Alchemist- King Lore/Drabble
Realized ‘oh shit my class is done, I can treat myself’ and by that I mean write 1.5k words ‘cause @servalspots inspired me with Celestial Lore. Also huge thanks for @jesterden for inspiring me by writing such great lore too!! <3
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The array was a disaster.
Alchemist’s fur rippled against his haunches at the sight he returned to. The salt overflowed past its noted boundaries; the mercury had dribbled from its flask, the phosphorus powder crisscrossing the iron shavings. Hell, the calligraphy was all nonsense.
Worst of all, the circle was sloppy- an ellipse, by the stars, no circle! Not even complete, either, leading out and away in a sputter of white.
Smatters of chalk lead straight to a very, very scared looking cub, fur powdered with all sorts of chemicals. Alchemist knew they were each warped reflections of eachother- a lot more similar than the cub knew, barring a crucial detail.
His ears slick to the tentative start of a mane, he did his best to hold his mentor’s gaze. “I-I didn’t mean it, honest. I thought you’d want the prep done, for when you got back, and I’d seen you done it enough times.”
“Quiet.”
Alchemist had to stretch a fair bit into the shadows to grasp the cub in his jaws- he nearly spat him out again. Reagents, right. Very toxic reagents, and chalk. Struggling to hold back his spit and his prodigy, he rolled his shoulders, settling his cape to be a pleasant weight against his spine. Satisfied, or as much as he could be wanting to heave, he turned and padded back towards the mouth of the cave. The cub was silent.
As he walked, he scanned the walls of his domain. It wasn’t as clear as he’d like, this far back, but feline vision could only account for so much. Bone-white writing in chalk- equations, theorems, triple-underlined THAT WAS A STUPID IDEA, DON’T DO THIS AGAIN. All in that same scrawl, a shade better than the cub’s. But he couldn’t remember writing a stitch of it.
He backtracked once or twice, braced himself against the wall to peer at some worthwhile notes near the cave’s roof. Finding what he was looking for, he bounced slightly on his pads, jostling the cub.
“Ahhuh! Mh Mrmfrun! Urh, mrph heurh ith whtunt you where mithinh-”
“I… didn’t get a word of that, Alchemist.” the cub whispered.
“Ouh. Yh.”
Alchemist spat him out. The two spent a minute dealing with the unpleasant aftermath - Alchemist rubbing at his snout with a paw and making gagging noises, while the cub gave his messy, slobbery pelt a disheartened lick or two.
Alchemist regained some composure, cleared his throat.
“I’m, uh. Very disappointed in you.”
The cub paused mid-lick, drawing attention to very queer spots. Immediately his demeanor changed- stiff and afraid, again. “I’m sorry, I hadn’t meant to waste so many reagents, and make a mess, and-”
“What are you talking about?” Alchemist snorted. “You’re just as curious as I was at your age, that’s a good thing. My problem is that you didn’t think first.”
“Of the consequences?”
“No.” The lion reached up, as high as his lanky legs and the wall could take him, to smack a crystal embedded there with his paw. Once, twice- it almost wheezed to life, like a dying firefly. In the periwinkle glow, the stars on their pelt winked and danced, and the rows and rows of point-form instructions and scrawled out writing were made clearer.
“You didn’t think of how to do it properly.”
The cub’s little snout scrunched up. “I… I did it like you did.”
“That’s not thinking. No Alchemist gets anywhere on pure mimicry. Because if you copy wrong, you die.”
Alchemist didn’t make the same mistake twice- he didn’t want a mouthful of fur and phosphorus. Instead, he beckoned the cub to climb onto his shoulders, nestled into the neck of his cape. Once secure, he lifted them both up.
“See, here?” He nosed towards one angry-looking scrawl.
He could almost hear the cub squinting. “Equal parts… salt… to iron.”
Alchemist nodded as lightly as he could without dislodging his charge. “Right. And why’s that?”
“To...” A pause, as the cub looked for the answer. Maybe in his head, maybe on the walls. “To balance the array, so their powers balance eachother! And so both contribute, instead of one overwhelming the other!” Sharp claws pricked through the fabric of his cape - the prodigy was grasping at him in building excitement.
“Almost!” Alchemist bucked the cub- no longer scared, the little one laughed, rolling on the cold cave floor. “If unbalanced, or not properly contained, they can cause an explosion!”
