IN WHICH FENN BUGS a POTION MAKER

Quote:

---

Thread of Nevin and Fenn! Mebby others if you talk with us about it!

---

Apparently, direwolves could catch fleas.

Not even monster fleas; just the itty bitty icky ones expected of common farm cats or household hounds. Fleas that burrowed into thick midnight-black fur and blended in, refusing to be combed out. Fleas that made Daugi roll around in the mud and scratch her whole length against rough trees trying to rid herself of them. Fleas that hopped off of her at random, causing Fenn to squeak-shriek in surprise and shy away.

The tiny fae himself was almost as miserable as his canine friend. Little grey bumps that itched and ached dotted him head-to-toe; stupid biting bugs. Thankfully, the fleas themselves never stayed on him for long. He suspected that his inky black blood didn’t agree with them very well. A part of him hoped it poisoned the little nuisances to death.

Still, it made him much less enthusiastic about riding her anywhere — which probably put out the poor wolf more than the bugs themselves.

And thus, that was how Fenn and Daugi had ended up plodding down a quiet street in Stonevale. They hadn’t planned on stopping by, but fuck if the two were going to suffer this for one more day. A few people fled to the opposite side of the street on sight of him. Fenn knew how he and his mount appeared to the outside eye; a pale plague-riddled street urchin tailed closely by an irritable specter of death, shedding little black bugs every now-and-again. Thankfully, more friendly locals had pointed them to a medicine-y shop that was supposed to belong to some guy married to a Nekojin. It didn’t take long for Fenn’s keen sense of direction to lead them to the right place. The advertising window displaying vial after vial of healing products helped too, he supposed.

Stay outside please, Fenn sternly signed to his ambiguously-canid friend. No spread little bugs.

“Auf,” the wolf growled back, not sounding too pleased. Scratching her back, she plopped her butt down and stayed in place as Fenn pushed open the door.

Inside the shop was wonderful. The whole place swam with magic-brightness; that weird, tingly-warm feeling he got around sorcery. Was it the medicines radiating the brightness, or something else? Everything was so shiny, so colorful. Light cast through the various potions on display threw multi-hued splotches of light around the shot. All these little vials with pretty liquids in side made his hands twitch in anticipation. Just one, his inner thief said. Just slip one of these shiny things into your bag. It’ll be fiiiiine. Maybe it’d come in useful someday! There was no concept of “going straight” in the little thief’s mind, but there was the concept of “people who I steal from won’t let me back into their stores again”. So, best to not do it. Or, at least not where he could be seen. Maybe another time.

Scratching the bumps on his face, the boy glanced to the counter. There was a red-haired man sitting behind it, muttering to himself as he wrote on a piece of paper. Something something, improvement, something something, if I increase that, then what if. It sounded as if he was working on something. That wouldn’t do; Fenn needed his attention much more! Cheerfully, the boy bounced up to the counter and peeked up over the edge at him. Without a word, he reached out to tap the top of the paper potion-man was working on. Boop! A harmless speckle of frost formed on the parchment.

The man glanced up at him, then back down at the paper, then- “Where did you come from?” the odd-looking man asked, dark eyes furrowed in sudden confusion at the tiny child staring up at him. “Ah, what do you need?”

Perfect! Now that he had the weird option-man’s attention, the little fae tapped a finger on the stained wood of the countertop; frost spread out from his touch. SELL FLEA REPELLANT, RIGHT? he scrawled in the ice crystals -- upside-down, so Nevin could read it. DUMB MUTT FRIEND CAUGHT TINY BUGS. NO LIKE THEIR BITING. NEED SOMETHING FOR ITCHY BITES TOO.

Fenn glanced to the shop’s display window. It wasn’t to the proudly paraded medicines and syrups that he looked, but past them. Outside, Daugi had grumpily pressed her face right up against the glass, tongue lolling over her monstrous teeth and out of her mouth. Slobber dripped in frothy pinkish rivers.

Clearly, she was not pleased at being left outside and away from him. Too bad though. Fenn wasn’t going to give this shop fleas. That was also a one-way trip to Bansville; population, one half-pint fae.

Snorting, Fenn added another sentence to his request. ALSO WOULD LIKE CANDY. SIGN SAYS THERE IS CANDY. His stomach rumbled in agreement.

The shop had been fairly quiet that day - a couple of the local miners had come back in for another dose of the Miner’s Delight, but Nevin didn't think they’d be needing it with anything near the frequency he had been selling the potion when he first opened his shop. But after those men, who had come in in the early hours of the morning, Herbal Magick had been… Well, dead. So the Alchemist, currently bored, had turned to working on formulas as he usually did when nothing else was drawing his attention.

