the elastic jaw, revealed white moonlight incisors. "Poison means a substance that causes you harm." Caspa was not sure if this particular variety of snake carried poison, but she pointed anyway to the fleshy gum behind the tooth. "The snake holds it in a gland here, and it flows through a hollow channel in the tooth and into the flesh of the bitten." Her finger moved grimly along the path the venom would theoretically take, and finished up pointing roughly in Elvira's direction. Caspa did not think the puppy would frighten easily, but she should respect the dangers that nature's various beasts held. "There are several possible effects. Poisons can halt breathing, or stop the heart." She finished on a final-sounding note, having reached the limits of her knowledge and sure the youngster's mother knew far more than she - for Caspa assumed this was one of the healer's children, not that she'd met any of that family yet.