Chapter Text

Solar Waltz

The Last of Eostre Monath, Early Summer

Dust billowed as his robes waltzed upon unswept floors.

“Mad!” He cackled while thrusting the glass jar into the air. Translucent green liquid sloshed against its walls. “They called me mad!” He crowed once more.

Quickly the gaunt man slammed down the container.

More violently it seemed, the solution threw itself against its glass prison.

Splish!

Splash!

Swash!

The substance raged against the walls keeping it contained. It rammed to and fro and the man noticed nothing. Instead, the man flew around his deep, umber-colored study. In an ecstatic flurry, the wizard grabbed his notes and shot up the creaky stairs. He rushed out the weathered oak door; notes bundled together in an overstuffed journal he tucked into his chest.

The boots squelched as he ran through the mud. It caked onto thick soles as the man frantically sped through the town on foot. Huffing and puffing, the landscape of mossy cobblestone walls, rolling emerald hills, and dark gray stone structures blurred in his vision. Gray skies with the hint of something sweet yet tangy in the air—it was about to rain, perhaps even storm, yet the wizard just kept running.

The spells he whispered under his breath had him cover a few miles in a few steps until the stone structures disappeared altogether and then returned larger in size.

He canceled the spell when the familiar obsidian-colored fences entered his field of vision. Slowing down until the world stopped speeding by, the wizard felt the first few drops of rain as he found himself outside the one storey cobblestone shop. Its birch sign swayed slowly from the iron chains on which it hung. The chains squeaked in the small breeze that carried the sweet scent of clean earth and the pink currants that bloomed in the summer rain just outside of town on its wind.

The rain’s rhythmic dance picked up its tempo as the tangy taste of the larger storm brewing hit the wizard’s tongue.

He noticed the lamplighters rushing to the streets, whispering quick spells for orbs of amber light to illuminate their glass homes. The lamplights sprung to life one after another as the tap, tap, tap of the rain increased. The drops grew in size and force as well. The wizard shivered.

He ensured the journal was snug against his chest.

He took a deep breath.

Then, with a grin that refused to leave his face, he pushed open the door.

“Welcome to Arthur’s Rare Books and Tomes!” A cheerful, deep voice called from the back. “If you just give me a moment, I’ll be with you shortly!” Footsteps quickly followed. The thuds grew louder with each step taken before they stopped dead. Bright, crystalline blue eyes met deep, fiery umber. Before the wizard could even get a greeting out, a sharp look entered the umber irises.

“Martin,” the once-cheerful voice icily began. “What in the name of the gods are you doing here?”

Martin’s triumphant grin graced his face. The soft amber candlelight of the bookstore cast a shadow upon the young wizard. He took a step forward, fast and giddy, only for the bookstore owner to step back, the flush of ochre to tint his midnight skin in an anger for Martin to see. The umber eyes hardened to that of a sharply cracked amber.

“Art—” Martin’s confused question died as the cracked amber stare slashed anything Martin could say to ribbons.

“I will ask you one more time, Martin,” Arthur hissed. Whatever hints at the triumphant grin Martin walked in with left his face. The russet-haired man in front of him held his ground as he asked once more, “Martin, what in the name of the gods are you doing here?”

Martin cleared his throat as he fumbled with his wrinkled robes. He held up the leather-bound journal with spindly sallow hands. His eyes contained a bright light—one that caused Arthur to take another step back. This look was never good.

“I did it, Arthur!” Martin exclaimed with a manic glee that pulled his smile a bit too widely across sunken cheeks. His eyes had deep circles beneath them, perhaps the color of a particularly purple-inclined belladonna. “I did it, Artie,” he repeated with a sense of fanatic joy that Arthur stepped back once more to avoid being hit with the flailing journal. “I cracked the code to the Alkahest!”

Arthur’s jaw fell to the ground. “No.”

“YES!” Martin responded with such a sudden burst of passion, he practically shouted. “It’s here! It’s all in here! Look!”

Martin kept pushing the journal forward into Arthur’s chest.

Arthur crossed his hands around his knit tunic and they stayed there.

“Artie,” the man with the hair of calla lilies pleaded softly. “Artie, please take it and look at it!”

“No, no, no! You can’t be serious, Martin!”

“Artie, we’ll be rich! I just need to figure out how to turn it into an air borne substance and then—”

“Then what?” Snapped Arthur. “You cannot control it! Not whatever solution you’ve come up with that’s sloshing around in all of those glass jars in your basement! You want to turn it into an airborne substance? You’ll have less control of it then, by the fucking gods!”

“Arth—”

“No!” Arthur snarled, “I will not hear anymore of this!”

“Art—”

“Get. Out,” Arthur hissed at Martin. Cracked amber eyes met watery blue as Arthur took one step forward. “I want you out of my shop and out of my life! If you continue down this road, I refuse to follow you. I refused then and I refuse now!”

Martin’s eyes prickled yet he let out a sigh. Slowly, he turned to the door and left the leather-bound journal on the closest table. “Just look at it, Arthur,” he pleaded softly for the final time. “You know where to find me.”