Before even reaching Tilly's stomach, the crimson pill dissolved into several drops of Damian's blood that quickly seeped into her bloodstream. Given a Bloodkin's innate mastery over the aspect of blood and Damian's natural affinity with his own, controlling those droplets was effortless for him.
With neither Aurora nor Tilly paying attention to him, neither of them noticed the crimson myst clinging to his fingers. Slowly, he used those fingers to tap on the table as he made those droplets move according to his will.
With his own blood infecting hers, it only took him a few mere seconds to take full control of all the blood in her body. Since Tilly could not control myst, nor had ever done so before, she had essentially no defenses to Damian's efforts. She wasn't even able to notice what was happening in her own body.
It wasn't enough to start awakening her, but that wasn't his plan anyway. Not to mention that she was still too young for that—after all, awakening someone before their body matured enough was dangerous.
Damian tilted his head as he looked at Tilly and felt the power on his fingertips. At this point, he possessed a dangerous level of control over her. It would take him a mere thought to instantly kill her, criple her, or even start puppeteering her body against her will.
For an instant, he felt the intrusive desire to exercise that control in some way. Despite his mother's teachings, he remained a young man who wanted to be in charge and, to an extent, enjoyed making others dance to his tune, forcefully or otherwise.
Yet, he quickly resisted that thought. Not only would it work counter to his plans, but he generally tried to resist his darker impulses.
Instead, he used his control to give her body a once-over. Although he never really cared that much about his Uncle Theon's lessons in biology, he still managed to pick up more than enough information to fix any problems he could find in a pre-awakening Eldkin—which was essentially what Gutterborn were.
It was then that Tilly started feeling something. Warmth spread throughout her body, and her eyes widened. "T—Tilly!" Aurora yelped when her daughter finally showed a reaction to the pill she had taken.
Tilly finally parted her lips to speak, but then she hiccuped instead. Her skin started heating up and her eyes widened further, this time with a hint of panic. She could feel something bubbling up in her throat as her heart started pounding faster.
"Here, hold this," Damian suddenly said, having appeared next to them. In his hands, he held a bucket he'd seen in the corner, which he now pushed into Tilly's hands.
"You—!" Aurora began, glaring at him with eyes of spitting fury, but she was instantly interrupted by a retching sound in front of her.
Panicked, she looked back at her daughter, who'd started vomiting mouthfuls of stinking black sludge into the bucket. "W— What the hell?!" Aurora yelled, still clutching her daughter's shoulders. "What is happening?!"
"That's all the filth her body has accumulated from living in this place," a casual Damian explained, his hands returning to his pockets. "Give it a second."
The panicked, furious mother was about to snap at him, as one hand began reaching for the gun hidden in her clothes, when Tilly suddenly stopped vomiting. She was panting heavily and leaning against her mother's hands as she spat out the last remnants of filth.
"That's so disgusting…" she muttered softly with a grimace.
"T— Tilly?!" Aurora muttered worriedly.
Taking a deep breath, Tilly recovered quickly and stabilized her body. She gasped softly as pain she'd long forgotten how to live without was suddenly gone. "I'm…. fine," she muttered. As if in disbelief, she looked down at her hands.
"In fact, I feel better than fine!" she exclaimed, looking up at her mother with a wide grin. "I feel like air! Stronger than ever!" With one hand on her mother's shoulder, she brought the other one to her throat. "That annoying itch in my throat is gone!"
Excitedly, she rolled up the sleeve on one of her thin, somewhat underfed arms and pointed out an empty spot of rosy skin. "Look! No more welt!" Next, she lifted her shirt to expose her underbelly and pointed at it as well. "No more rash either!"
Aurora followed her daughter's actions with wide eyes of shock. She worried every day about her daughter's health. Conditions in Slagfall were even worse than in her own youth, and they simply didn't have the money to deal with every health concern that rose up in their family.
"It's all… gone…? Just like that?" she muttered softly, full of shock. She even noticed her daughter's skin had attained a level of healthy rosiness it hadn't possessed since birth. She was still a little dirty, but her good looks were becoming more apparent.
"It is! I've never felt so good!" Tilly exclaimed, her body filled with energy and grinning widely. She couldn't help but jump around a little in excitement, but that actually made Aurora a little concerned.
"Come here," she ordered sternly, beckoning her. Tilly pouted. She wasn't sure why her mother became so stern suddenly, but still did as she asked.
Aurora immediately grasped her daughter's chin and looked deep into her eyes. She knew the effects of addictive drugs were most often visible in the eyes. For several seconds she searched, but she found nothing. Tilly's eyes were clearer than they'd ever been before.
"It— It can't have been that simple, right…?" she muttered absentmindedly. She couldn't find anything wrong with her daughter, yet the thought all of Tilly's ails were solved with a single pill, freely given to them by a stranger, that also possessed no negative side-effects, was… inconceivable to Aurora.
"You need to have a little faith, Mom!" Tilly laughed joyfully, her voice like a clear bell. With twinkling eyes of happiness, she turned to Damian, who'd taken a seat at the table again. "Quickly! Quickly! Give Mom one as well!"
Yet, Damian simply raised an eyebrow and smirked at her without a word.
Almost immediately, Tilly realized her mistake and paled a little. "U— Uhm… I mean…" she muttered, now turning anxious, her fingers fidgeting in front of her chest. "Y— You do have another one, right…? I mean, I— I was a little impulsive just now, I guess…"
Seeing that Damian still didn't answer, Tilly gulped. His amused, crimson eyes bore into her, and she felt a little strange mix of comfort and discomfort. "I— I hope they aren't too expensive…? I can work for another one! Please let me help my mother!"
"That's enough, Tilly!" Aurora quickly shut her down. She faced her daughter, but still glanced at Damian with narrowed eyes. It didn't seem like the pills' effect on her daughter had lessened the protective mother's suspicion of Damian much.
"You already did something stupid just now, don't make things worse!" she said, worry filling her voice. "I'm glad you seem better, but we should still keep a close eye on you! And you're definitely not going to work for him!"
Tilly, however, ignored her mother and looked at Damian pleadingly.
Finally, Damian chuckled and opened his hand to reveal another of the crimson pills. Since they were really just condensed drops of his blood, he could create as many as he liked. "How about we make a deal…?" he grinned mischievously.