The Right Stuff

[Silence Sei]

((Closed to Alembic))

"What's an 'Alkeymist' Daddy?" Four year old Ella Orlouge asked her father. The mute merely smiled, holding the small girl's hand in his own as they walked down the streets of Radasanth. Ella clung to a doll that Sei had purchased for her a few stores down. Now, she wouldn't let go of the dang thing.

"Well, an Alchemist is somebody who specializes in alchemy. As far as what alchemy is in and of itself, well, nobody particularly has a clear meaning for it yet." Sei looked towards Ella's eyes, seeing that the girl had already lost interest, even with Sei trying to keep his explanation in short sentences.

"So why do we need one?" Ella asked as she walked past the various people with her father. "Why did you make that big announcement that the Knights need an Alkeymist if you don't know what they do?"

"Well sweetie, sometimes in order to learn from something we don't understand, we have to be close to it sometimes."

"You mean like how Anita doesn't understand Jensen, but he always seems to be pestering her?"

"Kind of, yes."

It was the best comparison he had at the moment. The Ixian Knights needed an alchemist, and so far, the duo had been denied by a few here in Radasanth. The invitation promised many things for a lucky individual. Sei would afford them a basic salary, they would have the protection of the Ixian Knights, the notoriety that came with that. Also, there was the chance for learning. With so many varied characters within Ixian Castle, it was hard not to learn something new from somebody each day.

So why was nobody wanting to join?

Sei chalked it up to the stigma he had placed on his Knights. The Mystic had recently kicked out Jensen Ambrose from the Ixian Knights for his vulgarity towards Anita. While Jensen had said many harsh things about the girl, the mute could not help but think that the true reason he allowed Jensen to leave was due to what he had said about the army. He had pinned all the failures on Sei, while they had perfected a faux execution of Cassandra Remi, Taka lost men and William lost face. His knights were in disarray.

And it was all his fault.

Sei bit his lip and looked up into the air for a moment. He broke out of his daze when Ella began to tug his hand, bringing the telepath's head down towards the little girl.

"My dollie!" Ella almost screamed through the crowd, reaching out for the simple wool doll in denim overalls being kicked all over the street with her spare hand. "Daddy, we need to go back and get my dollie!"

[Alembic]

“Excuse me,” Amelie said. “I made no statement as to your reproductive capabilities. I merely suggested that your boorish attitude might be accounted for by deficiencies in certain other areas.”

The guard's face turned bright red, and he put a hand on the hilt of his sword. Amelie sighed. She wasn't used to having to deal with such people, and she hated it. Another noblewoman walked up, flashed a piece of paper in front of the guard's face, and walked through the big oak doors to the ball. When the doors opened, warm air wafted out, and Amelie could smell roasting pig and champange, and hear chittering small talk and the irregular beat of a waltz. The warm glow of the party seemed wonderfully inviting compared to the early winter chill outside. Then the doors slammed shut once more.

“See?” Amelie said. “You let her in! Was that so difficult?”

The guard ground his teeth. “She had an invitation. You do not.”

Amelie waved a hand dismissively. “How dare you,” she said. “I am Amelie Boehme, daughter of Duke Boehme! People know me.”

“They know of you, anyway,” the guard grunted. He crossed his arms and continued to block her path. “You don't have an invitation, so get out. Don't make me escort you off the premises, Lady.”

For a moment, Amelie drew herself to her full height and considered launching into a full-blown aristocratic rant, filled with superfluous words and laced with hidden insults and everything. Then she realized she'd just be wasting her breath. “Fine,” she said, with as much indignity as she could manage to stuff into that one word. “Fine!”

She stormed away and nearly broke one of her heels on a cobblestone. As far as storming aways went, it was a pretty good one. Not quite hurricane-level, but at least a tropical storm. She managed to retain most of her composure on the walk home, but as soon as she reached the doors of her little apartment complex she burst into tears. Her father wouldn't even let her live in the family estate anymore! He only was sending her a monthly allowance of a thousand gold pieces! That was barely enough to buy clothes on! Life was so unfair to poor, poor Amelie.

The door slammed behind her and she charged up the stairs and into her apartment. There, she tore off her jewelry and fine silk dress and donned her brown Alchemist's apron. The plush maroon carpet in her room was a patchwork of burns and messes where she'd spilled acids or started accidental fires. Her bedroom doubled as a laboratory. She pulled out an alembic, some flasks, and lit a lit a small fire with flint and tinder. Then she began to leaf through her book of potions and recipes. The instructions for a sleeping potion were recorded on the 37th page of the book, she recalled. She'd been needing the noxious orange brews more and more often lately, unfortunately.

She grabbed a knife and started chopping carrots with terrifying ferocity. None of this was really her fault at all. Ever since the debacle with her wedding, she'd become some sort of a social pariah, and she didn't really understand the reasoning behind it.

She dumped the chopped up carrots into a vial filled with a phlegmatic mixture, and added just a pinch of sulphur. The potion bubbled for a moment and then turned the color of a pumpkin. That made her think of the story of the Cinder Girl cast out from the royal ball for missing a slipper, and she almost started crying again. Why was everyone so mean to her? Sure, she'd summoned a Greater Demon and a Duke of Hell on the night before her wedding, and yeah, so maybe Baal-Berith the Crimson had slain her fiancee and burned down one of the oldest cathedrals in all of Radasanth. So what? How was she supposed to know that the Duke of Hell was...well, evil? Her parents should never have arranged for her to marry some guy she'd never met in the first place. In no way could anything that had happened be construed as her fault.

At least she still had Alchemy, anyway. Studying the elements had always been her highest priority, much more so than taking part in the oftentimes irritating social scene in Radasanth. She hadn't intended to become an outcast like this either, though. If only there was some way she could have both...

Oh, well. In one big gulp she downed the sleeping potion. The taste was nasty, like rotten clementines, but Amelie's potions were nothing if not effective. Within minutes, she collapsed on her bed and started to snore.