The Poison Princess

by J. Stone

  Ruby continued her path and shook her head, her mind returning to the thought of eating the blissroot. “But I only had one bite.”

  Scarlett smiled at her princess, her eyes following Ruby’s pacing. “Do you always do that?”

  “Do what?”

  The horned demon pointed her finger along the princess’ path. “The pacing. It’s adorable.”

  “I’m not adorable…” With a huff, Ruby forced herself to stop walking back and forth. “The blissroot… I only ever had the one. After that, it was just the dream world.”

  Scarlett frowned. “You only remember the first bite. You’ve had far more over the…” She stopped herself.

  “Over the what? How long has it been? Days, weeks, what?”

  “Well…” she looked to the ground and fidgeted uncomfortably.

  “How long, Scarlett?”

  “Years, my princess. Eleven years. Every time you ate strawberries in your dream, you were really eating the toxic blissroot here.”

  “That can’t be.” Ruby shook her head in disbelief. Grasping for anything to refute this explanation, she asked, “Why don’t I have really long fingernails or hair?”

  “You’ve stopped aging.”

  She winced and unintentionally resumed her pacing. “How is that possible?”

  Scarlett shrugged. “How is it possible that a giant snake has lived for over five hundred years?”

  Ruby couldn’t believe it - that so much time had passed. She felt like only yesterday she had eaten the toxic fruit. It was simply unfathomable to her that she could have been lost in the dream state for such an extended period. When she thought about it, she was able to remember how long her dream had lasted on that side, though. Her best recollection was that it had been about that long too. Maybe it was true then.

  “And you saved me from it?” Ruby asked.

  “Yes, my princess,” Scarlett replied.

  “Why did it take so long?”

  “Are you mad at me?” Again, the horned demon shifted and stared down.

  The princess was certainly upset, but she couldn’t lay it at the feet of the one individual who had actually managed to rescue her. “I’m not mad at you, no. It’s just… eleven years is a long time.”

  “I am sorry. I kept trying. The whole time you were in there. You were… resistant.”

  Ruby walked over to the dress bed mat and sat down, staring into the distance. “What now? What am I supposed to do now? Everything will have changed.”

  “Not everything, my princess,” Scarlett said, sitting down next to her and holding her hand in her own.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your kingdom. It still stands. Do you not want to go home?”

  “It’s nothing without my family. I’m sure the craggy hand demon has killed off everyone I cared for. Too much time has passed.”

  “Not everyone,” Scarlett said.

  Ruby looked up at the horned woman. “What do you mean? Who would possibly still be alive?”

  “Your sister for one.”

  The princess shook her head. “Surely the demon would have…” She couldn’t actually say it. “...long ago.”

  “No, my princess,” Scarlett said, smiling widely. “You don’t understand. Your sister and the craggy hand demon are connected, just as we are. He needs her to live, so he would do everything in his power to keep her alive.”

  For the first time since recovering from the toxic blissroot’s effects, Ruby felt a bit of reluctant optimism. “Leina is still alive?”

  “She is, my princess.”

  Ruby stood. “Then I have to get back to her.”

  Scarlett joined her and nodded.

  “How do we get out of here? Is there a path?”

  “There is the stream,” the horned woman suggested. “I haven’t followed it to its very end, but it goes quite far.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll go.” Ruby started to move, but hesitated. “I have to ask. Why is there a pile of dead snakes over there?”

  “Oh. They got used up.”

  “Used up? What does that mean exactly?”

  “You need poison, princess. It needs to flow through your veins.”

  “So… you’ve been feeding me snakes?”

  “Just the venom.”

  “You’ve been feeding me snake venom,” Ruby stated for her own benefit.

  “Yes, my princess. Though, if you don’t mind my saying, you wouldn’t need to go through so much, if you’d stop losing so much of it.”

  “As you put it, I’m the poison princess.”

  “You’re never going to not be the poison princess. That doesn’t mean you need to slobber it out all the time. Get ahold of it.”

  The princess kept hearing Scarlett give her advice on what she had inside her. She seemed to know much about her, but Ruby knew almost nothing about the horned woman. “Who are you to me?”

  Scarlett smiled in response. “I thought that was clear. I am the servant; you are the master. I am the prisoner; you the warden. I am yours to lead, and you are mine to follow.”

  “That sounds like a slave.”

  “I am willing. I have made this decision, as have you. We are bonded, Ruby. Now and forever.”

  “You have to realize that there’s no future here, Scarlett.”

  The horned demon smiled coyly. “What’s wrong with the present? You’ve given me life here. I want to repay your efforts.”

  “Then you will help me? Even though I’m promising you nothing?”

  “With anything, my princess.”

  Ruby picked up Sniggle, placing him on her shoulder. “Then let’s see where the water takes us. Let’s save my sister.”

  Chapter 12. Self-Control

  Ruby and her demon servant walked along the stream for days. During the princess’ time under the influence of the toxic blissroot, Scarlett had traveled quite a distance in search of a path leading out of the caves. They’d passed that point two or three days back. Everything ahead of them now was fresh for them both, and still, neither knew which way they were going. They could have been getting further away from Lavidia or closer. There was simply no way to know that far underground.

