Beyond the Stars

The Poisoner and the Warrior

Slight Trigger Warning: Descriptions of mass execution in a historic context and mentions murder and suicide methods.

An adolescent girl stood holding the doors of the poison cabinet open, reaching up as high as she could manage, nearly standing on her toes. "... Five Lady Mercys, one jar of wolfsbane, half a vessel of deadly nightshade, three phials of arsenic." She strained to maintain her posture as she pulled the final jar from the cabinet, "... and one amphule of arsine." She fell back to her heel, tilting her head towards her friend, her sorrel eyes meeting with citrines. "Did you get all that?" Her friend was sitting at the counter, leaning over a sheet of paper with a leg crossed and a pencil close to her lip. The girl at the counter had her carmine hair tied up in a high braided ponytail. Her outfit consisted of a pitch-dark crop top with fishnet sleeves and a sirwal. She even wore bold, black lipstick and smokey eyeshadow. By contrast, the girl by the cabinet looked akin to a porcelain doll with her heliotrope hair in a crispinette, lack of makeup, abstract floral patterned kirtle, and matching detachable sleeves with the ivory smock visible underneath. Over her kirtle, she donned a long, open front dress. She wore a silver choker with light azure cabochons and three strings of draped pearls. On her left middle finger sat an engraved argent ring and wrapped around the index on her right hand was an onyx ring. The chamber they occupied was about the size of an average kitchen, but filled with repurposed alchemical lab equipment and lit by several candelabras.

"Just a sec," the red-headed girl responded as she continued to write. "...and one arsine. Got it!"

The purple haired girl sighed with relief as her feet rested on the floor. "Thank you, Ursa!" She closed the doors and she turned the key in the first lock. "The palace chores have been piling up like crazy. I can barely find the time to relax," she asserted as she closed the third padlock, tugging it to be sure it was shut tight.

Afterwards she swirled around to face her companion, the back hem of her malachite gown almost dragged on the floor. "It's like... all I want to do is finish the next chapter of my book or practice playing the mandolin and something always comes up. Once I was re-reading "Married to the Moblin'' and right when I was about to get to the part where Orille commits the affair, someone knocked on my bedroom door and told me to wash the dishes," Ashia said in an exasperated tone.

"Yeah! No worries! You need a break, Ashia; you've been working so hard these days. I worry that you overexert yourself sometimes and that people demand too much from you," Ursa expressed as she doodled around the list she jotted down.

Ashia pulled out the stool from across from her friend and sank into it. She fingered the pearl laced nets of her crispinette, "It often feels that way! On one hand I want to make myself useful and earn my keep. But on the other, I feel like I'm being taken advantage of."

"You should bring it up with Lord Vaati or someone of high ranking. You're not anyone's slave - you are able to determine your own boundaries." Ursa declared. "Let them know what's going on and let them deal with it." Ashia nodded her head. "Anyway, have you heard about the group of people camping up in the Northern Forest?" Ursa's left arm rested on the counter while her right hand dropped to her knee. "I heard there's going to be a reconnaissance group being sent to spy on them."

Ashia's eyes sank and she straightened up, Ursa rested her elbows on the counter, clasped her hands together and placed her chin on top. "Yes, I've heard about it. My brother volunteered to go as a medic."

Ursa's eyes bulged and her eyebrows shot up. "He did?! When did he tell you? What happened?"

"Well..." Ashia paused to adjust her gown. "I was repairing some torn clothes when he knocked on the archway. He had a somber look on his face when he asked if I had a moment."