FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Lace woke feeling stiff but wonderfully well rested. Late morning sunlight shone through the windows into Serperior's main room, and the peppery smell of something green left the air prickly fresh. Serperior worked at a large table set against the wall, a vine curling adeptly around a jar high on a shelf beside him and moving it to the workbench where he held a mortar and pestle in another pair of vines.

For a while, Lace simply watched him, his vines moving with practiced care and far more precision than she ever managed. His dark green tail shifted with the rest of his long body, ensuring a stable platform for his vines, head able to swivel and twist to measure careful additions. Her red claws scratched absently at the hidden scars around her left eye. She stretched, sighing happily and stood to get a closer look.

"I'm Lace by the way." She stood far enough back not to risk getting in his way. "Can I help?"

Serperior didn't look up from his mortar, adding a few drops of water into the mixture, but he sounded far more friendly than he had last night. "Verdance." Eyeing the consistency, the light green and white scales of his head shining from light let in through the window, he added exactly two more drops, vines curling along the small vial's entire length to control the pour, then set his tools aside to size her up. "I could use another bucket of water."

"From the river?" she asked, trying not to show the slight disappointment at not getting to mix herbs. Not that she'd have been terribly beneficial to the process.

Verdance smiled at her and gave a tiny shake of his head. The protrusions behind his head and around his throat ruffled with the movement, the scales inside glimmering gold. "There's a well just down the path. It's to the north." He pointed a vine towards a bucket sitting beside the door.

Lace had never used a well before, but she picked up the bucket and set out. Sunlight beamed down from a cloudless sky, and a breeze from the forest pushed away the scent of the more crowded sections of the city, though a faint sulfurous odor permeated the air no matter how the wind blew.

The ponderous stroll felt good to her tight muscles, and she hid herself with an illusion to better gawk at the other pokemon hurrying about. A Lopunny hurried in the opposite direction carrying a basket of some kind of long grass. Two Mienshao had their heads together, speaking quickly and heading towards the city center. So many pokemon, some in or around their homes, others walking along the street, carrying things, chatting. She had never seen so many others all in one place before, even during her previous visit. Oddly, she hadn't seen any humans anywhere since the night before closer to the built up river district.

The well, a small stone ring lining a deep hole, was a more complex mechanism than she expected. An offset lever stuck out of the wooden crossbar that sat halfway between the stone lip and a rickety little roof. Lace hid next to the wooden wall of a small building on the plaza corner to watch how others managed the task.

After carefully watching a Grovyle much smaller than herself attach his bucket and work the turning mechanism, she felt sure enough of her ability to do the same. It took another short while for the plaza to clear of others however. The last thing she wanted was someone else watching her struggle with an obviously common chore, two Lycanroc and a Typhlosion having a long animated conversation right in the middle of the square, drawing their water up slowly. That or someone try to use the well while she did, forcing her to awkwardly reveal herself. Lace managed to fill her bucket up without notice and rush off back, only a little more damp for her effort.

"I was beginning to think you fell in," he remarked when Lace finally returned, only having spilled a little of the water down her leg. While she was gone, he left a few berries and two large cooked root vegetables on a plate for her with a cup of the same tea they'd had last night.

Lace grinned eagerly at the food and placed the bucket next to the work table. "I watched a few others first. It wasn't so hard."

Verdance stopped pressing herbs to fix one of his large red eyes on her. "So you really are a fer-" He cut himself off. "Have lived in the woods your whole life?"

"Of course." She plopped herself into a chair and wolfed down the food before he could change his mind. Verdance grimaced at the way she ate but returned to his work. The quick meal left her licking the remnants from her muzzle while she watched.

"And you managed to make some kind of elixir with the items I sold you?"

Lace glanced at her satchel which she had left when fetching the water. It looked exactly as it had. "Well, I've only really tested it on myself, and a few of the Salandit." She sighed, glancing around at all the different types of herbs lining Verdance's walls. "It's probably not nearly as exciting as the things you make, but I thought maybe I could try selling some here, or-" Lace shrugged. "It sounds kind of silly now that I've seen how much everything there is here."

Verdance hissed softly. "Most alchemy is simple once you have the knowledge of it, but there are so many plants in the world. I bet I know of only a small few, even with all I have here." He tied a group of flowers together and hung them from a rack before the window to dry. "So what is it that you've created."

Hesitating for just a moment, ears twitching in tempered excitement, Lace finally retrieved one of the vials from her pack and held it up for Verdance to inspect. "It's not really a medicine I don't think." She grinned, playfully showing off her fangs. "It makes sex feel really good. And it will make you want to be having a lot of sex."

He took the vial, its contents a pale lavender, in a careful vine and leveled a flat stare at her. "A love potion."

Lace's ears drooped. "Oh, are those common?" She should have known.

Verdance snorted and held back the vial. "They're common enough, just not real."

Lace shot back a glare of her own, her illusion making her eyes an even more vivid blue. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

Verdance rolled his eyes. "Every charlatan has a love potion or elixir of immortality. They just usually have better sense than to try to sell it to an alchemist."

