There is something I overlooked.

  Samyra taught me language and history.

  Gaviel taught me combat and survival.

  Granny taught me magic. Clauren was there too helping.

  But Clauren taught me his own thing too.

  All those days I spent idly observing his work weren't for nothing.

  In the beginning, the mysterious and fantastical nature of brewing magical potions that could have wondrous effects was endlessly cool and interesting. I could watch Clauren for hours on end.

  After a while, I began to grow a little more comfortable speaking and getting used to their presence in my life. I started asking a question here and there.

  "What is this for?" It all began with an innocent question.

  "That's a frog tongue. Makes for excellent glue and binder reagent."

  "What are you going to use it for?"

  "You see– Him… Are you interested in trying to make a potion yourself? How about it?"

  And so, the veil was brought down.

  Clauren began teaching me alchemy too… whenever I decided to invade his lab.

  'It's… a way of science? The methods are vaguely the same. Tests, hypothesis, repetition and experimentation. But there is hardly any standardization of knowledge and reading the research materials feels more like reading fantasy conspiracy novels than actual professional texts. It's a genuine form of applied knowledge... But I would hardly call it proper science.'

  For example, rocks and minerals are strangely labeled with things like "emotively angry energy" and "Rich with chalice essence." amongst other things. Plants and herbs make more sense, with direct descriptions and effects, especially when it comes to medicine. But overall calling it hocus pocus nonsense wouldn't be wrong.

  'But the thing is… despite the dubious wording the potions actually work very well.'

  By the time I was helping Clauren like an assistant that had always been there I thought to myself: 'I am becoming an increasingly versatile person.'

  I wondered that if I ever end up in a big city finding a job would be easy at least.

  ——— –– –– -- - -

  Alchemy.

  So, what exactly can I make with it?

  Of course, there is no such thing as immortality potions or anything crazy like that, nor elixirs that can revive people or grow back limbs.

  Still, dime a dozen fools and hopeful dreamers alike are always searching for answers to these sorts of miraculous potions.

  This goes back to the question:

  What can't you do with alchemy?

  Health potions, mind potions, tones and balms with all sorts of effects from inane to nonsensical. Glowing rocks and crystals that make the room wet. Superglue. Strange smelling dust that grows hair when lit on fire. A liquid that only dissolves fibers. Tableware that grows rust when exposed to poison. Drugs and throwable brimstone.

  There are limits, of course, to what an alchemist can achieve with their ingredients. But the sheer variety of possibilities and potential open to a seasoned practitioner empowers them to do almost anything they desire.

  The limit is their imagination, and the ingredients they have available to work with.

  There is a reason why the myth of the philosopher's stone is so popular. A mystical infinite energy source that you can use over and over again. Even if the fancy pebble doesn't do anything normally unconceivable like giving immortality, having a renewable and convenient multipurpose catalyst is an alchemist's wet dream.

  Clauren taught me many things.

  Mostly brewing mundane potions and medicine though. Pills, remedies, ointments, stamina potions, health potions, amongst other things.

  Rarely anyone ever gets terribly hurt in the village. And potions aren't in high-demand. It's mostly because all these things, even with fantastical effects like mending wounds and healing flesh, all have an expiration date like everything else. It's important to keep a fresh stock of medicine after all. A rotten potion not only does not work, but depending on the potion it can have very aversive effects.

  Clauren's job, or really his occupation because it's not like anyone is paying him money, is to make these potions. The fact that he has experience as a healer, pharmacist, herbalist, are just side-effects of his main profession.

  Of course, because of it lots of people end up owing him a favor or two, and Clauren uses those favors with glee. Though most of it cycles back to asking people to gather more ingredients for him.

  He only works on weekends. The rest of the days he can do as he pleases. Which he fills mostly with spending time in the lab or with Samyra.

  'The lovebirds… Well, I'm living in their house so I can't complain.'

  As a nigh-immortal species with warped sense of time, the pair's love for eachother is unshakeable, but that also means that they absolutely never get tired of showing affection in any ways they have discovered throughout the decades. Sometimes they can be disgustingly sweet, most of the time they are more subdued and have a sort of quiet peace going on between them.

  'At least they reserve it for when I'm not close enough to hear though.'

  。。。

  "Purified water… two Red grass… two Healing herbs… one Cure palm heart… one poison lily…"

  "Wait– poison?!" I shout.

  "Yes, that's what the cure grass is for, they enhance the healing power by purging the body of filth. People say that it makes the potion unbearably painful, but nobody is complaining when it saves your life." Clauren explains.

  I look at him sideways. "Okay… If you say so."

  "Now, add a cup of honey extract… and squeeze the juices of this Babosa leaf inside."

