Storm

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The sound a shovel makes when digging through dirt is very characteristic. It's the most characteristic thing about shovels. Forget the long handle or the dirt flying through the air as you dig for who knows what purpose. It is that beautiful monotonous sha-chunk intonation coming closer and closer. In that way, the sound a shovel makes can also be the sound of salvation.

When the hard metal bite of a shovel came dangerously close to chopping into her snout, Storm decided it was time to sit up from her accidentally early grave. She did so with such force and desperation that clods of dirt flew straight into the mouth of Tidalwave, who was equally desperate to call her name.

“Hold on.” She said, watching Tidalwave spit dirt-mud onto the grass. “How long was that?”

“B-ptah!-barely five.”

“No, no, I need to last for at least 7 minutes to finish distilling the base. What went wrong? Get the notes, see if there's anything different from the last try.”

“Sorry, I didn't take notes this time.”

“You didn't what? You always take notes. I have specifically instructed you to always take notes. Why were notes not taken!?”

Tidalwave finished spitting mud and wiped a dubiously clean rag over the brown dribble making its grand getaway from the prison of his mouth to the grass below. “Well, you didn't say anything for me to write down, and you were working so fast I couldn't tell what you picked up by the time you put it down, and all the time you kept mumbling and mumbling about something inane. How was I supposed to take notes like that?” He punctuated his question with another discharge into the grass.

“You should, well. You could've—no that wouldn't work either. I don't know, you should have told me I wasn't making any sense and then started from there!”

“You also told me not to disturb you when you were in that state. Plus, why would I waste precious time making you stop when the earth's just going to bury you anyway?”

“It would've been fine to stop me there. Don't always just do what I tell you; you should do things I don't tell you to do. Do things you think you should do, too. Just get me my notes!” Storm waggled an empty hand in the air.

“Here. This is all I have.” He handed her a book opened to a page with the current date.

“I can't—what does this say? I can't read your writing.”

“Oh, sorry, I usually read it to you. Its shorthand. The first page has a key.”

She flicked through the book rapidly. “I see. This is... really well organized. Better than I expected. Good, good job on your. Shorthand.”

“Uh, thank you?” He tilted his head to the side, confused by her gratitude but unwilling to leave it behind.

“This.” She jabbed a finger at the page. “This is why. Get me the blue ooze and the white slime, if I add them together after the goo and coal, it'll make everything work, I just know it.”

“You tried that four batches ago.”

“Did I?” She flipped back a few pages, squinting. “Hold on, pull that lantern closer; I can't quite see... What time is it?” Storm looked up for the first time in hours to see the moon beginning to set.

Tidalwave sighed, rubbing his eyes. “You've been at it for hours. I was beginning to think you would never notice, but... I have work tomorrow. Today. Whenever it is, later, sometime. Either way, I need sleep. Now that you've disconnected, I'm going to be off.”

“Yes, yes. I should get some sleep too. Goodnight.”

Storm nodded, focused on the book again.

“Storm. Storm. Storm, you can't make the potion without me around. No one's gonna be around to dig you out. Hello? Storm!”

“What?”

“You can't try again without someone here to dig you out. Just, promise me you won't try it again tonight and let me go sleep.”

“Oh...” She hesitantly closed the book and set it down on her outside worktable. “Of course. That's only reasonable.”

“Good.” Tidalwave yawned, his belly leaving an indent in the ice hardened snow. “Night.”

Storm smiled at him vaguely. Her attention rested on the book, thoughts whirling into coherence as she tried to make the dots of this particular puzzle connect. She sighed, “I guess it's time for me to sleep as well.”

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“That there's your problem. Earth don't like you.” The snapper sat on her cushion, peering at Storm over her glasses with darkened eyes.

“The earth doesn't like me.”

“Earth don't like you.”

“Why would that affect my brew.”

“If the earth don't like you, earth's not gonna work for you in a brew, is it? Nothin's wrong with yer brew, it's what's wrong with you.”

“You can't seriously expect me to believe that.”

“Believe it or not, that's the cause. If you'd like, I can brew the potion for you, but if the earth finds out it's for you, my brew's not gonna work either. Do you need this commission real bad?”

“Its going to keep me from bankruptcy.” She didn't add that Tidalwave's income was more than enough to supply her shop, or that he willing to provide for her.

