Chan Vaen edan Kote

Chan Vaen edan Kote

It was an absolutely miserable day. Once upon a time, rain would have been a minor inconvenience to Saffrin. Nay, only a true storm could be considered as such. A gentle storm such as the one that surged overhead at this moment would have been less than that. It would have been life for the forest and all who occupied it, a rumble to lull him to sleep, a bare annoyance if the wind buffeted too hard or the rain fell too heavily. Now though... all thanks to that damn witch, even the smallest rain was horrible.

Saffrin felt soaked to the bone. There were no longer scales to protect him, and the flimsy cloth humans wore afforded him little to no protection either. Those very clothes stuck to him all over now, along with his hair. He had two feet, soft and sore, and he was practically up to his waist in mud and filth. No scales, no fangs, no claws... he walked on two feet, had soft pink skin and hair... hair. The smallest of thorns drew blood, and misery came so easily. This body was so picky about what he did to take care of it. There were foods it wouldn't accept, and attempting to hunt was an exercise in temper.

So far, he'd only been stuck in this human form for a few months, as far as he could tell, but they had been the worst few months of his life. That damn witch had cursed him and run, and now he was stuck wandering the forests in an attempt to find her. It would have been easier had he had his usual eyesight, hearing, ability to scent... any of his superior traits he had known all his life. Even with crippling blow that witch had dealt him though, he was determined that he would find her and make her change him back.

But that was not an immediate problem. It should have been, but this damn weak body kept interfering, and Saffrin knew he needed to get out of the rain. The trees did not make the best shelter and were filled with nasty creatures that tried to attack him besides, so he had to try to find something else. A cave was ideal. He'd stayed in many caves in the past, before the witch had changed him, and they had served him well since, provided they weren't occupied. The only problem was that he had been looking for just such a thing for... hell, he didn't know. It was so difficult to tell time.

Thankfully, luck seemed to be with him in however small a capacity. After some indeterminable amount of time, Saffrin stumbled upon what he had been searching for for so long. Weaving around trees, he walked over the autumn leaves that littered the ground. He'd almost gotten used to the crunching they made underfoot, though now the sound made was almost squishy, all soft and pliable. And the cave... as he came closer and closer to it, he couldn't help but notice some sort of light seemed to be flickering along the walls near the entrance, though he couldn't yet see far enough inside that he could see the light's source.

And despite that the light likely meant the cave was already occupied, he'd searched too long to pass it by.

Blood. The final ingredient was always the most...difficult to add. It was always at his disposal, of course; much more so than the other putrid or tedious wares that his love needed to live.

"Sugar--enough to give a horse the jitters. Glacian salt--poisonous if not handled correctly. Hellia snake's venom--just as deadly to obtain as it is to use. Petals of a violet. And so many more things...all leading up to this."

Saga had wondered many a times what it was that perturbed him so about the act. He was far from squeamish. A man of his studies would have to be. He wasn't afraid of pain, either. At last, he had come to the conclusion of the desperation. It was shameful, to say the least, that he would willingly open his own flesh and bleed his life into cast iron pot for those few, beautiful crystals. It was all to bring his love to life, however, and for that he would do anything. Saga told himself this to ease the unsettling feeling each time this particular concoction was being brewed. The mantra become obsolete when he was reminded that his 'love' was truthfully the crystals, of course, but that was ultimately unavoidable. His love was greed, in all of her violet and crystallized glory.

The cauldron let out an irritable hiss as lavender mist sprayed around the cave. Saga waved his arms over it, eyebrows creasing in annoyance. "Calm yourself, my lady. Patience is a virtue," Another hiss, followed by a bright wave of sparks retorted back to him. "Alright, alright, it's coming, hold on." The warlock sighed, unlacing a velvet gauntlet on one of his forearms. He stared down at his now naked arm, various scars of various states of healing staring back at him. A twinge of shame was quickly shoved aside as he held the arm over the cauldron and used his other hand to slide a dagger along the puffy flesh, toxic, violet eyes twitching as his blood fell carelessly into the mixture below. As soon as the garnet drops made contact with the other liquid, the hissing ceased and the lavender smoke became a bright violet mist.

Saga was wrapping gauze around his arm when the other man entered his current home. The man was quite obviously irritated, and even more obviously wet. The heavy autumn rainfall outside had spent a fair amount of time with the visitor. Even though he should have been shocked or defensive, Saga found himself instead intrigued by his brilliant, fresh, green hair. Never had he seen such a color on a mortal man before. Questions bubbled at the surface of his own lips, but as he saw the stranger's eyes staring down at the cauldron, something else escaped him without any need for thought: "Don't think I'm going to share with you, because I'm not."

Saffrin could conjure up a few things he might have thought to find in the cave, though a cauldron with violet mist spilling over the top was not something he had expected. If he hadn't already taken note of the man sitting beside it, he would have immediately suspected the witch he was in search of. As it was, his clear blue eyes flickered suspiciously about the cave as if she might come out from behind some rock at any moment.

It was as he did this that the human's words registered, and his eyes quickly wove back to meet the human's strange violet gaze--the same color as whatever it was that leaked from the cauldron, he noticed. Saffrin's posture straightened back so that he looked down his nose at the stranger, his lips curling back in a repulsive sneer. "I want none of your vile potion, witch," he said dismissively, his voice holding a definitive superior air to it. His voice itself was strong and deep like the roots of a tree, powerful in a strange, unnameable sense. It seemed to come straight from his chest and held a note to it that resembled a growl.

"As it is raining, I will require the use of this cave though, even if it should mean that I must share with you," he continued, contempt now clear in his tone. Humans spoke such a graceless language, but he could admire to a degree the wide range of emotions it allowed its user to convey to whomever they were speaking with. It was not as if a human mouth could fathom the words of his kind in any case.

That said, Saffrin stepped further into the cave, giving the human--and the cauldron--a wide berth as he did so. Once inside the cave but a goodly ways from whatever evil potion the witch was cooking, Saffrin peeled off the wet cloth that clung to his body and threw the sopping wad onto the cave floor with a wet splat that echoed about for a short instant.

There seemed to be nothing else to be done to help speed the process of drying his body, however, and so he perched on a rock, flipping thoroughly damp strands of green hair from his face with a flick of his wrist that seethed with irritation.

When he found the witch Lenore, after making her reverse the curse she had set upon him of course, she would pay for all that had come of her spell.