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The forest had grown more dense with each hoofstep, the path ahead of her winding until it had dwindled out to the road seemingly not traveled. Yet it was hardly a deterrent – there were markers along her path that she would check off her mental list from time to time. A tree that had died, whose branches looked like a raccoon's paw was reaching up to the very sky. A pile of boulders that had made an arch. A trickling waterfall almost overgrown by thicket.
Every marker along Drusilla's path assured her that her path was true, that she had overheard the rumors correctly. Now, it was dwindling down to whether or not she had been sent on a foal's errand.
Her bag swayed at her side as she ducked around the large bulk of hanging ivy, but the tendrils still drug across her body, catching slightly on her scarf.
It left behind an unwanted passenger, a little spider that clung to the dark fabric with all its little might. Drusilla blew with away with a sigh of irritance, and looked around at her surroundings.
The sunlight barely touched the dark grove that she had entered, heavily filtered through many layers of overgrowth and plants. The air thick and still, smelling so cloying sweet yet sour that it made her nose and lungs burn, and the taste on the air made her tongue feel odd. It was on instinct that Drusilla did her best to keep her breathing to a slow, controlled pace – it would be best to get out as quickly as she had entered.
There, nearly framed by the copse of trees, lay her ultimate prize.
The plant was quite unassuming for the one that she sought. A short, squat smattering of flowers on such delicate stems. Little red thorns defending what looked like such thin stalks, with pale blue flowers blooming at the tops.
Could this simple little flower be the very same that had been rumored so deadly? That it had been the very taunt of tests of courage between two fool-hardy stallions?
Drusilla allows herself to move closer, mindful of where she stepped along the foliage growing along the ground. One had said that a brush of it alone would be enough to kill – to take life with just a brush of such a little, whimsical flower. Yet as she crept closer, something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye.
A dead squirrel, laying tangled at the base of a rumpled blue flower. The ruffled black fur was littered with red thorns of the flower that it was tangled up in. A curiosity, as they were covered in them. What was even more curious was the faint breeze that drifted through made the flower sway, and Drusilla watched with morbid curiousity as more thorns caught in the matte fur and detatched from the plant with sheer ease.
"Curiouser and curiouser…" She found herself muttering, looking between the plant and its victim. A defense mechanism, perhaps? The plant was rumpled, but looked a far cry from decaying enough that it should break apart with the slightest of breezes. Venom in the thorns, perhaps? Now that she took a closer look, they almost reminded her of a snake's fangs.
A study to have when she was in the sanctuary of her home. Where she could consult her methods of trials and tribulations in the sanctity of what she knew. No matter, she must collect samples away from an area that was less contaminated by a corpse.
And – if she were being honest with herself – she didn't quite trust the bob and sway of the broken plant. She wanted to study this plant and its usages, not become its next victim.
Moving over to the other side of the tiny flower garden, Drusilla fished a few bottles from her pack. She had every intention to get as many samples as she could – some of the full plant, some with just flowers, and some, if she could finagle it, with roots pulled that she might cultivate her own personal stock. You never knew when a good poisonous plant could come in handy.
Yet as she moved to nudge the jar into place, she had to pause – as the flower petals of the plant she moved to pluck were bitten.
Her eyes shot back to where she had left the squirrel, then back to the wide petals of the blue flowers. Those weren't rodent teeth – she's more apt to thinking of a small canine. Yet there was no body to be found, even as she stood to her full height and looked around.
Nothing.
There was certainly something about the thorns that had the capacity to kill, yet the flowers did not? Was there something about eating them that yielded the ability to survive? Theories were already flying in her head. Was it the combination of saliva and pollen? Perhaps stomach acid that raised it to a high enough temperature?
Oh her mind was racing with ideas she needed to try, of what this discovery may mean. How she would need to study it further, and she would need so much of it.
First, she would need to get some home.
WC: 880
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