Things that were constructive were harder--it seemed that most of the things that Lazarus came in contact with were meant to destroy life, not encourage it. It took a strange finesse to coax venom into wanting to assist the body. Even so it was a matter of redirecting the destructive tendencies, teaching it to hunt down things that made people sick. One could not simply make it healthful, only retrain it to eliminate other, even less healthful things.
"Can't change it's nature, just give it purpose," Lazarus said out loud as he dripped cloudy fluids into a stone mortar. It dribbled over the hemlock and took some of the green from it so that a mossy puddle began to form at the bottom of the bowl. "You can't make a snakebite anything less than a killing blow."
Iliuth oversaw the process from the top of a stack of journals, his dark scales beginning to fade from a lack of oiling. In places the dull olive of his true coloration showed through the theatrical ebony. Lazarus surveyed the snake as he sprinkled belladonna over the raw ingredients on the makeshift workbench before him.
"Even you, brother," the snake charmer murmured. "You are still a killer. Just a lazy one."
The black mamba flicked his tongue with an utter lack of concern as Lazarus ground the ingredients together, adding bits of things into it as it became more homogenous. Roots, oils, leaves, liquids all joined the increasingly deadly concoction.
"Like a knife," the scrape of the pestle against the mortar ran up his joints with satisfying effectiveness. "Many say that their blades are their friends, but fucking really."
A little cinnamon, a little honey, to temper the taste. A little water to dilute the lethality.
"A knife doesn't know how to do anything but cut. A knife is only your friend in that it slices through things in you way."
Iliuth lifted his head as Lazarus exhaled, "Things and friends and enemies and--"
The smell of the poison was almost sweet, almost cloying.
"--memories."
He cradled the entire stone bowl like a child and poured it over a cheesecloth to strain out the remaining solids, tattooed fingers squeezing out every precious drop of liquid destruction. The glass under it met the formula with heat, simmering out impurities.
"Try to make that knife do anything but destroy and fuck, son," he stirred with a thin glass tube, testing the thickness, skimming off the foam that formed on the top. It had the color of dark ale, the smell of sickeningly sweet tea with an acidic tinge. Satisfied, he poured it into a smoked glass bottle and smelled it critically.
"Try to love that knife," he stared at the tent wall and through it into times long lost. "You'll bleed to death."