  Clauren is watching over my potion making practice. Normally I have an assistant role inside his lab, but today he decided to see if I could make my own potions instead.

  "Good– You don't have to squeeze all the way to the tip, it's fine if it is just most of the juice down. Now, infuse the cauldron with magic power. Remember, not too hard, and control it to linger inside the mixture rather than covering it."

  I follow his instructions, slowly mixing the liquid inside the cauldron and making sure the long wooden spoon scrapes the bottom. Whilst making sure my mana, or as Clauren called it magic power, flows through the spoon and gets evenly deposited inside the liquid with a syrup-like viscosity.

  Even though magic is not something with defined physical properties as a mystical energy, it feels exactly like the instructions Clauren gave me. To the naked eye it just looks like the cauldron began glowing somehow with my mixing, even though I am metaphorically pouring the ethereal magic power inside.

  'Magic is beholden to the eye of the observer… I guess?'

  Sometimes I wished magic had simpler and fixed rules, trying to learn and discern one thing from another can be a huge headache. But it's magic after all. It isn't supposed to follow conventional rules.

  It's not long after that the potion turns from green, to red, to a pinkish hue.

  Clauren places a timepiece on the table next to the cauldron. "Now we wait for around two hours to remove the scum off it and move to the next step."

  "Ugh, finally… How do you not have back pain when you do this everyday?"

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  "Practice." Clauren answers. "And samyra helps sometimes."

  I make a face mixed with disgust and incredulity.

  "What?– No, no, not like that!— Massage! I meant massages!" He panics and coughs on his hand. "I assure you I meant exactly what I said, there is nothing salacious about it."

  He rubs the back of his head and sighs. "I often forget you aren't all that innocent, looking at you I can only see a bright-eyed child."

  "You're the one who enjoys making suggestive comments where I can hear." I rub the back of my arms.

  "It doesn't matter where I open my mouth, you always hear me…" Clauren quips.

  'I won't deny that the thought of someone beautiful like Samyra giving me a massage is tempting and borderline dangerous to an active imagination… But come on sir! Do you hear yourself?!'

  Clauren doesn't make a point to hide the shared affection he has with his partner. He tries to be considerate... but he has gotten used to my unchildish-like demeanor and tends to let his thoughts slip more often than not.

  "You're no fun." He whines. "When Sedia is around it is nice to tease her when she gets confused by adult conversation, but you always just glare at me judgingly."

  I sigh and say in a completely monotone voice. "Woe is me."

  Clauren squints his eyes at me. "Are you making fun of me?"

  "Who knows?..." I give a non-answer. "That massage must be quite intense for me to hear all the way from my room though."

  For that, I end up receiving a generous chop to the forehead from a stuttering alchemist.

  ——— –– –– -- - -

  Clauren often has a mischievous streak and a happy disposition. Someone who has never met him before would only see a happy go lucky fool that, despite his chosen profession, is rather irresponsible.

  He has a troubled past… But that is not to say he is not genuinely happy right now.

  Clauren is accursed with an ever recurring Irritation.

  Imagine that a very important thing in your life is at risk of disappearing. So you try everything you can possibly think of to fix it. There are no replacements. Hours everyday pondering and attempting the same thing over and over again in vain hopes of repair. Days, weeks, months go by. You are utterly exhausted, you seek help. Then, experts, people you have known and trusted for years that are more experienced than you try the same things you have to no avail, you watch as they too, fall into frustration, they tell you that there is no fixing it, that they don't know how. And assuage you with empty platitudes. You deny, you rage, there has to be a way. Unknowingly, accidentally, people around you are hurt. There is no hope, only desperation, and at the end, insanity.

  An annoying issue that you can't help but think about everyday, there is an answer that you can't help yourself to hope it exists, because otherwise it means losing that precious thing.

  Clauren spent years, decades chasing it. His longevity allowed him to look for it for far longer than any other reasonable person would have.

  In the end… Too soon, too late. Time passed, and today few people know how he ended up like the person he is now.

  He has lost, has mourned, has found new things— and someone to live for. Clauren found new happiness.

  But, regardless, he never stopped searching for an answer.

  Then— that same old friend pays a visit.

  Incurable. Perhaps congenital. A disease. A condition. Maybe something else. He needs to research more.

  Samyra was— is infertile. Not life threatening, pointless, unremarkable, not that dangerous in the grand scheme of things. A sad thing, but elves live long lives.

  Samyra, ray of sunshine that she is in Clauren's life, told him that it was fine. On countless occasions she had to drag him to sleep and eat properly. He's gotten to a somewhat acceptable level of taking care of himself, yet sometimes he still loses himself in research, and he has never stopped chasing that dream.

