Post by Cordelia de Clare on Mar 31, 2015 2:45:32 GMT -5
It had been a long fight, and she still wasn’t sure how she had managed to come out unscathed; others had not been so lucky. Her crew had left, one by one, in the cavern beneath her castle. It was beautiful, but sinister all at the same time; the indigo crystal that lined the walls was covered in the blood of the dragon that had once made its home there. It wasn’t dead, that much she knew for sure, but she didn’t know where it had gone, and there was a pit in the round of her stomach that made her nauseous.
It was in that moment that she needed to become more than she was; faster, stronger, more able to stand tall but as a human, with no access to magical abilities, how was she to do that? There was only so much she could do, so many avenues she could follow before she started to burn out, and fade away. It didn’t dawn on her for a long time, but when it did, she couldn’t believe the luck: dragon’s blood. Hadn’t she read somewhere that it had magical properties? Or had her trusty side-kick, as it were, told her about it? It didn’t really matter in the end.
Her eyebrows furrowed, and she considered how to... not only collect it, but how she could use it to make herself stronger; Cordelia didn’t really trust magic enough to ingest it, so that was out. “I could bathe in it, I suppose.” Then her nose wrinkled at the thought of that, and she shuddered. In thought Cordelia dropped her chin to her chest, and tapped her fingers against her thigh. “A tattoo…” It was the head of the serpent between her breasts that had sparked the idea, and once ignited, it was going to be hard to extinguish. “Shit, yes; a tattoo.” She was not a stranger to the art of ‘Inkantation’ and the tattoos she already possessed were seeped in magic. This one would be different, it had to be larger, and the magic of the dragon’s blood had to be deeply ingrained.
Turning on a heel, the young noble climbed the incline from the cavern and into the castle proper. It was time to visit the docks, and the tattooists she had, once upon a time, given all of her business to.
((Time-lapse – 2 days))
“This is a mistake, Mistress Vixen. You don’t know what the blood will do to you, and I cannot in good conscious cover your whole back with it!” The tattooist had suddenly grown a conscious, well that was interesting. “I’m lining your purse with gold, not your mind with quandaries – do this for me, and it’ll be you I send all my… friends to in the future.” He knew she had a lot of friends, clients, and the money he’d earn would perhaps buy him his title. Markum sighed softly, and shook his head from side to side. “Fine, but I’m going to have to have a long time to do it… there’s three layers to this design, and…” He paused before saying it, as if she didn’t know. “It’s going to really fucking hurt.”
Cordelia looked down to the sleek chair Markum used for his work, and Cordelia lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Nothing worth having is easy.” A grin tugged at her lips before she unlaced her bodice, and removed it, and shrugged out of the top half of her petticoat. Lying down, Cordelia rest her head against the top of the chair, and wrapped her arms around it. Her back now exposed would become Markum’s canvas. He sighed softly, before sitting down beside her and pulling his portable table in close; upon it was three different jars, one of them shone indigo, the other was black, and the other was red. “Are you ready?” Cordelia nodded, and the construction on the tattoo started immediately.
The first layer of the design didn’t hurt as much as she thought, but then, it was the dragons’ blood that was seeping into her flesh. Cord tried to imagine what it was doing to her, but she really had no idea, and had a moment of panic – it was too late now. The Vixen closed her eyes for the rest of it, and tried to take herself to her happy place; it was going to take hours, upon hours to complete the process, so she tried not to dwell.
((Time-lapse; 15 hours))
She didn’t understand why most of her body hurt, especially since the tattoo had only been upon her back. From her shoulders to the small of it, was the most beautiful design she could ever have imagined. “How do you feel?” Markum asked, curiously. Cordelia didn’t know how to answer straight away, but as she pushed herself up from her lean she gripped onto the arm, to turn herself around. “Sore.” Finally came the reply, but there was something else inside of her, she knew because she could feel it, coursing through her veins, and it was almost like she could feel her soul – if she even had such a thing. “I just hope you don’t come to regret this, Vixen.” Markum said, before helping up the woman. “I’m sure I won’t,” She replied before adding: “I’ll be at the Red Hood for the rest of the week, call there this evening and you can have your pick.” Markum had all the same weaknesses that most men did, but in the end, he’d still want gold and so, a pouch of it was left on the table where his empty ink jars were. Markum tried not to look excited by the purse, or the prospect of a lady of the Red Hood, instead giving a nod. Cord on the other hand gingerly started to dress but left her bodice laces untied for now.
A nod was offered before she left the establishment, and as soon as she stepped outside she could feel the difference; there was a strange magic coursing through her, and she was going to have to get used to it.