Melissia was mumbling to an old acquaintance of hers who was standing behind her in the shadows while she stirred a dark, sickly looking liquid bubbling away in a small cauldron before her. The liquid looked like it could strip flesh from bone and the black pot was hanging above a log fire in the middle of the room.
The room was a large circular one which had bones and skins hanging from walls, vials and potions laying about on tables and containers scattered everywhere containing all manner of creatures and substances. The room looked like it was a mess of chaos and randomness; yet it had that eerie feeling you get when you know there is some strange order to it that only one person knows the secret to.
Still mumbling away Melissia tosses what could only be described as some small creature's hind limb into the liquid before giving it another stir and turning to her acquaintance with a tired look of having been up all night; "It is almost time, soon..." she said before stopping mid sentence finding yet again her acquaintance had vanished and no longer there; he always did this and it annoyed her.
Turning back to the cauldron, Melissia tasted the liquid and frowned pulling a face of disgust before mumbling once again to her acquaintance since she knew he always came back when she was not looking; "It needs more salt! Always more salt! Do you not agree?" Once again there was no reply from her silent acquaintance as he did not like to speak very often, in fact she had not heard him speak for many winters now, but Melissia knew he was always there over her shoulder in the shadows; invisible to the rest of the world.