He was in the middle of working on a mixture that might help with the shakes that some people got that ended up damaging their brains, when he faintly perceived a chime. It didn't fully register until a small, slender finger had poked the top of his note book, causing frost to appear on the paper for a moment. He'd looked up, and spotted the child and asked what they needed as his brain tried to catch up with the sudden startlement that had pulled him out of his work.

Nevin read the scrawled letters - in large, blocky shapes in the standard tongue - and nodded to the first question. So the boy’s dog had fleas? He had a couple options that would work for that - if it was small, like the boy, perhaps the water treatment option would be best? He noticed that the boy’s head had twisted around, staring towards the front, and looked up -

OH.

MY.

CRIMSON.

Outside of his shop, currently pressing its face against the glass - a tiny, stunned portion of his mind noted he would have to clean up the drool marks - was a direwolf. The wolf looked irritated - and from the small clusters of insects that were hopping on and off at random he could see one reason why - and was very definitively scaring people on the street. Nevin swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat and now looked at the small child in his shop, actually realizing that they were absolutely covered in bug bites, with a few surrounded by discolored scratches where the boy had scratched at the itching. Right.

“That… that is a dire wolf. OK. Right. To get rid of the veritable army of fleas, you'll need to give your, ah, dog friend, multiple treatments.” He stood up and strode out for behind the counter, gesturing slightly to the stacks of candies on the counter. “The hard candies are flavored in mint, honey, and strawberry. They will make your mouth go numb after a while though, so don't be surprised if your tongue starts tingling. Now then.”

He began pulling items off of the shelves, starting with a powdery substance that drifted about in its bottle as it followed his movements, then a large clay jug that strangely didn't make any noise as he set it down on the counter beside Fenn. “The powder is a dry rub agent that you'll want to wet with a little water to make a paste, then rub onto your skin and your…. dog’s, wherever there are bites. This jug.” He tapped it, and the sound came out as if he was tapping a solid instead of a hollow jug with something inside of it. “This is what you'll need to bathe the dog with. It's a thick goop that you and your parents will need to work into the fur of the canine. There's enough in one jug for four baths - and I know the dog won't like it but they have to go through all four. And do not let them lick up any of the goop, it's very bad for dogs to eat.” Normally he would have advised watering the mixture down with water, stretching the four doses out to twelve, but this was a more drastic level of flea infestation than he had seen.

“Now then, are your parents coming to pay soon? This medicine is unfortunately a bit expensive. Or did they give you the money for it?" He wrote down the amount in copper and silver and showed it to the boy who was on the other side of the counter.

Sometimes, Fenn forgot that direwolves were typically regarded as terrifying predators rather than fluffy pets. When giving him the instructions to using the medicine-stuff, the poor potion man had a slack expression on his face that struck the small fae as distinctly dumbfounded. As the treatment was explained to him, Fenn took mental notes. That bite-paste was definitely going to freeze to his skin when he applied it to himself. Crossing his fingers, the boy hoped it’d still work that way. Bathing Daugi was going to be a pain too, but if it got rid of the bugs, he could stand to deal with it.

UH THINGS FREEZE WHEN TOUCH THEM. WILL TRY YOUR PASTE-AND-BATH MEDICINE THOUGH.

The only other problem he had was when he was asked whether or not his parents were paying for the treatment. His face screwed up in flickering annoyance. Fenn was an independent fae; he didn’t need any “parental guidance”! Not since he was twenty. And his psuedodad died.

Nonchalantly, Fenn grabbed a fistful of candies for himself — only honey ones. No-one could ever convince him that anything tasted better than honey. One was popped into his mouth. Mmm, sticky-sweet deliciousness. The rest were shoved into his special sifan satchel for later.

Trying as hard as he could to seem self-assured, he shook his head at the potion man, flicking his wispy blonde fluff back into place when it dropped in front of his eyes.

NO PARENTS. AM THIRTY-FIVE, VERY ADULT, TAKE CARE OF SELF AND MUTT FRIEND, he wrote, chest puffed out with pride. HAVE OWN MONEY. Though, the word “expensive” worried him. This flea problem had prevented him from picking pockets for days. Fenn glanced at the price and- oh dear. He paled, a sheepish half-grin springing to his face as he did the mental math. His wallet was just twenty coins shy of the full price. And that wasn’t even counting the candy he just took! UH MOSTLY HAVE OWN MONEY. NOT HAVE ALL NEEDED AT MOMENT. PAY WITH WHAT HAVE? NAME FENN, FENNIK GLENWEY. YOU NAME, SIR POTION MAN?

The bites on his cheek itched. He knew it was probably not good, but… oop. Already scratched. A bead of black blood welled from one bite, and smeared on his fingertip. Ick, blood. Fenn made a face at it. This medicine stuff better really work.

