the Cnidarians had a point (a point most realise far too late)
(Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial‘s prompt: FFF106 Barbed Wires. Set in the Avis Coda. The quotes are taken from Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, specifically from the Act 4 Scene 1 ‘Our revels now are ended’ speech. Enjoy!)
You do look, my son, in a moved sort. As if you were dismayed.
Be cheerful, sir. Our revels now are ended.
She folds her fan. Taps it against her palm, the shining wood thudding against her arm as she considers the solution before her.
She considers the solution, looking at the tiny scratches of symbols, before looking again at the shimmering gold solution before her. She tilts it, watching the precipitate catch the light.
She doesn’t respond. Merely tilts the flask back and forth.
The exhausted young man clenches his fists, slamming a palm against a wall. “I brought you here because they told me you were the best. If you don’t know, then get out.”
She looks up, placing the sheaf of paper down next to the flask. When she speaks, her voice is deceptively calm.
“Don’t worry. I understand what you’re trying to do.” She pushes the flask further away from the edge of the table. “I was thinking of how to tell you that you may not want what you get.”
These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air;
“And what is that supposed to mean?” He storms up to her.
Up close, she can see that his eyes have darkened bags against the pallor of his face. His eyes are bloodshot, his hair greasy with a lack of care. His hands tremble where they reach out to grip her and she stands up, pushing the chair backwards.
In the dim fluorescent light of the laboratory, she considers the man.
“I’m telling you that I can read.” She says easily. “I do understand what you’re trying to achieve. And you’re close. It’s just a few agents that you need to change.”
“Then tell me what they are!”
She holds his gaze, refusing to speak. The air is stale here, the aircon long since turned off. It doesn’t bother her. Not the silence of the laboratory (save for the bubbling of someone’s distillation set-up), not the tension of the conversation.
He steps forward. “Tell me!”
“Why do you want immortality?”
And like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towards, the gorgeous palaces.
The solemn temples, the great globe itself.
“Why does it matter?” He demands, frustrated, after a period of silence.
“Because if you want glory, immortality will not give that to you. If you want money, immortality will not give that to you.” She fixes her gaze on him, letting gold leak into her eyes. “And if you want freedom, you will learn, over time, that immortality is the last thing you truly want.”
She turns away, picking up the sheaf of papers with an idle flick of her wrist. She flips through them.
Her voice turns scholarly. “Your use of a ferrous metal for a binding agent is good, but the issue is that you have used 2+ rather than 3+. When the metal oxidises, the connection to blood and life here will shift, and you will not get the effect that you want on the telomeres. The aluminium here is also an issue because it will reduce your manganate base here—”
“But I need aluminium—” She holds up her hand.
“Substitute it with gold here. Or use platinum and then you’ll get the connection to prosperity that you want here. Don’t use silver because it will react with the aldehyde you use earlier and then that will deactivate it.”
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve. And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
“The acylation you’re trying to achieve here will not work when you add in that oxide at this step. The acylation relies on—”
“The use of the lead as the original Lewis acid, which disappears when the lead becomes gold.” His eyes widen, and he grabs wildly, gripping a ballpoint pen from the table. He scribbles twice before ink comes out, and then starts to alter his calculations.
“I think you know how to move from here.” She says kindly.
She considers her fingers, considering the ink stains on her own fingers. She twists the bracelet on her wrist, looking at the little symbols engraved in it. The scribbling happens in the background, fast and with the slightly more than the normal volume of expletives.
She pulls her fan back out, opening it again. She runs her fingers along it, feeling the delicate artworks edged in shadow before she turns to fan herself.
She changes the current with a thought, feeling the air patterns swirl around her. She stands up to look at the distillation set-up, suppressing her instinctive criticisms of the way the glassware was constructed and connected. It was a standard set-up, and the reagents were done by Academy standards.
Still below her standards.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life rounded with a sleep.
Once upon a time, she would have been more than happy to criticise and make suggestions without any warning. She had had few contemporaries back in the Realm, fewer still who would give her such a challenge and be able to understand her need to constantly improve and change. She would have bitten down her criticisms even when she first arrived, lest she be put in danger by someone who perceived her criticisms as a moral criticism rather than an academic one.
She would have been more than happy to discuss an Elixir for Immortality with someone actively seeking criticism.
But then she saw. And she understood. And she couldn’t go back to what was once her dream.
And now, she thinks wryly, considering the shadows spreading on her fan. And to think, it was dying that taught her the importance of death. It was to die, that taught her that death was not the ultimate restriction.
The student presents her with the amended solution, even still muttering to himself.
She looks at it, considers how it would work, and closes her eyes.
Sir, I am vexed. Bear with my weakness: my old brain is troubled.
Be not disturbed with my infirmity. If you be pleased, retire into my cell.
