(534) If you want to wrap this up with him passing out, we can close this up! :3 Maybe also start the new one? Aaaand mind me using PP with his "daughter" in that next thread? Just to have Siv keeping her close/etc.
The meat was placed on the fire, presently, as Siv listened to his speak. One hand moved back to her side, to where her own water-sling was, and this space of time was what ultimately damned the golden man.
The masters were trying to kill me, he said.
Everything—the tickle in her mind, the itch in her throat—it vanished. A gear clicked into place, rang clearly, and she knew. She knew what he was and why he was so unprepared to live in the wild despite his size, why he was starving even though he was built for war. This man had been trained, not merely as a warrior, but as a slave. No servant, no Free-born man, would use the term master. Woe to him, to come face to face with the Signorina. He might have found freedom if only he had traveled further south, if only he had missed her, if only, if only.
A secondary, smaller pouch was produced. It was filled with a sweet, strong-smelling liquid. It had been made during the war, and she carried it still—fearful that a wound, such as Salvia’s, might be further damaged by a patient’s panic. Odessa’s book had helped make it easy, but Siv relied on her own knowledge to draw the poison out such that it would not kill. The mixture (a fruity one, not quite mead but not quite wine) was passed towards the man as the meat began to sizzle.
“My Dark Lady,” she used the formal title despite Eris’ demotion, smiling at the thought of it. Things were certainly moving quickly. “She has kept cats for many years. One is large,” her hands moved, illustrating. “And spotted. He is from a land far to the south, where the Sun is worshiped as a god and wolves dare not go.” Siv was deliberate. As they drank of the sleeping draught, she would talk and talk and never give them reason to think she was avoiding the drink herself. “There are smaller ones, that live in our lands too—long of fur, striped of coat, black as night. It is good luck to keep cats, you see. A massive one, the color of old blood, he makes his claim in our northern lands. He serves The Tigress herself,” Siv smiled, waiting, timing her words and watching for the signs of the drink to take its effect. “Our new Commander, she is more like a great cat than any wolf. I have heard it said that she can take the shape of a tiger, and uses it to destroy our enemies…”
There it was. The glaze in the eyes, the swaying. Her smile turned cold. “You are the first Lion I have seen. My people believe that wearing the skin of the beast you killed grants power; do you think that so, my Lion? I killed the man who wore this,” she motioned to her clothing, which was indeed Boreas armor (if heavily modified to suit her frame). “Is his power mine now? Or,” she smiled thinly, the tips of her teeth showing as they always did. “Is it power to own a man, as one owns a cat?”