Nevin stopped staring at the hound outside of his shop - who he was happy to note was not actually trying to break the glass, but seemed content to slobber all over it - and turned down to stare at the latest message the boy had given him. That was when his brain died for a moment as his eyes widened. The boy in front of his counter was gray.

He was gray, he had been writing messages in frost he had created just by holding his hand above the wood and as he scratched at a bug bite on his cheek, black blood oozed to the surface, which the child quickly wiped away while sucking on one of the honey candies. Nevin’s mouth opened, closed, opened again, closed again, and he swallowed.

“By Crimson. You're a Snow Fae.” Nevin’s hand leapt to his graphite as he rapidly started scribbling, his mind blazing as his obsession crept over him. The child was right, the normal paste for bug bites wouldn't work - not if he could create frost just by being. Nevin quickly scratched out the formula for the paste and began running through it, jotting down which ingredients were crucial and which could be discarded or replaced. There was one vital plant that would need to be replaced - and without looking up from his notes he snatched away the powder bottle, moving it to the far end of the counter from the boy.

“No, no that won't do that becomes toxic when dropped below that temperature… But what if I substituted…” Nevin bit the end of his thumb as he frowned and drummed his fingers against the counter. “Cobalt. I wish that blasted Clemonts woman had managed to finish her research.” Distractedly, Nevin flicked his eyes back to the cold child. “My name is Nevin, youngling. The thick goop won't be affected by the cold, it's too dense and none of the ingredients react negatively. I'll need to concoct a new medicine for the bites though. Without even a proper reference to check!”

Youngling. Pfffft.

HELLO NEVIN. YES AM FROST FAE, the boy confirmed with a bewildered nod. Obviously, Nevin was well-read. “Clemonts” struck a sour note with Fenn though. He didn’t like to think about what he found in her mansion -- nothing good, that was what. Except, a little more information about his kindred folk. GOOD EYE. MOST THINK AM ELF. BUT ELFS NOT MAKE ICE. DUMB PEOPLE, BAD CONCLUSION.

Gladly, the jug of bath-medicine was scooped into Fenn’s bag, with a bit of care taken to make sure that it didn't go splat-crack against the bottom of the bag's barrel-sized insides. So, uh. Was he still paying a load of money for this medicine, orrr..?

As Nevin hunched over his notebook, Fenn thought about it. Eh. Price for the paste-bath combo probably going to be recalculated anyway, if Sir Potionpants Nevin was switching out the ingredients. That'd come up later. Good thing he was going to get a version that didn’t turn to poison when frozen. It was very nice to be not-poisoned. Though, in all likelihood, Fenn was probably going to have to be here for a little while, waiting for the new bite medicine to be concocted. Boo, waiting. Who had time for that? There were always things to be explored and done! Maybe he’d explore the shop a little while as he waited.

Shrugging, the boy slyly snuck a few extra honey-candies while Nevin was distracted and stuffed them into his mouth. What was better than sucking on one honey-sweet candy? Sucking on six ALL AT ONCE! When Nevin next turned away, there was a good chance that half the jar would be poured into the tiny fae’s cheeks. These were really good.

Fenn added a little to his countertop conversation, tapping the wood to get the potion maker’s attention. HEARD YOU HAVE NEKOJIN KID. CAN PLAY WITH HER WHILE YOU WORK ON PASTE? ALSO, SURE THAT CANDIES DO THE THING? MOUTH NOT FEEL WEIRD.

For some reason, the boy was starting to feel a little… woozy. Not bad, not nauseous, but a little like he had been spinning in circles for waaay too long at a time. Was it just him, or did the world have more colors than before? Fenn blinked and stared hard at the potions in the window display. They wavered, as if underwater. Daugi was still standing sullen outside. She seemed fuzzy and slightly indistinct. Wait. Wasn't she always fuzzy? Fuzzy. Furry. The words bounced around in his head a moment. She was both, he supposed? Fuzzy and furry, big and black, floofy friend. Something wasn't quite working right here, but damn if Fenn knew what was off.

Certainly, it wasn’t the candy; the candy was too delicious to possibly be of any negative effect on him. No, it was probably something to do with his bitty bug bites. Yes, Fenn decided, glancing back down at his writing, slightly cross-eyed. It was the flea bites. It was all the little bugs' fault.

Fuck the little bugs.

Nevin was rapidly drumming his fingers on the counter as he feverishly scratched notes on the paper in front him. He glanced up slightly when frost spread on the table, reading the message quickly.

"One of the people here in town regularly is an Elf. Another Elf works in a local smithy.
This town is actually more likely to think you are a sick child than an Elf." He blinked, and his face turned slightly red as he saw the second note form after the child had picked up the medicine on the counter. That damn rumor was hanging around??

