Chapter 31.4- And so the Dragons Danced

She left them sitting on the bed, chained to one another, and walked to her working table. The herbs she need were at the bottom of her pouch and she took no time getting them put and beginning to mix. Medicinal supplies had been in short supply since they’d taken Omashu, and Natsu had had her working with the natives to see what could be used from the earth kingdom’s natural flora for their purposes to replace the supplies that should otherwise have been coming from home. She tested them using prisoners or disposable locals that were compensated for the sacrifice, of course. Natsu viewed his soldiers as being worth too much for experiments like that. That was why she knew that this particulate combination of herbs was fatal.

Fatal in the short term, as well, which was rare among natural occurring substances. Both herbs grew entangled around each other like lovers in n embrace, making them likely to be consumed in tandem. Grinding them together and mixing them with the water gave the liquid a subtle sweet smell but did nothing to affect the appearance of the liquid. She bent out a glob from the jug she’d used for the mixing and seperated it out into two cups. The first cup she took to the one who had asked for water. She allowed him to drink his fill, emptying the cup in no time at all. She saw the way his eyes began to snap to alertness. In that time, she’d gotten the second cup and fed the other two men with smaller gulps of the liquid. They wanted more, and she bent even more of the poisoned water into the cups to give them their fill.

The one who had cursed her was the first to gain true lucidity. Half starved as he was, the water in his system gave him enough vim to rush to his feet. The others were pulled along by the chains connecting them and one of them even fell to the floor shamefully. “You’re dead” He snarled out at her, and somehow the water in the drum rose and began to move towards her. How? She wondered for only a second before she saw that he was making gestures with his feet. Bending with his legs, huh? How innovative.

Still, she reached out to the water and shredded whatever hold he had on it before returning it to the drum in one piece. “You-you bitch” He snarled, and then he began to cough. It was fascinating, the poison. If asked for an official name, she would call it The Strangler. He coughed even more and then his coughs began to get stuck in his throat. She watched as he struggled to lift his broken hands up to cradle his throat. He turned to her, levying begging eyes at her and she just raised an eyebrow. He had been so willing to kill her not even a second ago pathetic. The other men, still weaker, began their own coughing fits in no time at all. From what she had been able to tell from autopsying a few subjects, the poison made the muscles in the throat swell. It blocked the airflow from within while irritating several other body parts. Hives broke out across the body. A cold sweat formed around the armpits and forehead. The pubic areas developed pus filled boils in no time. It was a painful, unsubtle thing, and it ran its course in no time.

She stared at the three dead men, trying to feel something, anything. But she did not. Not for them. They were men, after all. They deserved it.

A/N; Amara is just as psychotic as the nation she serves, in the end.