"they flip the siren, hit the lights" ✭ ── // tw for minor gore mention in the last paragraph ofc!!

For as weirdly avoidant of dirt and grime as he was, Angelembrace Cipher-D’Angelo had some strange hobbies.

Where they had come from was beyond him, despite his childhood taking place in the Coalition, it wasn’t as if he was just always wading through blood and bone to come to the final conclusion of interest in what laid behind one’s skin. Sure, following the rule of Sojourn might have persuaded one to follow a rather interesting path of interest as he currently was, but that was about as far as his knowledge on himself went. Not that it even mattered, it wasn’t as if he was going to making any steps forward to change it, or find something more orthodox to keep his mind and paws occupied. What was the worst that would happen? His mother would express disgust? She’d already done that far too many times to faze him.

Following his recent promotion, Angel figured now was a good time to get to work on using the rodents he obtained from Arvid’s experiment with poison, which wasn’t as potentially useful as such but it was more for satisfying his own curiosity. Angel wanted to see the postmortem results. Obviously he knew they had been paralyzed before their untimely demise, that wasn’t subtle nor was he stupid. And he’d taken a great deal to preserve the tiny bodies to the best of his ability and keep them away from both Anthemtalon and the little dragon hatchlings, to prevent sickness and potential fatality in the little ones, and to not ruin his entire plan.

Angel tapped on the first mouse corpse with the back of his paw, clicking his tongue in interest at the stiffness of the body, stiffness that was noticeable even with the rigor mortis. The jaguar cub pulled the end of one of his claws under the skin of the mouse’s stomach, quickly pulling upward to tear the skin from the abdomen to the chest, exposing every organ and bone that was previously hidden from sight. He realized, with a hint of disdain, that with a creature this small it would be difficult to study the effects of the poison on the internals. Although, something did look particularly different.

"Trust me, you definitely don't want to drink from them. There's a non-zero chance of you dying if you do." Arvid put a bit bluntly as he approached, the thane's tail flicking about behind him. While he had managed to work with nonlethal doses of poison quite recently in order to pull off his trio of captures, he very much hadn't been trying to work nonlethally when dealing with the mice. The poison he had given them had been fairly concentrated, and although it had been a little while since he had given them to Angel, he still didn't think that a bloodstream drenched in poison would be good to drink from.

With that warning put out there, Arvid then focused his attention on what Angel was doing, his multicolored gaze seeming to light up with interest. Dissection, huh? He has figured that was what the other wanted with the mice, but it was still an entirely different story to see it happening. The canine had yet to delve into the world of dissection himself, but he knew what it entailed, and was definitely interested in seeing what Angel would find. After all, if the other could figure out exactly what shut the body down as a result of the poison... perhaps Arvid could work to make it even more effective. The thought alone filled the thane with glee, and he muttered in Ruven's direction, his tail thumping behind him, "He's dissecting the mice I worked on. Looking at their insides and seeing how everything ticks... and how it doesn't, at this point." He hadn't missed the disgust on the other boy's face, but still considered the question to be genuine.

Glancing towards Angel himself, the older canine questioned, a crooked grin gracing his muzzle, "Have you found anything interesting yet? I suppose probably not, considering you just started..." He then muttered, his eyes drifting back down towards the mouse itself, "Maybe next time I should try poisoning something a bit larger. That way it would be easier for you to see what had happened..." Working on the mice would certainly be a pain, although Angel also seemed to have the enthusiasm for it, at least in Arvid's opinion. That made him only want to work with the other more, figuring that they could mutually benefit each other.

"they flip the siren, hit the lights" ✭ ── He had amassed a gathering. Not to worry, no one looked too disturbed yet, besides Ruven, but funnily enough not for the reasons that he would have personally assumed, given the task. It took some minutes for Angel to get to a point where he could put aside the dissection, briefly, to answer the questions that had been spoken to him. He was certainly glad to explain, just distracted by the search. "Ruven and Arvid are right, these are pretty tainted blood-wise, unless you'd be willing to test the after affects of poisoned blood." He responded to Solsken, amused but not hostile. He was merely joking, he'd never let another wanderer put themselves at terrible risk unknowingly, he wasn't that cruel. Also that was less than beneficial for them all. Then he stopped, blinking pale yellow eyes at the darker colored canine. It struck him that he had never spoken to this one before, which was a disappointment given their interesting appearance and personality upon first glance. "I'm sure we've crossed paths, but I believe I failed to talk to you properly. Angel, and I will be your surgeon today." Another joke, and one he was rather proud of. Proud enough to leave the ends of his mouth twitching upward into a cheeky smile.

Back to business. "It's certainly a bit difficult given the size of the thing, but some organs are still big enough to see even in a mouse." The jaguar seemed enthusiastic despite how he prefaced the statement, but he had good reason. At least for this one. He didn't want to risk damage just to show his discovery, pulling at one of the sides of the dissected mouse to better show what he was looking at to the others, specifically Arvid so the direwolf pup could learn what his creations did to the body. And what was it he was showing off?

Under the tiny ribcage, which he then proceeded to very, very carefully snap off on one side, were the exposed lungs of the rodent, pushed in and almost shriveled like they had been at their absolute limit.

They were, of course, he'd explain. "Obviously there was the paralysis, a terrible way to go. Something to look at in...bigger subjects, but you want to see the specifics. This was....the water hemlock. Imagine suffocating to death in perfectly good air. And all it looks like from what I can see is a general illness, stomach related." He tiled his head, not at all visibly upset or sympathetic at the revelation. Why should he be? It was too fascinating. Once again, Angel opened up a part of the animal that should not be so carefully...unzipped. The stomach. His next point would require it. Within in the stomach of the mouse, the sad little bag of flesh that it was, was small traces of the concoction that Arvid had prepared, barely mixed with the bile. It was still there, and barely digested. He leaned forward, looking Arvid dead in the eyes. "And it works [i]incredibly[i] quickly."