"You.. Must have misheard something, I don't have a child. I am a single, unattached man." Now considering the matter closed, Nevin returned his attention to his formula book, trying to figure out what he could use to make the medicine work as intended. He had figured out an option for an oral application, but... The alchemist frown. Maybe he was looking at this wrong. The boy was a Fae, even if he claimed to be an adult Nevin was still thinking of him as a boy, his language choice didn't correspond with advanced maturity, probably would not be receptive to the same types of diseases that normal humans would find concerning. And as for the direwolf, it would have to be an abysmal member of the species to do more than scratch at the bites. No, they didn't need the full medicine at all.

What they needed was a topical analgesic, something similar to what was in the candies on his counter. Nevin glanced up for a moment then back down, not registering what he had seen. Then Nevin's dark red eyes shot back upwards, skimming the message before focusing on the.... boy who was now looking like a chipmunk with his cheeks stuffed full of candy, his eyes glassy as he stared unseeing at his arm. Nevin had seen that expression before, and he thought for a moment before biting back a vicious curse. The analgesic in the candy must not work on Snow Fae - at least not as a numbing agent. He rushed around to kneel by the boy.

"Young Fenn, I need you to spit out the candies, OK? They're not good for you." Inwardly he was cursing his idea of putting that agent in the candies. It wasn't necessary, just meant to be a bit of fun for the kids, and now he had drugged up a child!

Wow, why were… why were hands? Why were hands a thing? Fenn stared down at his. Hands were like alien things. Like little spiders attached to the end of one’s arm. They were kind of pale, and kind of pockmarked greyish from flea bites. His fingers waggled, and he marveled at the motion; what told fingers to do that? What made the muscles do the twitching, and do the thing? It was like, it was like his bones inside were sticks and the muscles were strings that twitched the sticks, and then there was skin all on top of it like wrapping paper.

His pale grey-white hands shifted with a few different colors now. There were lots of colors everywhere. It was a color party! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee! He glanced down at his feet. His toes wiggled a little, not quite in sync. They joined the dancing color party. There was a big, dumb grin on the fae's face, but hell if he could tell. He was too busy watching the colors swirl. Dance, colors, dance.

He heard something from afar, but close. Nevin’s voice. Spit them out?

What? Oh. The candies. Whyyy. Nooo. Those were Fenn's candies now. Nevin probably just wanted the sweet, sticky-sugary scrumptiousness all for himself. A sour, pucker-lipped expression flashed across Fenn’s features. Defiantly, he clamped his jaw shut and swallowed most of the dissolving deliciousness. Nevin was not invited to the color party.

Whoops. His legs didn’t know how to work now. The muscle-strings inside them attached to his bone-sticks forgot how they worked.

Whoosh! Air fell past his face. Or was he falling through the air? Now Fenn was on the floor, and he wasn’t sure why. It smelled dusty. Dusty, and… odd. There were sticky spots in certain places, dabbed-up spills, and they smelled funny too. He was drooling a little. Soon as he noticed, the boy made to wipe his lips -- but instead missed and smacked his nose. His hands were there, in front of his face now. They felt as if the little flea bugs had started crawling under his skin. It was better when they were just biting.

Go away bugs. Fenn waved his hands around hesitantly, wondering what the bugs were doing under his skin. Bad bugs.

"Oh for Crimson's sake." Fenn had not responded to his words at first, instead choosing to flex his fingers a few times, a soundless giggle shaking his small frame. Then he seemed to figure out what Nevin had said, and disagreed with Nevin's advice strongly. How did the alchemist know? Because the frustrating child swallowed the sugary mass in his mouth with what Nevin could only say was a spiteful look.

And then he looked down at his feet, staring at them confused for a moment, and toppled over, Nevin barely keeping him from hitting his head as he fell. The redhead let out a groan as the boy smacked himself in the face, knowing there was no way this could end well. The best solution would be to get an emetic into the boy, and forcibly purge his system of the sugar and chemicals that hadn't been absorbed yet. The problem with this was that most emetics had to be administered orally, and the currently drooling Fae child was staring at his hand, and Nevin did not think he could get him to swallow one of the emetic agents he had. No... This needed something else something to entice the drugged up boy to take his medicine.

Nevin's eyes fell on the syrup on the counter, also a honey flavored treat, and he had his answer. The Fae had fairly well gorged himself on the honey hard candies, a honey syrup would no doubt entice him. Nevin pulled off his tunic and folded it up under the boy's head so he wouldn't hurt himself, and hurried to find an emetic to mix with the syrup. Getting the mix together took only a few minutes, and Nevin hoped Fenn had managed to hurt himself or gotten worse whole he worked frantically.