“So you do then.” The snapper sighed and adjusted her arms over her stomach. “I'd suggest you to tell the dragon requesting it to find another brewer. Its not going to work out for you, no matter how many times you brew it.”

Storm huffed out of the advisors office, stepping gingerly into the bright sun. The light common to the Colonnades blinded her as she stumbled her way through the crowd of dragons. Her unaccustomed eyes fell on an empty plot for rent in her squinting and blinking routine, and she sighed. The rent for even a patch of land in the Colonnades would take all her savings and some. She looked forward to her cozy house and store. It was located in the middle of nowhere and didn't get a third of the customers she could expect from a more populated area, but it was hers and hers alone. She decided who she brewed for, what to stock her store with regularly, and how to greet the clanmates who visited for their needs. The feeling of ownership far replaced any desire for greater profit or success.

She had enough. And she liked it.

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“So you too, I see. I'm sorry to have wasted your time.”

When a genteel Pearlcatcher clad in bright red skirts first came into her store, Storm knew she was going to be trouble. But she hadn't expected being unable to even make the philter she had ordered.
“This isn't the first time you've commissioned this potion?”

“No, it isn't, but I suspect it will be the last. If this potion just isn't possible to create, then I had better find another method to accomplish what I want. Please, take the pay as compensation for your efforts. At least you can walk away with what you were supposed to have.” She left a large bag of gems on the marble counter.

Storm noted how the thump of the bag shook the empty bottles she had been sorting with a gulp. Something didn't feel right to her about just taking the money. “Why did you post the commission so high in the first place, if I may ask?”

“It used to be lower, don't take me for a fool. But when no-one could make the potion for me, and my Ortho... worsened, I raised the price with the hope of giving him some happiness before he left. Instead, I ended up inheriting a lot of treasure from his family, so I thought the least I could do was give it to him posthumously. But! I can't even accomplish that.” She laughed bitterly, resting her head on the counter. “Its silly, isn't it? What we do for the sake of our peace. How we'll travel halfway across the world trying to find someone who can make a potion nobodies going to use out of a sense of guilt over an unfulfilled desire, when just last week Tuesday we didn't even consider going to the market the next region over for groceries. I should've just placed a bottle of water in his grave. He wouldn't know the difference, he's dead. So, so silly.” Her laughter became closer to sobs.

Storm flicked her tongue nervously.“Maybe I can help with you. Maybe there's someone else we haven't tried. Have you tried making it yourself?”

“Making it myself, now there's a novel idea. That doesn't work either, I'm afraid. I've tried it enough times to recite the ingredients backwards.”

“An appraiser I talked to said the earth magics didn't like me. Could that have anything to do with it?”

“Its okay, really. You don't have to help me. I don't need this potion. In a way, this is freeing for me. I don't have to get it done or even try to accomplish the impossible, I can just let it be. Even though it ends so abruptly. I'd rather let this whole journey die here than keep it alive with unnecessary hope. Thank you. Really.” And with that, she left.

Storm watched her go while the feeling of failure settled in her chest. She picked up the bottles, stored them on the shelf, and looked around her store. A thin layer of fog from the below-freezing temperature carpeted the floor, kissing her ankles like the sweetest friend. The marble counter gleamed, slick from the clear ice melting and remelting onto it. The shelves, stocked with bottles of every size and color containing everyday brews and potions, stood proudly. Her cauldron coughed wisps of steam in its hollow, her latest project simmering to completion. Outside, dim lanterns pulsed like fireflies as dragons walked in front of them, their silhouettes briefly illuminated as they walked. It was a busy hour, assuming time could affect the eternal ice making up the walls, floor, and ceiling. Carved patterns, torn up soldiers on the front line against the multitude of dragon claws passing over it, held their ground bravely with flourishes and swirls, lit aglow from the scarce light offered by the lanterns hooked into the ceiling. Dragons leaned against the walls, chatting with friends at their leisure, or sat on icy benches, eating lunch.

Home.

She knew the big wooden door with ice crusted onto its hinges led upstairs to a living room full of her belongings, and that just down the hall rested a cushy bed to flop onto after a day's work. And she knew that if she turned the sign to the side that read 'Closed', just like she did now, she could laze away the rest of the afternoon without interruption.
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Written by Amscray