[ P ] Little Victory

Datura

Death’s cry, that distinct call of imminent demise, echoed through the dark of the desolate winter’s night. As silent as a ghost, Datura watched as a sheep languished in agony. Its frame, thin from the unforgiving season, was twisting and thrashing as the unexpectedly consumed poison worked its way through the body of the unfortunate creature. Tonight, Datura was experimenting with toxicity – and doing better than her pessimistic thoughts had envisioned, as the bleating of the dying animal began to fade away. The young witch observed its final moments in silence from behind an ailing juniper bush, her facade absent of any emotion.

The pale girl almost felt sorry for her victim. But Mother Rhiannon insisted this was the best way to learn: experimentation. This way, the coven children would see firsthand the power of these plants that she taught. It was both exhilarating and disturbing to see her success as the animal’s desperation ceased, and wild movements calmed to gentle twitching before nothing at all. Silence again claimed the dark forest. Datura sat motionless, fairly certain that the sheep was dead, but still nervous to approach.

Almost a year old, but still slight, the girl possessed a petite physique, delicate as a wilting flower. She could venture further away from the Fae Forest, but Datura didn’t dare. The prospect of solitude was too daunting, terrifying as any monster, for the only thing worse than ogres and goblins was her own species. Strangers - a term that encompassed nearly every wolf of Rionna - were a source of dread and fear. Aside from her small coven, others were viewed with a deep suspicion cultivated by mistrustful Mother Rhiannon.

Finally, she removed herself from her hiding place, taking cautious steps toward the fallen sheep. It was no good to eat now, unless she wanted to poison another unknowing creature, to take down two lives that night… As she was contemplating what to do next, the sound of a crow’s noisy call startled Datura, who jumped at the noise, wide orange eyes searching the skies. Mother Rhiannon was surely near, a source of both comfort and fear, and the girls chest heaved with anxiety as she awaited the woman's arrival with nervous eyes darting about to find her.


@Anwyn

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It was the sound of something dying that roused him. Dark lids fluttered open to reveal seemingly darker eyes. From pup to teen, Anwyn had lost the dullness that came with puppy fluff. Now he looked every bit of the shadow he was. Long legs attached seamlessly to his lean frame and he was swathed in a coat so dark, so black that it nearly swallowed the light around him. His eyes were perhaps the most uncanny part of him. Bottomless pits of onyx, they looked into your very soul and demanded penance. There was nothing those eyes didn't see.

Abandoning his chosen resting place, he navigated the Fae Forest with a deftness that spoke of life here. This was home, he knew this forest better than he knew himself. Finding the dying creature wasn't hard with all the noise it made. Remaining concealed amongst the shadow of the trees, Anwyn focused on being as silent as possible, his paws pressing carefully into the forest floor as he moved to disturb as few branches as possible. What he hadn't expected was to run into another Coven member, especially her. The girl Rhiannon had found and brought home to join the Coven. Datura.

She was timid, compared to the rest of them. Sumac was quiet, obedient, but it wasn't the same. Fear lingered in the edges of her stare. Like she didn't belong and she knew it.

Today, she peered down at the now dead sheep, looking rather curious. A crow would startle them both, though Anwyns reaction was the slightest of flinches and the narrowing of his eyes. The girl looked around, nervous now. With an inaudible sigh, the boy melted from the shadows, slinking forward like a large cat. He was silent, his stare hard and calculating. Approaching, he stopped with the animal between them, his eyes trained on it. "What did you do?" His head was carried low, just below his shoulders, submissive. But his voice it as odds with his posture. He speaks eloquently, the words flowing off his tongue with a confidence that suggested he would have an answer from her, one way or another. Mother Rhiannon wasn't around.speak like this.

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Datura

She could smell him before she saw him, though his scent was scarcely perceptible. It was not Mother Rhiannon… It was something far worse. How could she have been so careless? It was so easy to go unnoticed, a skill that she had mastered. But her experiment had been so noisy. Like a demon from the darkness, the boy appeared. Obsidian orbs, an ominous stare fixed upon her, colder than the night air that caused Datura to shiver. The blackness of his entire entity did him no favors in the winter. But in the nighttime, with only a sliver of silver moon to illuminate the earth below, Anwyn was enveloped by the abyss.