"Hey, Fenn, Fenn can you hear me?
I wanted to apologize for trying to make you spit out the candies. I've got another treat for you, a honey syrup that you can just hold in your mouth and savor. Just have to open your mouth, OK?" Please Crimson let this work, I'd rather not have accidentally killed a child. Nevin sent a fervent prayer out as he held the edge of the mixing cup to Fenn's face.

Fenn seemed to have suddenly been thrust into an upright position, which made him a little more dizzy than before. Bugs still vexed his skin, and he couldn’t quite scratch them away. His hands were too shakey to scratch at all. The potion maker’s words were an indistinguishable buzz in Fenn’s ear. There were shifty hues everywhere that shouted over Nevin and drowned him out. Pale lavender bubbles floated up through a stream of dark green, slashed through with dark blue and grey, and the boy reached out as if to touch the orbs of color. He couldn’t quite reach them. Something broke through the flashings, a smooth surface touching Fenn’s mouth — like the edge of a cup. With a soundless hiccupy giggle, Fenn stuck his tongue into the cup.

Oh! Sweet! Was this more honey?

Fenn lapped it up gratefully for a moment. Then, the cup was taken from him, and… Whoa. His stomach was-

Hrrrrk.

It tasted a lot less sweet coming up than it had going down. Sour, really. Fenn awkwardly wiped his tongue on his arm, whimpered, and collapsed back to the floor from whence he had been risen.

Amid the myriad of colors dancing before him, Fenn realized that his puke was golden. Gold! It was quickly concluded that he was magic. He was magic magic, not merely ice-making magic. The pukes-solid-gold kind. Though, even if he was super-magical, it wasn’t helping him feel very good right now. Queasiness made him reluctant to lift his head. He’d just stay right where he was, on the floor, until maybe he didn’t feel like he had been punched in the gut by John fucking Cromwell.

Within a minute of “staying right where he was”, Fenn had passed out.

~~~

“Auf?”

Daugi pressed her good eye to the window and whined frightfully as she watched her tiny charge collapse. Around the same time the little black bugs had invaded her coat, bumps had shown up on him, already instilling in her a low level of constant worry alongside her cursed scratching and itching. And now — obviously, he wasn’t well. He needed her when he wasn’t well. Was there no trouble he could keep his nose out of?

Peeling herself away from the window, she shot the door a poisonous look. Human architecture was as perplexing as always. Invisible walls, entrances that only opened for the human hand… and she knew they only worked for the human hand, because her teeth had never been able to persuade a door’s knob to open. Entry into human housing took a bit of force. Growling to herself, the hefty beast took a few bounds back, squared her haunches, and bounded for the door.

SLAM!

Daugi was inside the shop. So, too, was the door. All three jagged pieces of it, laid out on the floor. The direwolf shook splinters out of her fur, pleased with her clever entrance. She stared down the alchemist with her one good eye. Suspicion danced in her gaze. Not once breaking eye contact, she padded over and stood over her prone fae-pup.

“Wuff auf,” she barked in the alchemist’s direction, as if commanding him to fix this.

It had been a tremendous relief when the Fae child sampled the syrup mixture. The flavor had been enough to hide the emetic as he happily guzzled down the medicine. And that has led to a further great relief - the emetic had worked on Fenn as it was supposed to.

Fenn vomited up the sticky honey-golden mess of candy and chemicals that he had greedily consumed, emptying the contents of his stomach onto the floor beside his head. He had stared at the mess for a moment with wide eyes, then begun giggling madly before passing out. Well. Maybe he hadn't gotten all of the numbing agent out of Fenn's body, but enough had come out that Nevin felt fairly safe in thinking that the boy wasn't going into a fatal overdose state.

It was as Nevin was trembling slightly as the endorphins of adrenaline left his body that he heard a worrying sound. It sounded faintly like.... screaming? He looked up towards the front of the shop, and realized with a bolt of concern that he could no longer see the dire wolf. Had the boy's consciousness been keeping the beast from attacking the villagers, and now with him unconscious it was running wild? He started to get up -

and then his door was gone. It took Nevin a full two seconds to process what had happened. The massive direwolf was now in his shop, the shattered remains of his front door laying on the ground just inside the doorway. He about to finish standing up when the beast fixed him with a fiery eye, freezing him in place.

Not good not good not good. Worse, the beast had come inside, obviously targeting the being who had kept her enthralled. Even as the frozen Alchemist watched she padded over to the sleeping boy and... stood protectively over him? OK, that was not what Nevin had been fearing would happen. The terrifying dog whuffed in his direction, sweeping her nose from man to the child in one motion.

Was.. Was she telling him to make the boy better? The massive hound continued to stare at him with one eye, the orb fixed on him from a terrifying Visage. But now, up close, Nevin could see concern in the eye whenever it flicked down to Fenn. Oh.

"Peace, peace. The child will be alright - he got greedy and consumed too much of something that tasted good but was actually bad for him. I already managed to get the bad stuff out of him." He tilted his head towards the honey-gold mess that she was almost standing in as she tried protecting the boy.

Useless human. It jabbered meaninglessly in its tongue at her, and did nothing else.

Daugi huffed impatiently, filling the air with the scent of raw meat. Fine. If that was how it was, then she would simply sit here and revive Fenn herself. Her unconscious child was gingerly nudged with her snout as she flopped over beside him — not in the puke. He was breathing, but did not rouse at her touch.

Well then. The next best thing to do was to lick him awake. That usually worked. It was best to keep one’s tongue in motion as much as possible. Else, there was the risk of it freezing.

