Red Viper

Merchant and Talks

"Here are thousand golden dragons  just as promised." Ellaria threw the small money bag at the man, a man from Volantis, a merchant, a charmer who sold potions and cures, rare herbs and not to mention poison. The same man she had met when she was travelling to Sunspear with Daemon, only to stumble upon him in the carven. She had made quick friends with him after she knew what business he did.

He was a small merchant with small family, wealthy, travelling to Sunspear as his annual trip. An average heighted man with no particular sharp features but his eyes filled slight wisdom, honesty and kindness which she had witnessed rarely. She had bought the poison from him, the rare poison of black and red scaled viper that would dissolve in any liquid taking the same taste of it, as if it was of its own and the drinker would die within minutes of falling asleep after feeling rusted needles plunge into their veins when they couldn't shout for help, a sweet sleep that would awaken in death.

The merchant, Saul, who inquired her for the use of the poison when she first asked for it. The poison was rare just as the snakes, there was a myth that a castle of Sunspear had a secret chamber as large as court of Iron throne that held a well, wherein the brave men of Dorne had captured all the red and black scaled vipers due to the terror they had spread in a time. A pit full of snakes, a pit full of vipers.

No one knew if the story was real or just a myth, not the people outside of the castle and not the people inside of the castle and soon it just became a ghost story. Ellaria had thought of this story when she first held the small blue vile between her fingers before she made up a story about an old hag who wanted to die and the fastest way was poison because no one wanted to murder an old woman but she didn't want to die like a coward, she wanted to suffer like all the great heroes of the history before she met her death and what was better than the poison of red and black scaled viper? A glorious death at the hands of the rare poison.

Saul quickly caught the small bag of gold and watched as Ellaria turned her brown horse around and watched her disappear into the sands of Dorne. He quickly placed the bag in his satchel as he turned the other way from Sunspear, porcelain dolls, yes, that was the present he would buy his daughters with the new gold coins he had acquired. He was never meant to sell that poison; it was never meant to slip out his bag and fall onto the ground when he was walking with Ellaria after few days they had met but it did. Ellaria, he had learned was a curious beauty, a witty woman with humor, a traveler and when she asked what the vial held, he answered it correctly because he never knew she was serpent beneath a flower.

He fastened his reins as his horse increased its speed, he thought it was quite strange that Ellaria had approached him after two months of their meeting for the poison. Quite strange that she had found him in city like Sunspear, it was too big, too busy and crowded and yet she did but this time something had changed about her. He had noticed but he didn't pay it much mind to it because people change, even in short time. So, he didn't think much about the story she told, if it was true then he granted a wish to an old lady but if not, there weren't any consequences for him because he was leaving Dorne soon.

It was dangerous having such rare poison, people would kill over it and he was slightly relieved that he had gotten rid of it just as he had gotten rid of the viper that had attacked him in sands, a rare beauty it was. He still remembered how vicious it looked, the obsidian eyes shined in the sunlight, the scales near its head colored red as if it was the warning to stay away from it, the cruel expression it held, the fast movements, the quickening desire of it to hide in sand, to camouflage, to play the predator it truly was.

His eyes snapped open when he heard the horse's neigh but it wasn't his horse that made it, it was coming from behind. Fear trickled down his spine, thinking of robbers and plunders that roamed the sands as nomads, madman killing for valuables and so he fastened his reins, kicking his horse to move faster, quickly out of the sands. "Stop!" he heard a voice call from behind him, "Stop your horse." But instead listening Saul moved faster, his hands curling around the reins as he his breath came in short pants.