#dragon cavern

Because of this, the Realgar line of Food Souls are inherently poisonous, their blood burns, the poison’s properties leaks through in their sweat, making any contact with them lethal in the worst case scenario, but since their namesake’s most well known use is actually that of a medicine, they usually spend most of their time in close proximity to humans. Due to this, the majority of the line are able to keep the poison that runs through their bodies and lives on their skin at bay. After all, Food Souls are designed to have humanity’s best interests at heart, which leads me to believe that though Realgar Wine Food Souls are perfectly capable of poisoning a human, they’re also perfectly capable of controlling when and where they use that hidden, sinister power. 

Unfortunately for the Realgar Wine we see in canon however, I believe that the severance of his contract with his Master Attendant was so sudden and traumatic to him, that it completely messed up that failsafe. After that severance, and once his time at Dragon Cavern began, the horrible realisation that he could no longer control when and where that poison would flare up quickly made itself known. Even at the slightest inconvenience he would soon find himself in a room full of toxic, yellow fumes of his own making, fumes that would choke whoever else was there with him. This panic would then of course lead to the toxins secreting themselves out of his skin, making him incredibly dangerous to touch - even to his fellow Food Souls. The tips of his fingers and the veins running through his wrists would blacken and his skin would hiss and crack as the keratosis from the arsenic began to kick in.

Soon it was clear to him; that his ability to control this deadly force had vanished along with the contract binding him to his first Master Attendant.

Fortunately for this Realgar Wine, he was among Food Souls when this happened. Had Longfeng/D&P not taken him back to Dragon Cavern, I’m sure that this loss of control on Realgar’s part would’ve resulted in quite a few human casualties. Nowadays I believe that this poison is directly linked to Realgar Wine’s mental state, which was why - after essentially being dragged out of a burning Kingdom and up to Dragon Cavern - that poison flared up so extremely; he was completely shaken up! But as we see in his skin event, he’s moved on and grown so much from his time with his Master Attendant, the whole event is about that! So I really do think that though there’s still the threat of a resurgence, Realgar is able to placate himself enough for the poison to lay dormant. 

However, as stated in his little biography: “He doesn’t like coming into contact with too many people.” And I think I know another big reason as to why.

It’s shown in canon that he and Longfeng/D&P are close, Longfeng was the one who brought him to Dragon Cavern after all, but I think that closeness had a rather nasty set of consequences, which makes it fortunate that Longfeng is a guy who doesn’t hold grudges for very long. One type of arsenic poisoning results in the skin suffering from something called keratosis - which I mentioned above - a condition that messes up the skin’s pigmentation, and literally causes it to start growing keratin. If you’ve ever seen the horns of an Impala, those are coated with keratin.

I won’t link in any images, partly because I can’t and also because it’s nasty stuff, but as you can imagine, arsenic keratosis shows itself in darkened, hardened patches on the skin, kind of like the skin is starting to grow its own armour.

Wait.. Hold on, where have we seen that kind of thing again?

Oh.

My theory? Realgar accidentally poisoned Longfeng, possibly on their way to Dragon Cavern (maybe Longfeng carried him? Who knows.) But because they’re Food Souls (and I’ll be honest, because I like my artistic license) the spread of this black keratin was insanely fast, and I’ll bet that either Dragonwell Tea/Longjing Tea or Zitui Bun had to stop it before it spread throughout the whole of Longfeng’s body, which is why that black coating along his arm looks like it was stopped dead in its tracks. Because it was.

But of course, because this is Longfeng we’re talking about, he actually found use for this new, armoured arm. An Impala’s horns are tough after all, and since he’s a Strength Soul, he probably finds quite a lot of use for it, despite Realgar feeling genuinely horrible about the whole affair. But regardless of this, the two are still close, each acting as part of the other’s growth in more ways than one.

In conclusion: Canon Realgar Wine is someone who has stared into Hell but has walked back out of it. To this day he still wrestles with the knowledge that his very existence can make people sick, a worry that’s clearly shown throughout his voice lines and his biography, but he is still growing, which is why I liked his skin event so much. I’m a complete sucker for redemption stories, but I’m also a complete sucker for figuring out just how lethal a Food Soul with a namesake like realgar wine can be.