~~~

“Pigwidgeon, I thought you said you were going to get rid of the fleas.”

This was a dream. Fenn could tell, because he was currently sitting in a grassy field under a swirling starry sky with a blue-scaled double-serpented-headed woman. This was how a disconcerting amount of his dreams went, really. Chancellor Banrion seemed a bit put-out for some reason. Her arms were folded over each other in a disapproving manner, clawed hands fidgeting with the ends of her red sleeves irritably. She

Fenn scratched his head, struggling to think. <Uhhhhhmmm, no. Fleas? Not yet. Was going to though. I think?>

“Your physical body is currently passed out, drooling and shuddering, on a rather ugly patch of carpeting.”

Oh. Was it? He shrugged, shooting her a befuddled grin. <Don’t remember what was happening after I ate the candy. It was really good candy. Wonder if I could make my own candy out of honey?>

“Fennik, you nearly overdosed on an inexplicable foreign agent — an incident that could have been fatal.”

<Overdosed on deliciousness.>

“Are you actually paying me heed? It is taking a certain restraint to not refer to you as a tiny idiot.” She uttered a twofold sigh and tossed her manes indignantly. “By my own damn divinity… Pigwidgeon, I enjoy your company, I must forcibly rouse you now. Do treat the red-haired human gentleman with a modicum of respect. For one thing, he just courteously attempted to save you from your own stupidity. For another…” Her eyes flashed with worry. “You were too… confused to notice it when awake, but skimming through your most recent memories, I feel that this man shines warm with the brightness of magic. Please do not provoke him.”

<I think he tried to steal my candy,> Fenn mentally muttered, only half listening.