  A panacea, the miracle elixir, the perfect health potion, something to make things right.

  Clauren has a personal, deep seated hatred of disease, of all things that ail the body. He can cross blades with dangerous foes and defend against harm anytime. But he couldn't defeat what is unseen and insidious as an illness.

  He wasn't always a doctor, or a pharmacist. His pursuit of the secrets of alchemy was one borne of desperation and greed. Not unlike many others who have threaded the same path. And not unlike many others, his wishes had never been granted. Not in the way he wanted to.

  That is… until now.

  。。。

  I closely observed a crystalline structure contained inside a glass jar, it grew from an alchemical solution with beautiful patterns and crossing fractals in a way that made staring at it enjoyable. The way light reflected and changed across its surface and the straight lines intertwining with an otherwise organic appearance is fascinating.

  Clauren had called me here, saying he had something important to discuss.

  "As you've known, I have been researching the alchemical properties of your horn…"

  "Yes…" I look at him sideways.

  Since then I learned to do it on my own and hand him over the residues instead. As part of my, yet to be deciphered or explained biology, I had horns for some god-knows-why reasons, and like many horned creatures out there, they grew a little each day just like nails. Thankfully they just go up and don't have any risk of piercing my own eye like the animals that have curved horns. But they still grow, so from time to time I round over the edges and shorten them.

  I wait for him to continue.

  Clauren he… doesn't look well, but not in a sickly way. He looks as if he finally slept in a long, long time.

  "You see, Samyra lives with a… regretful condition. And for a long time I have been attempting to develop a cure…"

  He explains to me the situation Samyra is in, and tells me his own story.

  Clauren avoided looking me in the eye, preferring to maintain his head down staring at his hands which grasped each other. His posture was unnervingly vulnerable for the man I came to know. And I didn't know what to say, what to feel.

  Despite the way he spoke to me, his demeanor was not one of shame or guilt… strangely enough he was embarrassed. Deeply so. But it was the sort of embarrassment someone has when asking forgiveness, not that deep or humiliating, but rather painful in its own right.

  When he finished his story I sat in silence.

  'I… I had no idea…'

  When I was weak and mourning, I confessed all sorts of things to them. Whether it was guilt, emotional catharsis, or cleaning my conscience, I don't remember why exactly I did what I had done, only that one day the bottled emotions exploded violently and by the end of the day I had been sobbing on Samyra's bust.

  'It's been years since that happened…' I reminisce.

  I never bothered to doubt why they took me in. They were— are kind, and trying to find faults at someone's kindness feels wrong.

  It turns out, Clauren and Samyra have their own story that made them seek me out. Perhaps it is a little selfish of them to satisfy their own yearnings through me. And it wasn't exactly a secret, just something that never came up. In the end it wasn't that bad.

  "Your body holds the secrets to create something incredible, the byproducts can turn into catalysts with powers and potential I have never seen before… it is uncertain, and I have not made any concrete advancements. But…" Clauren passes a hand through his scalp "...You've made me hope."

  Gone is the carefree and proud voice he always held. Clauren now looks at me like a haggard man. But behind his tired appearance his eyes glisten with untold emotions.

  "I… apologize, about my behaviour when we first met—"

  "Huh?!..." My eyes widened. 'Who is this person and what happened to the real Clauren?'

  "H-hey! Why is it that of all things that you finally give a response?!" He suddenly shouts indignantly.

  "A-ah… sorry." I shake my head. "This all too sudden… It's unusual seeing you repent so earnestly."

  Clauren lets a long, prolonged sigh.

  The atmosphere of the conversation got flipped over. I laugh. I don't know why. He laughs too.

  Maybe because despite his emotions, this was something to celebrate rather than to talk as if it was the end of the road.

  "I… well I don't forgive you… I didn't like the way you used to approach me, but it's nice that you know you were being weird and overbearing. And I know you didn't mean to mean."

  "...Thank you. For understanding."

  There was a pause.

  "So… That's great! I don't understand how, but somehow the weird properties of my body, and so, my horns, can help you make some miracle potion?"

  "...That is very… coarse, way to put it, but yes. It is an apt description of the situation."

  "And that miracle potion will help Samyra… make… uh…" I cough shyly, rethinking what I was about to say. "...have children?"