To say that she was happy to see him would be a massive lie, and despite her best efforts to control her visage, her anxiety at his sudden appearance was written plainly across her pale features. Datura had generally avoided the boy because he was precisely that – a boy. And it was no secret that Rhiannon held little esteem for males, including the two she had raised. His voice was deeper than Datura remembered, and just like everything else about the youth, the timbre of his words were foreboding. ”What did you do?”


For a lingering moment that felt excruciatingly like hours, Datura could only stare, her struggle to find words visible in her countenance. ”I – I just–”Where he was confident, she was timid. Weak. Even if he was a male, born lowly and just barely tolerated by Mother Rhiannon, he was stronger than her in mind and in spirit, and undoubtedly, both of the almost-yearlings were keenly aware of this difference.


”I didn’t expect it to wohk,” she finally admitted. The words had scarcely parted her lips when she winced, pinching her lips shut tightly, though the mistake had already been uttered. Datura spoke little, and because she was so seldom heard, no one had really noticed the trouble she had with certain letters… except for Lark, who had used this information to tease and torment the cream-hued girl until she learned better than to express herself if she wasn’t required to do so. The letter R remained elusive to her tongue, so she tried with great intention to carefully choose words that avoided the letter all together. These were impediments Datura had not outgrown, a fault that left her feeling childish and stupid. Her only hope was that Anwyn had not noticed her slip – or that he wasn’t as cruel as his sadistic littermate.



@Anwyn

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Anxiety bled into her features, giving away what she truly thought of him. It caused the boy to narrow his eyes, just barely. She had always been a quiet one, content to remain in the back where she could be forgot, overlooked. It wasn't entirely her fault, no one was safe of his beloved sisters wrath and Datura was no exception. Being a professional in dealing with his sister, he found it easier to avoid her as much as possible, which mean he wouldn't be standing up for anyone, especially a mere stranger.

With veiled interest, he watched her struggle, words failing in her the moment. No effort was made to rush her, he didn't mock her nor stare at her with annoyance. Anwyn was patient. I-I just... Still he waited. Though his crown would dip lower, nostrils flaring as he sniffed at the dead sheep.

Being a boy had it perks, he was often forgotten, also overlooked. Without the pressure resting so heavily on his shoulders, it allowed him to simply exist. And observe. He was getting better at it, noting the small shifts in expressions, the minute changes in someones voice. So it shouldn't be a surprise that he didn't miss the error in her words. Wohk. Onyx eyes snapped back to her, all to aware. How curious. She was around his age, there weren't many words he struggled with now that he was approaching his first birthday and he certainly didn't struggle with a word as simple as work. Was it a slip up due to her anxiety or a chronic habit?

"What did you do?" He repeated the question. His own personal fascinate with herbs had him overlooking the fact that he didn't particularly care for her, that she was a foreign stranger to him. She had something he wanted. With conscious effort, he would attempt to soften the lines of his face, to warm the chill that was ever present in his eyes. How successful he was, he couldn't say.speak like this.

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Datura

The girl’s expression was one of dread as she awaited his cruelty, but Anwyn said nothing about the word she had mispronounced. For a moment, Datura wondered if it meant that the ominous boy was more kind than she had expected; for that moment, timid sunset-hued sights turned upward to look at the dark child with cautious hope. But there was no semblance of understanding to be found, though when he repeated the same question, his demeanor seemed a little less frigid than before.


Unconsciously, her gaze broke away from the larger youth and the poisoned prey that lay ingloriously between them. Confident that their caretaker was not watching, Datura’s attention returned to Anwyn. ”Belladonna,” she answered after another silent beat had passed. ”Also known as Nightshade. Um, the plant, not the pup,” she clarified to distinguish the poison from her coven Sister with the hint of a sheepish smile. ”I must have used too much,” she mused aloud. ”I only meant to take it down, not… this.” While she was not as skilled and knowledgeable as some of the others, she did pay attention to Mother Rhiannon’s lesson, information that Anwyn was not privy to, despite his apparent interest.