Banrion stared at him a moment, crimson eyes narrowed down to disbelieving slits. Both heads made frustrated noises in the back of their throats. “Rouse, my dense child. Please do go fix your damn mess.”

~~~

“Wrrruf.”

An insistent tongue oozed over Fenn’s forehead. Bluh! The boy squeaked and pushed away the sloppy licker, his eyes open and (not quite) alert. Dumb Daugi. How did she get in any- ooh, that door did not look good.

He patted the wolf on the muzzle, then yelped and drew back as a pair of fleas leaped off out of nowhere. From a little off to the side, the potion-maker sat, seemingly scared stiff as a statue. Likely, it was Daugi’s fault. Fenn wasn’t too surprised to see her inside the shop, but it was a shame, really. Hopefully nekojin were not as susceptible to fleas as direwolves.

Nevin cleared his throat and glanced warily between the two. “Ah, are you doing better now?”

A woozy thumbs-up was wobbled in reply. Fenn’s mind was still rather mixed up, and his forehead pounded. There were flashes of color darting through the air, but he was increasingly aware that those were Not A Normal, and that maybe he should ignore them. The dream with Banrion was starting to sink in. He could remember bits and pieces of that — and his general out-of-it idiocy — but little of what had happened before.

Fenn tapped a patch of frost out on the stone floor. His writing was… somewhat sloppier than normal. DOG FRIEND NO BITE UNLESS I ASK. COLORS GOING GONE? YOU FIX? TO THANK YOU, WAS TOLD. ALSO YOU WARM. MADE OF MAGIC? Even with that written out, there was a lot more he wanted to ask about. Like, would they still get their flea medicine, or were they banned now?

The alchemist slumped a bit in relief at the fact that the child seemed to have come through his rather unwelcome exposure to intoxicants in one piece. The direwolf had been glaring at him steadily while waiting for the boy to wake up, and Nevin wasn't keep on his chances against the beast if the boy hadn't made it. It would have been.... Difficult, and probably ended in two humanoid corpses in the shop. But that didn't matter - Fenn had survived, and was currently sitting up groggily, shaking off the vestiges of the drug in his system.

The sloppily scrawled message in frost on his floor made one red eyebrow rise to his hairline. The colors going gone? So the numbing agent had been acting as what, a hallucinogenic? That was a fascinating variation in biology, as for humans - and cat-folk - it simply acted as a mild topical analgesic. Did that mean that things that would normally act as hallucinogenic drugs had an entirely different effect on the Snow Fae? Would more powerful analgesics have more pronounced effects similar to this at... lower quantities than what the boy had consumed? Or was this merely a quirk of the specific numbing agent that he used in his candies - a practice he would definitely need to cease, even if it disappointed some of the children. Maybe a separate line, regular candy and the mouth-numbing ones.

OH. Wait. He had been told to thank the Alchemist? Nevin's eyes flicked to the direwolf, which had not even huffed in his direction since the boy had woken up - no, not the hound. So then, who had told him that? Had someone spoken to Fenn while he was passed out from the overdose? That would mean dreamwalking of some kind. Was that a trait of Snow Fae or Fae in general? Before he could ask that he finished reading the last question, and felt a rod of tension slip into his muscles.

"Yes. I am an Alchemist after all,
magic is required in some of the more advanced things I do." Well it would be when he could figure out where to get a book on the transmutative arts. But the boy didn't need to know that. Nor did he need to know what exactly Nevin's magic was centered on - too many people already knew, even if Fenn, like Stare, wasn't actually a resident of Stonevale.

Enchanting advanced potions? Yeah, that made sense.

Now that her tiny friend seemed okay, Daugi settled down and started itching her side rather determinedly as Fenn patted her and thought about their current situation. It didn’t look as if the alchemist was on the verge of throwing them out. Maybe he couldn’t throw them out. You know. Because direwolf. The realization that he could possibly exploit this tamed-a-spooky-direwolf situation to get free stuff out of shopkeepers flickered in his mind. Flickered, then sputtered out. Fenn was a thief through and through, but he wasn’t mean. Usually.

SORRY FOR FLEAS INSIDE, AND PUKE, the boy scrawled sheepishly. Even if he was sorry, he was bot particularly planning on cleaning it up himself. FLEA FIX NEED STILL? PAY FOR IT AND CANDY WITH WHAT HAVE? NO IRON IN FIX, ALSO? BURNS. THOUGHT TO MENTION.

After whatever-the-hell had been in that candy, Fenn figured it was better not to take chances with this stuff. He was still kind of wobbly and woozy. Maybe some real food would make him feel better — he resolved to snatch something fresh from the nearest bakery as soon as his business here was concluded, and maybe grab a few wallets along the way. That was, if Daugi didn’t scare everyone away first…

This was why she normally waited outside towns.

Nevin blinked, looking to the massive canine that was determinedly scratching its side with one massive paw. If it wasn't for the size and the hellish face, it would look just like a large shaggy dog that was beset by the pests. He rubbed his forehead - he'd need to use a powerful insecticide to kill off the fleas on the shop. That thought made him raise his eyebrows.

"Child, your... companion, it listens to you? Fully? If you were to say, tell it it couldn't clean itself for several hours, until it was rinsed thoroughly in a stream, would it listen?" It was an idea, a strange one that normally could never be considered. The insecticide that Nevin was planning to use to clean his shop would need to sit for several hours at the least to be effective, and then be completely washed away with fresh water. It was a fairly toxic substance so not licking any up would be crucial. While not a problem for the man to use to clean his shop, he could after all just let it sit overnight, it would normally be impossible to use on a dog because they wouldn't be able to help themselves.

But this direwolf seemed to obey the boy in front of him with a surprising degree of intelligence. If that held true, the insecticide would solve the problem of the temperature change as well - the substance was only subject to change at extremely high temperatures, and could actually be frozen without a concern.

Did Daugi listen? Fully?

Hahahahahahahahahahaha...