Lace sputtered and snatched the vial back. "If you don't believe, why don't you give it a try? I even concentrated it to make it easier to carry." She advanced on him, vial in hand.

"And what, I wake up two hours from now and you tell me how good I felt?" Verdance watched the vial warily. "Or wondering where my food went." That last bit didn't sound like a sincere accusation, but it raised the fur along the back of her neck, teeth bared.

"Oh you'll remember it all right. You'll remember begging forgiveness before telling me I'm the best mate you've ever taken. Or better yet, maybe I'll leave so you can pretend to be right. I'm sure that will get you in the mood, and you're bendy enough you can probably do everything yourself anyway." She held the vial as if ready to smash it on the ground. An entire concentrated vial might start an orgy around Verdance's shop, and she didn't really want to waste one of only six just to prove a point.

"Fine. You made a love potion. Just don't kill us both with it." Vine raised his vines in a disarming gesture. "And try not to mention love potions to anyone if you want to stay here. The humans already try to stir up trouble about my craft."

Lace snarled. "You still don't believe me!"

"I do not." Clearly forcing his gaze away from the vial in her claws, Verdance turned back to his workbench.

Lace growled and huffed away to pout in the corner. Stupid snake. She'd never tested the elixir on anyone who hadn't spent time around Salazzle. Maybe it would leave him as devoted to her as a Salandit. That would show him. But once her anger burned at a level that left her able to think, a more important realization struck her. If people tried to sell fake love potions despite knowing it was a likely scam, what would they do for the real thing? Lace held up the vile and giggled with excitement. She just had to figure out how to sell it.

Some time later, a knock on the door urged her into a crouch, ready to lunge one way or another. Verdance flicked a vine towards her as if to say 'cut that out' before he opened the door and smiled.

Verdance bowed his head to an elderly looking Blaziken. "Good morning Draft, please come in."

Draft's feathers no longer held a vibrant sheen, leaving his red torso washed out and his once cream colored hair and chest a faded gray. "Verdance, good to see you, good to- Oh!" Sharp yellow eyes latched onto Lace. "Who is this strange creature? Have you finally found yourself an apprentice?"

Still angry with Verdance, Lace said, "No," almost at the same instant Verdance replied, "Something like that." He shot her a hastily annoyed look.

"She's annoyed that I criticized an elixir she made," Verdance added at Draft's raised eyebrow.

Draft simply laughed. "Don't be too hard on the girl or you'll still be looking for an apprentice at my age." Though he disguised it well, Lace noticed his right leg moved stiffly, hiding a limp when he turned to close the door.

Verdance replied, but leveled his red eyes on Lace. "Elixirs can be dangerous if they're not properly mixed. Recklessness can hurt people."

"You make a marvelous old man, Verdance." Draft shook his head, smiling, before turning to Lace. "I've never seen a pokemon like you before. Where are you from?"

Before she had the chance to reply, Verdance cut in. "A small settlement. Far to the west." Lace glared at him but he pretended not to notice.

"West, eh? Can't say I've heard of anywhere out that way. Must be far indeed. Good for you. Verdance here is one of the few attempting to keep us all together. Try not to let his thorns bother you." Draft flashed her a smile, his beak nearly as worn and scarred as his large talons. "But the west, huh. Must be a tougher sort out there. No roads leading that way. Maybe you'll have more luck teaching him not to bite everyone who wanders too close." He laughed again and turned his attention back to Verdance who glared darkly at his workbench but held his tongue.

"I finished it just a few moments ago," Verdance said, holding out a small packet with a vine. "Won't get any fresher than that."

"You're too good to this old beast." Draft took the offered packet. "Thank you, Verdance." Blaziken winked at Lace, then left.

Lace simmered in silence long enough to give Draft a chance to walk far enough away he wouldn't hear her. Of only two people she'd had any interaction with since arriving, it left it easy for him to seem the most reasonable of everyone she'd met, and she liked his straightforward manner. Her glare focused on Verdance, who just seemed resigned.

"You seem awfully eager to speak for me. I didn't know staying the night here indentured me to you," she snapped. "If I'm your apprentice, do I have to call you Master or should I not address you directly?"

Verdance sighed before explaining in far too calm a tone, "I didn't want you to say you came from the woods."

"Why do you care if he thinks I'm some savage who crawled from the mud to sell mud water?" Her fur bristled, puffing up to add bulk to her lean body, ready to fight.

"That's not-" Verdance squeezed his eyes shut. "The humans have been demonizing ferals, err, pokemon who don't live here in cities and other communities. It's probably better not to advertise where you came from."

"Well I'm sorry if I'm embarrassing you in front of your humans." Lace shoved the vial into her satchel, leapt to her feet, and stormed out.

"Lace-"

She slammed the door and stalked off towards the city. Despite her anger, she regret lugging her satchel around to go exploring. Not that she had anywhere else to go, but she didn't want to let Verdance think she intended to return, the irony of it being just as petty as he was not lost upon her.

Before making it too far, she hastily returned and hid her bag behind some gardening tools, moving silently and maintaining an illusion of invisibility. Verdance seemed to blame a lot of his troubles on the humans, and she intended to get a better look at them for herself.