”I keep my supplies th –” She caught herself this time before she made another verbal error. ”I keep them safe in this.” With the subtle flick of a dainty paw, she gestured toward something that was hidden away beneath a nearby bush. While Mother Rhiannon had a satchel for her herbs and tools, Datura had nothing of the sort, so she had to get creative to find a way to store her own collection of plants both healing and harmful. The pale child had managed to craft a creation similar to a small box with half of a lid, made by paw with reeds and dried leaves, held together by mud. It was delicate and it was ugly, but it did the job.



@Anwyn

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Anwyn found himself staring into wide eyes that filled with fragile hope. It was as if she expected the worst from him, that he too would follow in his sisters steps. How easy it would have been, to relentless mock her and keep her as silent as she tried to remain. But she had an inkling of knowledge that he wasn't privy to. Where she learned under Rhiannon, he spent most of days teaching himself or soaking up whatever morsel of teachings were cast his way. Sumac and he often were pushed to the back burner.

There was an opportunity here, a chance to learn more and to learn it faster. So When Datura spoke, he listened, dark ears careening forward. Belladonna. He committed it to memory, along with its secondary name. When she clarified that she spoke of the plant, not the other pup in their midst, an ear would flick dismissively. It was an unnecessary clarification. Her speculation had him looking back down at the dead creature, his thoughts churning. She thought she used too much. "How much did you use?" He questioned.

When she gestured towards the makeshift box, it was easy to miss if one wasn't looking for it, unlike how he didn't miss the faltering of her words. Held together by sticks and mud, it looked fragile at best, like one drop would shatter it. But it was her box of secrets, likely filled with herbs that he longed to know the purpose of. Walking over to it, he sniffed the box, apprehensive at first, unsure of its contents. Nudging it gently, he peered inside, examining the various bundles, some familiar but most not.speak like this.

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Datura

”how much did you use?" She considered how to satisfy his curiosity without handling the plant again. ”Oh, w-well, I used a lot of leaves – th-that’s one of the pieces that contains the toxins,” she shared. Her words were still halting, stuttered, but her voice seemed to grow a little louder in its volume. ”Just enough, and it’s sleepy time. A little t-too much, and, well…” She nodded toward the dead sheep.


She watched as Anwyn drew nearer to her collection and the frail creation that contained it, and Datura shifted nervously on her paws, expecting him to smash it to bits with an oversized teenaged paw. But Anwyn again proved to her that he was not much like his dreadful sister. Datura was uncertain how to feel – did this mean that he was, despite all appearances, a much nicer wolf than she assumed him to be? Perhaps he wasn’t as bad as Mother Rhiannon implied…


These thoughts were interrupted by when Anwyn explored her collection a little too closely, causing her to cry, ”Watch out!” Her voice was urgent and amber-hued orbs wide with concern. Almost instantaneously, her expression fell, ears tucking backward against her skull, guilty for yelling. ”S-some of them, if you touch them, if you even sniff it in…” She paused, shaking her head. ”That’s enough to do damage.”


She nodded then toward a long green stock with delicate white flowers, so frail looking but so lethal. ”This one is hemlock. All of it is poison. It wouldn’t take much…” She left the last part unspoken, but she glanced over with darkness in her eyes to insinuate the likely fate of any who were unfortunate enough to ingest even a little bit of it. She had never been so talkative in her almost-year of life. But it wasn't often that someone seemed to notice her work like this.


@Anwyn

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It took longer than he cared for her to spit out the words, but when she held the knowledge he wanted, he had no choice but to be patient. Anwyn, though a boy and therefore held in little regard, he was intelligent. He was still learning how to manipulate the world around to get what he wanted but he had long accepted his place in this world. So that meant doing what was needed in order to get his way. Datura didn't provide information that was overwhelming helpful. A lot, a little, they were all measurements in the eye of the beholder. "How many leaves?" He pressed for more specific details. If 'a little' made one sleepy, but 'a lot' ended ones life, it was crucial to know how many.