  "Yes." Clauren replies, though there is a twitch of his lips at my sidestepping of the topic. "To put it simply, you have a powerful regenerating ability that is most certainly not natural, and the material that composes your horns contains a portion of that power. Though the reasons why it behaves like it does when mixing with other alchemical components eludes me, and there is a possibility that I am mistaken on my assumptions, from my understanding, a health potion capable of healing bone and muscle may be possible. And if that is possible, perhaps a potion that restores an organ to a working state can also be possible…"

  …

  Actually, Clauren had already made said potions, but there is nobody to test it on. He talked with the people who raise some farm animals to test the potions on those but he has yet to receive an affirmative reply.

  There are also other applications of Syuufarin's byproducts, those horns are magically active like nothing else, and he even made some portions with rather dubious and dangerous effects. But those aren't important right now and Syuufarin doesn't need to know what.

  His experiments are locked and put away safely in a cabinet she can't reach.

  …

  Clauren went on a long tangent about how he came to his conclusions.

  'There are some concerns since it's my body we are talking about here… It feels weird… letting go of a piece of my body just like that. But if I treat it as if I were simply donating blood, it's fine.'

  There are more things to it than just being a catalyst that, after alchemical treatments, is a highly reactive and volatile substance. Clauren hypothesised a way to use it on a healing potion, but just as other substances have a variety of uses, so does the byproduct he created.

  As a rule of thumb. Alchemy isn't just chemistry, it deals not only with the paradoxically nonsensical nature of magic, but also of metaphysical characteristics of things.

  There is a lot more technical jargon that sounds more like someone trying to explain something that they themselves don't understand, so it becomes overly convoluted and indecipherable by anyone who doesn't know. Beyond the mundane everyday concepts, it also includes weird jargon like "Terra essences", "Judgement paths", "Affective charge", "Winnower's strand " to name a few.

  Clauren just summarized for me saying "You are special, so these things are special too."

  I don't really understand, but it seems like it will work out.

  After Clauren explained everything, he finally got to the point he wanted to make.

  "So… you'll be leaving soon."

  "Yes… I will."

  "We will miss you."

  "Me too."

  "Then, before you leave. Would you allow me to take off your horns since you will be leaving?"

  "..." I am left mouth agape.

  'What the hell?! So this is what you were after from the beginning?!''

  Clauren does not look to have a single drop of shame as he asked me that. Rather, he is staring at me with an intensity that almost made me blush.

  Were I an actual girl with a purer heart I probably would have… but his reputation is already tainted beyond repair to me. I almost smacked him upside the head then and there.

  After a moment of contemplating I reply "Sure."

  He blinked twice. "I am surprised, I had presumed you would refuse— or show some aversion to my proposal."

  "Well," I scratch the side of my head, which ends up with me passing my hand over my horn instead "I'm not really that attached to them— yes, I know that." I interrupt myself at the unintended pun. Indeed, the horns are in fact, attached to my head.

  "I don't know if it will hurt or not, but they're just things stuck on my head that make sleeping sideways complicated. I bet they would even grow back after a while. And you need them to make that potion you want. So I don't see any reason not to."

  "..." For a moment, he looked like he saw a ghost, Clauren's hands trembled for a fleeting moment, then he sighed and massaged his eyes, lifting his glasses. "Sometimes, you remind me too much of Samyra."

  I half reach towards him, worried. But I don't know what to do.

  'A grown man— ancient even because he is an elf— almost cried in front of me. What do I even do??'

  "How is that?"

  "You both are too kind to me." He laughs, it is as self-depreciative as it is relieved. "I feel antiquated. There are far better people deserving of you."

  "That's not true!" I open my mouth to retort him— and pause. "Ok maybe not that true."

  Clauren visibly deflates.

  "But even then! I don't like that you think of yourself as a bad person. You have been kind… in your own, unique and eccentric way to me. And sometimes I got really angry and disappointed because of you… But you never did anything with malice, that is what is important."

  "...Thank you, Syuufairn."

  ——— –– –– -- - -

  I HAVE CREATED A KO-FI ACCOUNT!

  If you ask, I am not in financial troubles! If I were I would open a gofundme instead.

  Why now? Because someone put the idea inside my head! My stance on it was that this is a hobby at best, influencing people to spend money on a product that isn't made with dedication and effort felt wrong. When I started I held no good expectations of what I was aimlessly doing.

  Now, although very little in the grand scheme of things internet, there are more or less than 1500 people that took their time to read about this little world I am creating. That is… a lot of people. A lot of people that I don't want to disappoint.

  And so, if I can turn something I do for fun in my spare time, writing, an activity that isn't deemed very lucrative by a large portion of people, into a prospect of financial validation, that would be great!

  TLDR: I want to have fun unburdened, might as well make a penny or two with writing.

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  Today’s Shower Quote: "Cleaning a vacuum cleaner makes you the vacuum cleaner" — Marioborgen, at shower-quotes channel.