  Along their travels, the princess had focused much of her efforts into controlling the flow of poison from her mouth. Scarlett had mentioned that she had been forced to feed a great deal of snake venom to Ruby in order to wean her off the toxic fruit. They’d passed a few of the tips of white blissroot falling part way out of the rocky ceiling, and she still had an urge to reach out and grab them. Once, she had even done so out of eleven years’ worth of habit, but her demon servant had stopped her before she could make that mistake again.

  Scarlett had caught a snake the day prior, swimming along in the water and had been keeping it around for when Ruby would inevitably exhaust herself again. The demon carried the reptile along in one hand like it was the most normal thing in the world. In her other hand, Scarlett carried the large fang of Sythys. The need for snake venom was why the princess was so concerned about controlling the flow of the poison from her mouth. She was far from eager to swallow the snake’s toxin anymore or worse yet, to have it bite her and inject her with its venom.

  If she could force herself to change the color, consistency, and effect of the substance oozing up from her throat and create life in the form of Sniggle and the other imps, then surely there was more she could do. Whether that included the ability to stop it from constantly leaking out of her or not was still a question she was trying to answer. She hoped it was.

  Because of her distraction in pursuing this endeavor, Scarlett led the way, carrying the purple imp, Sniggle, on her shoulder, who was sleeping yet again, as he always seemed to. The demon had not been at all like what Ruby would have expected from a creature of the nether realm. She had come on very strong on their first couple meetings, but since being granted form, she had been much more subdued. Everything she had done had been for Ruby’s benefit. She had nursed her back to h
ealth and asked for nothing further in return. Growing up, the princess had always tried to do what was expected of her, and thinking of a woman in a romantic fashion had never really occurred to her. Seeing the woman walk in front of her in the tight, form fitting black dress, made her reconsider such thoughts. Everything about Scarlett seemed aimed exactly at the goal of arousing Ruby, so she had to think that she had denied a large part of who she was for all of her life to that point. If the circumstances of their meeting had not been so dark, the princess thought that a normal relationship could have been possible. Such as it was though, she was too focused on saving her sister and dealing with her own toxicity to give a relationship much practical thought.

  And so, she focused on clogging whatever source it was that so consistently secreted the poison up through her throat, into her mouth, and in such proportions that it constantly fell from her lips, covering and coating her body in its slime. Ruby tried to locate something deep inside her, somewhere in her chest that was creating and pushing this substance up and out of her. There had to be an origin point, and she was determined to find it.

  Feeling her mind downward through her own body, Ruby searched. She tried to swallow the poison repeatedly seeing where it went, seeing if she could follow its path and reach down to where it started. So far, the task was not going according to her hopes. She needed a distraction, so the princess hurried forward to talk with her demon servant.

  Scarlett turned her head, as she approached, and asked, “Having any luck?”

  “Maybe a little,” Ruby answered. “Mostly, I’m making myself just wish I could vomit all this filth up and that be the end of it.”

  “You’re going to figure it out,” the demon woman reassured her confidently.

  “You seem to know a lot about my condition. Why is that?”

  “It’s simple magic is all. Given where I’m from, I just know a bit about it, I suppose.”

  “And you think I can control it?”

  “The magic of the spell can be controlled, and you’re strong… So, yes. I think you can control it.”

  “I wish I had your confidence, Scarlett.”

  “In a way, you do.”

  Ruby squinted her eyes. “What does that mean?” It was a question she felt like she was asking constantly.

  “Everything you feel, I feel as well, and it works both ways,” Scarlett explained.

  Ruby thought about that for a moment. “If I’m in pain, then so are you?”

  “I suppose that’s true, but in a more optimistic light, every pleasant sensation you experience, I feel it too. Think of it as a pleasure loop.”

  Ruby blinked a couple times and then replied, “That seems a little…”

  “Masturbatory?” Scarlett offered with a devilish grin.

  “I wasn’t going to say that, but… yes, I suppose it is.”

  “Our shared sensations aren’t yet fully realized though. We have not finished our complete bonding process.”

  “When will that happen?”

  “It just takes time and intimacy. If you wanted to hurry and cement our bonds, we could give this pleasure loop a try.”

  “I was just thinking about borrowing a bit of your confidence,” Ruby replied.

  “I guess we’ll have to work up to the pleasure loop then?”

  “I think so, Scarlett.” Ruby thought about what the horned woman had told her, when it dawned on her. “If we share this connection, and my sister and the craggy hand demon are the same, then by hurting him, I will hurt her?”

  “I’m sorry,” Scarlett offered.

  “You’re sorry?”

  “I didn’t know how to tell you. Saving your sister will not be a simple task.”

  “Then you’re saying there is a way to stop the demon without hurting her?”

  “Anything is possible, my princess. It’s just a matter of how far you’re willing to go to get the results you desire.”

  “You know there is no boundary I’m not willing to cross.”