He lightly clawed at some nasty looking scorchmarks, from however long ago. His grin was wild, rivaling the cub’s. “They’re both very potent together- it’s why we need a perfectly made outer array. Or the explosion is a lot less fun, and could put us back a lot of progress.”
“By destroying supplies?”
“No!” Alchemist dropped a heavy paw on the cub’s head, messing with his ears. “By killing you!”
The cub’s enthusiasm faltered. Alchemist’s did not.
“That’s why you need to think- you’re standing on the shoulders of giants here, heir to lifetimes of failures and accidents and discoveries!”
He spun on himself, cape nearly touching his forepaws as he gazed wonderingly at the writing on the wall. It spun and made him a little sick. “Why make the same errors made before when you can skip half the learning curve, straight to progress! Half of our skill is knowing when to take the most efficient path, and turning yourself into paste is not good for any of us!”
The cub seemed to be pondering something, tail curling and uncurling in a familiar way. Alchemist almost skidded to a stop next to him, hardly feeling the cool stone beneath his paws. “We are descendants of the stars, my homunculi, my little me! Mortals with the blood of divine in our veins. Usually only smattering on our fur and eyes, yes, but so much more in us.”
The thrill, the sheer joy of this and that, of science and power, was almost addictive. No. Definitely. Definitely was.
“My little homunculi, when we see this through- we can surpass the siphoning and immorality of petty whispers, turn meteorite shards into philosopher’s stones. Use magic and science to pursue our goals, not like some sniveling, incestuous, wise-cracking-”
“That Apedemak fellow?”
Alchemist blinked - his clone’s eyes peered at him, glowing eerily in the light. Just like his, just like him, but not quite. “Yes, that one.”
His lips curved into a snarl, throwing his cloak aside with a paw.
“Fuck him. No methods, no good madness, a cheap hack.” Alchemist’s eyes narrowed, his chest heaving after the rapid-fire rant.
He’s made himself over and over, he knew. From one incarnation to the next, a successful experiment, a tweak to a viable clone-but-not that paid off and gave him results. These eyes or those eyes, these marks and eight others, too.
Not bred, made, with little vials and delicate measurements and some blood of his with its blue-silver sheen. No harm, not to anything that could live anyways at least. Give a chick teeth, give a fly face-legs, give a cub the means to drag God down and kick his ass.
If there were any problems with these methods, they would have stopped long ago… right?
“Our methods are more humane. And efficient.”
He took in a gulp of air, then reached up to dim the glowing shard.
It grew dark, but for their eyes and the fading twinkle of their pelts.
--
They lit up more crystals, closer to the mouth of the cave.
Alchemist and his homunculi padded from wall to wall. Chattering about the equations, occasionally dashing between connections as the cub’s mind began to pick up speed.
Alchemist watched, pleased as can be, as the chemicals were balanced, scripts rewritten, the damn elliptical array turned into a proper, perfect circle. One that wouldn’t backfire. The mess cleaned up, a proper experiment now possible.
The homunculi’s cry of joy, paws on either side of the focal point of the array, as blue electricity danced along the chalk. The components were consumed, an acrid smell in the air and billows of dark smoke pieced by bright snaps of light. Left in the center was a meteorite shard- glowing, now, levitating just slightly as it was batted at with eager paws.
The homunculi looked to Alchemist for permission, pranced out of the cave when it was given. He nosed his little floating rock, pulsing with power, calling out giddy to his family. Almost just like him- more than blood relatives, almost identical down to their marrow, all more or less far from being Alchemists.
Alchemist himself, though, felt a sense of deja-vu.
Other Alchemists had done this, maybe not every time but often enough. It tugged at his insides, roughly where he was pretty sure a kidney sat. They were him but not, some memories lost, always some improvements made (except for that one time).
He looked once more at the array. Traced each line with a paw- not touching, just drifting over the curves and corners, noting the spaces where symbols would be drawn in detail.
He knew similar circles - bastardized, drawn by genetics in the form of Rosettes. Hundreds of them, on a pelt identical to his own but for their presence. On his cub- his homunculi, yes.
The lines crossed and wavered.
They weren’t perfect circles.
He sighed.
They’d have to do.
