InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "The monkey made me do it!"

Nathaniel Howe (thehowelegacy) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2011-04-06 11:26:00

Entry tags:

caroline salvatore, nathaniel howe

WHO: Nathaniel Howe & Caroline Forbes
WHAT: Caroline is attempting to build a tolerance to poisons. Nathaniel figures he can lend a hand since he knows a thing or two about that.
WHEN: After this
WHERE: Their Apartment
RATING: PG
STATUS: In Progress

Poison training hadn't been a typical standard in the training of nobility, but Nathaniel had been around far more than most Ferelden nobles. While the Free Marches were hardly a place where the trade was common place and plied with a center vigor and respect like in Orlais and Antiva, but the northern most reaches of the loosely formed nation bumped right up against the southern much regions of Antiva so the odd Crow or two were not an unusual sight. When one knew where to look and had enough coin to tempt to interests of those with the skills, one could learn plenty of things that they weren't supposed to know. As it happened, Nathaniel had been in exactly that position most of his life and had returned to Ferelden with far more skills than he'd had when he left it. And his time with the Wardens had only worked to improve what he already knew.

Which was why when he'd heard he gagging from the kitchen and noticed the network post as well as he accompanying comments, it hadn't taken him long to figure out what his young roommate had been attempting to do and the fact that she was doing it quite wrong. Stepping out of his room after a few comments had been exchanged, Nathaniel leaned against the door frame, giving Caroline a quietly appraising look before deciding to speak.

"Your first mistake is that you should never take in enough to sear off the back of your throat," He said with a slight chuckle. "That usually leads to a whole host of other complications, but you don't look like you're about to pass out or go into shock so you're better off than most."

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rubber
2011-04-06 07:16 pm UTC (link)

Okay. That had been gross. Really, really gross. Caroline coughed, spitting blood into the sink and then taking a drink of water. She'd done it how Stefan had explained back home, mixing the vervain in with something else and keeping it weak. And still it had made her feel sort of like she was dying. She was just glad she cleaned up the blood before her roommate came into the kitchen. His suggestion, while probably applicable to humans, didn't really work here.

"I heal really fast," she said with a shrug. "Already all better." There was some vervain sitting on the counter, the actual plant and not the liquid mixture. She'd got it for Nathaniel, just to be safe. She knew she wouldn't hurt him, but someone else might. And she sort of liked him. He was a good guy. "And that suggestion would be great except...pretty much any amount is enough...that's the whole point." With a sigh, she picked up the vervain, gritting her teeth as it burned through her skin. She dropped it back on the counter and held up her hand so he could watch it heal. "About the only amount that won't do that is...none."

She went over to the cooler she kept in the corner, her first purchase after arriving and filled with blood from the clinic. The people here were really very accommodating. She pulled out a bag of blood and jabbed it with a twisty straw, hopping up to sit on the counter and taking a sip before looking over at Nathaniel. "So...how should I be doing it?" she asked finally.

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thehowelegacy
2011-04-06 07:32 pm UTC (link)

Confusion had furrowed Nathaniel's brow as he watched the herb burn through her skin. He'd seen plants that could sear through a wound, turn the blood into fire in the veins, and slowly kill a man from the inside out, but to actually see one that could strip the flesh off the body just from contact... Crossing over to the counter, Nathaniel frowned, studying the herb for a long moment before reaching down and picking it up. He knew this plant. He'd seen it before, hundreds of times, but never as a poison.

"This is a medicinal herb," Nathaniel said, looking back over at Caroline with a mixture of confusion and concern. "It's certainly not supposed to have those sort of effects."

But it did. He'd seen it, and the pain on her face had certainly been real. Whatever the reason it was doing what it did to her, he could certainly see why she would want to build up a tolerance to its effects. If someone could have completely impeded him with something that was virtually harmless to most, he would have done everything in his power to prepare himself for it. So shaking off his confusion, Nathaniel turned his attention back to the plant, taking a small number of the blossoms off of the stalk.

"You need to make just enough extract for it to be easily swallowed. It does little good if you're gagging on it while trying to introduce it into your system. It will hurt, but you'll be less likely to spit it back out the smaller the quantity that you're ingesting. And if the infusion is potent to begin with, the dilution won't compromise the effectiveness of the solution."

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rubber
2011-04-08 09:21 am UTC (link)

Caroline sighed and took another sip of blood. Maybe Nathaniel wouldn't actually be much help after all. It wasn't that she thought he didn't know what he was talking about, but he was probably used to following certain rules with poisons. And the normal rules didn't exactly apply when it came to her. She felt a little disappointed, more than a little really, but she gave him a small smile and a shrug. It looked like she was stuck doing this the hard way, and possibly gagging on her insides every day. Fun times.

"Yeah," she said, "it's perfectly harmless. Unless you're me. They don't call it a curse because it's all fun and awesome." She held up her hand, where her awesome but not all that pretty ring sat on her finger. "If I didn't have this on," she said, "I wouldn't even be able to go out in sunlight. And I need this," Here she held up the bag of blood, "or I shrivel up and dessicate and it's really painful and gross but I don't actually die. Just starve forever. Plus I'm seventeen. For eternity. I'm going to get carded for the next couple centuries. I'm not saying it's an entirely awful existence, but I don't know if I would have chosen it. No, scratch that, I totally wouldn't have. And anyone who willingly does is probably completely insane."

She looked over at him. "Sorry," she said. "You didn't come out here to listen to me complain. It's just...really frustrating sometimes. And I need to figure out how to do this so that nobody else...so that nobody can use that against me." She forced a smile. "So go ahead and explain and I'll try my best to...not get confused."

His explanation actually made a lot of sense, and she was suddenly really glad he had offered to help. "That's...a lot smarter than my way," she admitted, her smile a little more genuine now. "So...do you think you could help me with this...like doing it right and all. Because that first test run was kind of awful."

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thehowelegacy
2011-04-12 09:59 am UTC (link)

When Caroline had explained that she was a vampire, Nathaniel had simply nodded in understanding. It hadn't been a word that he'd recognized, and she had seemed perfectly harmless so he hadn't pressed the issue any further. Despite the evil implied by the need for human blood, Nathaniel simply couldn't see anything within the blond that was sitting across him that struck him as dangerous in any way. And if she wanted to train herself to have a tolerance to one thing that seemed a great weakness to her, Nathaniel was definitely going to help her how he could.

"Everyone needs someone to talk to," Nathaniel said, gathering the blossoms that he'd picked off together into a small bowl and turned to go through the items in the drawers. It seemed that no one in this day and age owned a proper mortar and pestle so he had to improvise, grabbing the potato masher and slowly working to grind the blossoms together. "So don't feel like you need to censor yourself."

Tilting the bowl to the side as the juices from the plant began to collect, Nathaniel looked over at Caroline with a smile, "I'd be happy to, and this will be a change, working with something that won't kill me if I make one slip-up handling it. A pleasant change, to say the least."

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