There was silence for a few long moments.
“That’s it?” Kre demanded. “That’s the rule? Everything will kill you?”
“I swear that your hearing is selective such that only the wrong things make their way into your brain. It is not ‘Everything will kill you’… the rule is that everything will bring about your death.”
“Even if I could tell the difference between what you said and what I said, I’d like to point out that the rule makes no sense,” Kre countered. “I mean, you’re essentially saying that you’re going to get me killed since you fit into the category of ‘everything’.”
Kitalia raised an eyebrow.
“Ok,” Kre muttered, “really bad example. How about…” he peered around himself, trying to find something he knew would prove his point. “How about that flower there. Such a pretty blue flower. How will that flower bring about my death?”
She shrugged. “The means are never as important and the result. The rule is not immediate, and neither is it exact. It simply… is. The Ylveryan have developed an entire branch of philosophy that seeks to unravel the question of how to live in a world that hopes to eradicate us, as if we were simply a leech, sucking it dry. All Ylveryan children study that subject for at least four cycles during our schooling. I am, by no means, considered competent in this field, but I at least know the basic tenets of the rule and how it applies to my daily life.”
“That sounds incredibly boring. Just hearing that makes me glad that I’m not an Ylveryan.” He reached down and plucked the aforementioned flower from the ground, admiring its layered petals of deep blue.
“As for that flower,” Kitalia sighed, picked up a stick from the ground and whacked the back of Kre’s hand with it. He nursed his injured hand as the flower fell to the ground. “That was a pulu balin, or in your language you might call it the blue rasher, it’s a blue flower whose very touch will cause some pretty nasty rashes. It would be best if you do not touch your face now that the sap is all over your hands.”
Kre’s hand stopped just a few inches shy of scratching his nose. “Is it that bad?”
“I have seen grown men scratch at the irritation until they bled, trying to stop the burning only to spread it more. Take heart though, it should not start for at least a few minutes yet.”
“Isn’t there a cure for it? Don’t you have some elven magic or something to fix this?”
She responded with a simple, almost smug look on her face, like she was waiting for the blisters to form on his hands so she could immediately say ‘I told you so’. The silence and her inaction felt painful to Kre, who was already starting to feel as if his hands were on fire.
“Kit?” he asked, almost pleadingly. He hadn’t wanted to be the first to break the silence, but the thought of what would happen to his hands made him desperate for an answer from her.
She responded with such sweetness and charm that Kre wasn’t even sure she understood the gravity of the situation. “Yes Kre?”
“How do we fix this?” He held out his already reddening hands. “Please?” He thought that maybe adding that bit of sincerity would help elicit a response.
She just continued to look at him, pleasant smile on her face.
He caught himself just before he instinctively scratched the back of his hand. “Can you at least tell me how long it lasts?”
“Half a day to a day,” she said with a smile. “Could be longer though. It reacts with everyone differently it seems.”