Her shrill voice had onyx eyes snapping back to her. Reactively, he shrank back. Yelling meant trouble. But then she was looking at him again with wide, frightened eyes, like she hadn't meant to shout at him. A word of caution hung between them, one that had him glancing back at the box of mysteries before looking at her again, this time with a hint of appreciation. Her sad little box held all sorts of lethal secrets it seemed.

Hemlock. Such a pretty, dainty flower. It looked innocent enough. But she warned against its potency. "Tell me more." Quiet words were made to sound like a request, followed by a subservient "Please." but in all honest, it was a demand, hidden behind honeyed vocals. In a world where he wasn't valued, where he came last above even the lowest of women, he knew he needed to sight smartly to get everything he desired. He might be disgraced for being male, but his mother had declared him the cù-sìth, he was important.speak like this.

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Datura

The child of darkness wanted more information, the specificities of what it had taken to kill the sheep. ”Something this big, I – I used ten leaves. I didn’t think it would die.” Datura felt no sympathy for the dead creature or the agony it had suffered at her paws, and her tone indicated her indifference. Anwyn was wise to heed her warning when she called out before he got hurt. Within her box dwelled more poisons than medicines, and she inched closer to Anwyn to peek inside, as well.


”M-me? You want me to – to teach you?” Mother Rhiannon would certainly not approve. It occurred to her that she didn’t know precisely why he wanted to obtain this knowledge, or to what purpose he might use it. But if a maniac like Larkspur could be privy to this information, then Datura decided then that her brother should have it, too. Anwyn certainly couldn’t do any worse than Lark was capable of – or so she imagined now that the two had spoken… even if Anwyn didn’t have a whole lot to say. Maybe she had him all wrong. But Datura mistook his curiosity for the macabre for care, for genuine interest, perhaps because she was so desperate for approval that even a boy was good enough to provide it. Slowly, her posture seemed to relax, if only slightly.


He wanted to know more about hemlock, and she began her impromptu lesson. Her voice and her visage were more animated now as she spoke: ”They live in the woods, in shade or in sun. The plant can get big, almost as tall as a wolf.” But these facts weren't what Anwyn was seeking, was it? She continued: ”Just to touch it means itchy paws, itchy mouth – itchy. But if someone eats it…” Datura peered cautiously at the ebony boy, pulling her eyes away in hopes that he had not noticed her glance. ”They’ll begin to shake,” she explained. ”Just a little, but then it gets bad, and bad, and bad…”


The young witch gazed reverently at the deadly white blossoms. ”Then they choke, and if they make any noise, if they fight it, then it –” Amber eyes turned again to Anwyn, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper: ”It only kills them mo- quickly.”



@Anwyn

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If it were any other female, he likely would have gotten snapped at in some fashion by now. His quiet demands would have gotten him an agitated look at the very least. But Datura, at least what he had seen of her, didn't have the gull to snap at him. Especially not when they were alone and he could easily become the aggressor. She would give him what he desired, answering his question - ten leaves. Too strong a dose, she would need less and only another experiment would tell them both how much less. He was already thinking several steps ahead when she questioned him.

"Yes, I do." It wasn't a matter of want, so much as need. No one else seemed interested and if she wasn't turning him down, that was already a step ahead of where he had been. Little did he know that she based her decision on his sister. Anwyn very likely would be worse than his sister, he would just go about it differently. His life was in the shadows and so that is where he would thrive.

Datura started her lesson, telling him all about hemlock, from where to find it, to its effects. Dark ears greedily fixated on her. Her nervous gaze avoided him mostly, so when she did look at him, he absolutely noticed. Information tumbled freely from her lips, each word growing braver than the last. Herbs were obviously her comfort, something she knew enough about to be confident. Little by little, she shed light on who she was and he collected each morsel with care.

She stared down as a innocuous looking plant with a reverence he hadn't yet come to appreciate. He hadn't been the one to get the animal to ingest the poison. Some might find it concerning, his fascination, but he didn't think Datura would judge him for the way his dark eyes glittered with intrigue. "Is there a remedy?" He would inquire, his head tipping slightly with the question.speak like this.

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