Evening, Red Dragon Inn booth

It's crowded, it always is--especially in the evenings right before the week started for the humans once again. They came and they drank, they flirted, they mated, they fought, they argued, they slung magic and they left. Some nights it all blurred together in her mind to become an endless loop...Other nights, faces, names, people stood out like chiseled reliefs against drab stone wall. It was the way her mind worked--the way synapses fired differently from those who lived life quickly. To her, on occasion humanity seemed like herky-jerky puppets...dancing to the tune of their own strings pulled and plucked.

The drow fancied herself civilized this evening by seating herself within a booth. Appropriately deep, dark and seedy for the type of transaction she wished to carry out. It wasn't at all for her sake that she did such things. Had she her way, she would have just upended the black, tattered satchel settled on booth's table top at Madison's feet and tossed the triple-sealed, darkened against sun vials as well.

But humans did not often like things tossed at them. Like hands. Or arms. Or weapons. Or--

A single fingernail, pale white crescent in gray half-moons against black fingers tap-tap-tapped the ticks of patience in wait against ominous looking vial.

Through the booths curtains, yellow eyes seared the commons in wait and watch, reflecting yellow and looking more like blood-crazed animal hiding in den awaiting strike.

Click, click, cli------ck.

Somewhere between the shadowed trail of muffled footsteps near and the excruciating pull of rungs against metal, the drow's eyes fixated on the female making nest and home in small spaces. Yellow like molten wedding rings or nameless terror-beasts crouched in old places--her fingernail against one of the malign looking vials did not cease its tapping entirely as the silence stretched. It simply paused in the spaces when Madison situated herself, spoke and settled.

There was too much cunning in gold iris to be mistaken entirely for beast, however. Even when in the poor sliver of light exposed by slit in curtains flashed the smile-not-smile of black lips pulled away from teeth. Just a second of amusement there and gone upon Suliss?urn?s face as the expression rubber-banded away .

"I confess," said the drow. And when she said confess, it sounded as filthy as chained murderers dragged in little catholic booths. "I would naut have rushed had I not been curious to see your outcome."

She did cease her fingernail clicking then, pushing the dark little flat bottomed glass vial across the table. "Belbol d'Elghinn," Suliss'urn indicated. Harvest moon eyes dropped from Madison's face to the vial in question as she named it. "It is Gift of Death." Suliss'urn leaned back until the bow of spine curled against booth seats backing, raising arms to hitch elbows over the top of it and dangling fingers downward. Casual conversations pose nau?

"You will need to coat something sharp, xas? Or you will need to practice at darts. It must be injected somehow. A dagger, a dart, a pretty little knife, dirk perhaps." One hand arose and gestured idly as she spoke. "Very quick, a count to sixty or one hundred and twenty and if it works you will know. " She flashes her teeth here, only a second. For a moment, a woman shopping over shoes and Suliss' discussing poison could pretty much be the same.

"They bleed, from every place--eyes, nose, ears, mouth, xas? Pretty red in every place. It eats the blood vessels. They will blacken or blue with bruise then bleed to death. For you? It will seem quick. For them, an eternity."

Pay no mind no to where the hand was going, Suliss'urn reached into the no-man?s land which was leather vest, removing a second blackened vial. This, warmer than humans body temperature due to its past confines, was also slid across the table to follow the first.

"Jal wun Jivvin, All in fun." Guttural twist--the drow speak reminded some listeners of deep earth ringing, old stones grinding together and tongues of reptiles.

"This one," spell-slingers finger lifted to indicate the second vial. "You will need to cut two or three times. It must also be injected somehow. It is naut fatal if opponent is healthy. This one is for amusement, xas? Make the enemy very sick, cannot keep anything in stomach for days. Run unnatural fever and chills to the bone. Good for slowing things down but not directly killing."

She had let her attentions wander in the recounting of uses, dosages. Slanted eyes moved away from the sliver of light in the curtains to the large satchel on the table.

"Mithril. Lighter than steel and stronger. There are enough blades of all shapes and sizes within to outfit three, maybe five people." She didn't mention the fact that some of them needed to be cleaned of blood splatter, hair, bone fragment and traces of their previous owners. Sometimes even the drow forgot the littlest details. It's so hard to remember everything at once!

"Real mithril," the drow twisted lips, dryness and bitterness for no reasons apparent, ?is rare. Expensive. What you see hawked in the market place is likely steel and mithril combined. Naut the same, xas?" A moment and the drow was considering the paper Madison slid her way. The way her mouth re-curled into something else almost seemed...bemused.

The drow had little use for money made of paper. She went no place that accepted it, she had no bank account. The drow did not even understand or trust elektricity. This, of course, would be impolite to mention. And as everyone knew, Suliss' was allll about not being impolite. Right?

One elbow slipped from its casual hook against the back of the booth to snake forward and retrieved the envelope offered and place it in the no-man's land of her vest.

If it's not money you need or want, then tell me

Suliss'urn had patiently (if by patient, one means she stared rather at, and through, and back again sharply at Madison while she spoke), weathered the woman's words. Not only that, but the drow picked them apart like chickens with feed. She listening to the way Madison's voice rose or fell, where she paused, filtering out the sound that spilled through curtain.

If it's not money you need or want, then tell me

It was like an open door. Almost as if Madison had invited the devil in to dance about on her soul before sucking it dry. Suliss'urns mouth gathered together in a wide blueblack bow, possibly wondering if the woman had ever been warned about offering drow any leeway. Just shouldn't be done. Slim, spell slingers fingers were suddenly woven together before the dark elf's face, a steeple them in perfection of super-villain pose.

"You're a lovely woman," tipping her head left, then right, tracing the shape and planes of opposite female's face. "Unusually pretty for a human female," drawled. "And what if I requested you as payment?" Lazily, eyes lidded, half-moon crescents sharp in white lash.

And where did this come from? Was the drow joking? Was this some sort of idea of a joke? Was it a test of Madison's reaction or did Suliss'urn, like some great black cat--toy with the woman in slim little claws? Did Suliss'urn even have a sense of humor? Certainly she couldn't be serious....could she?

Hard to tell with drow; their pitch black faces and alien angular features, well schooled to be masks.

"Hardly damaged," came the voice behind the curtain. (Pay no attention to the little drow behind the curtain.) Hollowed out, rasping, ruined as it was? The dark elf's voice reminded one of the eerie wind through dead trees or a whistle of marrow-dried bones.

"I haven't had any fun with you, yet." A snort, derisive and unlady like. "Wanted posters mean nothing." The latter almost spit as black cats.

A black hand curled around the curtain. The thing that might settle under the skin later, much later, when Madison might have been all sugar coated and asleep in her bed, snapping her eyes open in shock...was that the drow had not refuted anything. Nor had she said any of it was a joke.

"When you need me, you will come. I will be around." And spell slinger's fingers jerked the curtain shut, nearly taking Madison's nose.

Such was the way of drow. Laughing one minute, frowning the next, stabbing and giggling later. The usual.