It depended. The fluffy lump usually did as he asked of her, but there were times when she could be stubborn and defiant. Big beast had a mind of her own. Her tail thwumped contentedly against the floor as Fenn shrugged and scrawled on the floor. SHE LISTEN IF FEEL LIKE IT. NOT HUNGRY OR ANGRY NOW SO VERY LIKELY. IF ASK HER TO NOT LICK, WILL UNDERSTAND. CONFUSED, BUT DO. AM TALK TO HER WITH HANDS. That was probably obvious though -- wolves don’t typically read.

A soundless giggle shook the boy’s shoulders, and he scratched at the grey bites on his arm. The hallucinogen still lingered a little in his system. The half-sleeping wolf stirred as Fenn gave her a pat on the head. Clean bugs with poison. No give self lick, he signed for her.

“Wuff?” She tilted her head curiously at her tiny charge, processing his suggestion. A yawn stretched across her monstrous face, and she whuffled agreeably. “Auf.”

Fenn beamed and gave Nevin an approving sideways glance. Fix the little bugs with poison, then wash it off; and then, the Fae would need something for the itchy scritchy bug bites.

Well. That made things a fair bit easier, to say the least. He took a deep breath, and swatted as a flea tried to jump onto him. The dog not trying to lick itself with the insecticide on was good - it solved the multiple baths problem, and the time constraints involved. This still left the other half of the dog and the boy's problem - the bites already on them.

Now that the direwolf was dozing and not staring at him with one hungry eye, Nevin stood up and moved back to his notebook. When Fenn had begun his... trip, he had been close to finalizing something. It was actually the realization that the insecticide wouldn't be affected by the cold that had finished the idea off in the alchemist's head, and he thought it might work well. It would actually make use of the boy's inherent cold, a tonic that would be spread across the skin to freeze in place. He had to switch the analgesic agent out though - he couldn't risk the boy somehow getting a contact high from a numbing agent, even if it wasn't the same one that had sent him on his trip earlier.

Nevin came back out from behind the counter with a rag which he dropped on top of the golden-brown mess near Fenn, then disappeared into the back, shutting the door before the boy had time to see what was through it. He actually had some of the insecticide brewed already, the forests were a favored hang out of the annoying pests, but the other tonic would take a few minutes to put together. Thankfully because it was going to use the cold to do the majority of the work, it wouldn't take too long.

Within fifteen minutes Nevin was back at the counter, a bottle with a cheerily drawn skull and crossbones with red hair on the skull, and a clay jug with a watery paste inside.

"These should do the trick for you,
Fenn. The skull bottle is the insecticide. Rub this all over the direwolf, and let it sit for a few hours. You have to make absolutely sure she doesn't eat any, or she will get very sick, even sicker than you just were. This is very serious, OK?" He stared for a long minute at the mute boy before continuing. "This other bottle is a paste you will rub onto both yourself and your hound whenever one of you starts to itch at a bug bite. It should react with your cold to form into a paste that hardens and covers the spot, drawing out some of the stuff in the bites that makes them itch, and preventing you from scratching them. These are, luckily, cheaper than the other medicines would have been - the insecticide is a lot cheaper than the flea bath paste." Nevin wrote down the new amount and spun it around for the boy to look at. He had also added on a cost for some - but only some - of the candy, but not the syrup or the emetic.

Patience was not Fenn’s most outstanding quality. In the fifteen minutes that Nevin was doing his thing, took some self control for the fae not to start sticking his nose in the dozen places it didn’t belong. Mostly, he scratched his itchy everything and tried ignoring the plethora of shiny pretty potions all around. Only one glittering lavender vial ended up in his bag. A new triumph for restraint!

When the alchemist returned, Daugi stood up and stretched languidly. Fenn too leaped back to his feet and bounded over to the countertop. After his brief nap and spinny trip through the rainbow, he had regained most of his enthusiastic abandon back. His big eyes were round with eagerness as Nevin explained the new medicines and handed over the new price. Fenn did not have any more money than he did before the colors made him all foggy.

Thankfully, the price seemed to have inched down a few coins since he had last seen it. What a relief!

The art on the one bottle was adorable. Fenn flicked the little redheaded skull, grinning at frost spattered over it. This was a really cute shop. Maybe he’d travel through Stonevale more often. Seeming somewhat more cheerful than before, he slipped the potions into his satchel and dug around for the wallet he had last stolen (and not yet emptied). Gleefully, he upended all the gold coins inside on the counter. KEEP CHANGE, the tiny fae instructed Nevin. One could afford to be loose with their change when they were soon to be well enough for sneaking around and purloining more purses for themselves.

Before he left though, there were a few questions on his mind. It made his ears twitched with twisting worry. FLEAS WILL NOT INFECT WIFE AND DAUGHTER, RIGHT? NEKOJIN HAVE FUR. SORRY. LITTLE CONCERN.

The redhead counted out the coins - the boy had dumped nearly double what was needed. He was about to push it back, but the boy had already almost left the shop. The dire wolf was currently outside, staring back in through the broken door, and Nevin quietly slid the coins back, realizing he'd just use the money to pay for the repairs. Then he read the message the boy had scrawled in one lats patch of frost, and felt one red eyebrow twitch mightily.

"As I said, Child. I do not have a wife or a child. I am currently single, and have been both single and celibate for several years. Now, go. Get washed, and kill off those bugs before they drive the two of you mad." He waves the two of them off, shoving the frustration at that blasted rumor down into a deep, dark corner of the back of his mind. He would have to find the old lady who had started it and set her straight.

~Fin? ~

Thread Title: In Which Fenn Bugs a Potion Maker
Judgment Type: No Judgment
Participants: FennWenn and Nevin

FennWenn receives: 1056 EXP and 99 GP (+15 GP for Thieving Nature Ability)
Nevin Receives: 792 EXP and 99 GP

Congratulations!

All rewards added.

Nevin reaches level 3!!!