  “I know,” Scarlett said, barely above the volume of a whisper.

  “So how do I do it?”

  “That’s complicated magic. That level of knowledge is beyond me. You’ll need someone far more capable to give you that answer.”

  “Hm.” Ruby thought about that and resumed her slower pace behind her demon servant. The majority of the princess’ knowledge was limited to her own kingdom, and she suspected that everything she had known there was now gone. Eleven years had passed under what she had no doubt was the merciless, destructive leadership of the craggy hand demon, so she had little expectation anything she knew still stood or had survived. The wizard she had been most familiar with had been Durin, who died trying to save her. Who or what could possibly be left?

  No, she thought. She would need to look to sources outside her kingdom’s knowledge. Lavidia was not alone in the world, and she was sure that somewhere out there was the information she needed. It was just a matter of finding it. She had been taught a little about Elythine, where her dream had taken place. Aside from the dream, she had never actually visited their lands and never met anyone of prominence from there. Given what her father was going to announce that day eleven years prior, Ruby wondered what had happened to the royal family of Elythine. Had they been killed along with her own family? Did they escape the craggy hand demon’s wrath? She didn’t know. What she did know was that they were supposed to have a higher understanding of magic than even her own people. Maybe they would be an option, if she could make it there.

  She also considered a place called simply, the Cloister. It was a large, secluded temple far to the west of Lavidia, where monks studied in solitude. Very little was known about the men and women that lived there except that they were exceedingly knowledgeable about the powers of the nether world. They researched the demons more than anyone else she had heard about, so they might have the exact answer she sought on how to unchain her sister from the craggy hand demon.

  There were options out there in the world, but they all felt so very far away. Ruby would have paced if she hadn’t already been walking. She found it difficult to not turn about face and walk the other way every few feet. Something in the repetitious act helped her think and clear her mind, and the princess needed that now. Her capacity was hindered with all that had happened to her since she bit into that poisoned strawberry. What she knew was that she had to get out of that cave, and the stream just seemed to go on forever. Thinking about it made her feel hopeless and frustrated. She turned her mind back to the task of shutting off the poison valve hidden somewhere inside her body. With her resentment about her loss of time and the cavernous prison mounting within her, she felt that anger build and expand in her chest. As had been the case several times now, that loss of control over her emotion led to a new understanding and revelation. Raising a hand to the very center of her ribs, she could feel that exact lever that she searched for beneath her fingertips. Swallowing a gulp of the poison, she unlocked that potential, and the ooze stopped pouring forth.

  Ruby stopped walking, holding a hand under her lips, and there was nothing. “Scarlett!” she exclaimed. “I did it!”

  Her demon servant looked back to her, along with Sniggle on her shoulder. She smiled and said, “I knew you could do it, my princess.”

  The purple imp ignored her and continued to snooze.

  “You were right,” Ruby replied.

  “Can you start it back up again?” Scarlett asked.

  Ruby thought about that same fictional lever in her chest, and she twisted it in her mind. The purplish black sludge resumed pouring forth out her lips. The princess twisted it back in the other direction. It stopped once more. She reversed it again, and the poison started up at her command. Off. On. Off. Ruby felt power in her control over the strange chaos magic that rested inside her. The power felt good. For the first time in a long time, she allowed herself a big smile, exposing her purple stained teeth.

  Scarlett returned to Ruby and took her
hand. “There is light at the end of this tunnel, my princess. We are almost there.”

  Chapter 13. Gloomport

  A dark and dreary city, Gloomport was a dangerous port of harbor, much more so if you were to find yourself trapped there. Like much of the world beyond her castle, Ruby had never visited the city, but that was where she found herself at the end of that stream. Gloomport was an underground city at the very edge of the continent. The sea washed up into the deep cove, where the water met the rocky ground of the city. The ground was a combination of rock, dirt, and occasional cobblestones, all of which seemed to be covered in the salty spray of the sea water. The cavern that housed the city was far larger than the princess would have ever imagined without seeing it first hand, housing hundreds of buildings and many more people.

  The city was quite dark, but the same glowing orange mushrooms that she had encountered in the tunnels illuminated what they could, and there was also a bit of light coming in from beyond the water. Though all she could see was a reflection on the water’s surface, it was the only daylight she had seen in longer than she could remember. The sun of her dreams was far different, she now realized. She cried a greasy black tear at its sight but wiped it off and choked away the needless emotion before Scarlett took notice.

  Buildings ranged from ramshackle huts to elaborately constructed mansions all within the same view. There were rich and poor within eyesight of one another, and no one thought anything of it. In open display was the opulence of the wealthy, adjacent to penurious people, struggling to put food on their tables, roofs over their heads, and tattered robes over their children. The setting was far different than anything Ruby had seen at home in Lavidia. There, everything had been segregated. The conditions seemed much more cramped here though.

  The smell of the city was a rather unique combination. The sea’s salty waters mixed with the filth of the people living there to form something altogether new but nothing desirable. Ruby, however, didn’t have the same olfactory senses she used to, and it didn’t bother her like it once would have.