She lays her head down on her books. *Why does it matter? What's the _use_!* A look around the lab, shadows dancing on the walls. Chemicals in various flasks covered one bench. The smell of pungent herbs floated in from the supply closet. Books covered the other bench, candles drippily covered in runs, proof of long times spent in contemplation. The sputtering flame of one left lit shines in the eyes of a stuffed raven sitting on a shelf near the door, flickering in eyes which see nothing and everything. It shines in a tear running down her cheek. Frustration radiates from her, followed by the much thicker force of a book thrown through the air, landing with a loud thump near the opposite door.
A bit of a sob, then a fierce glare up at the raven. "So Corvid, did you see this come for me? Do the Silver Ladies laugh at me now? What can I do here? I have little magic to speak of, only that of the plants I harvest. Tome and the others are friends, once given as a gift, willing to stay as friends do when their sentence was over. Those who wish magic go to the academies, to the mages, the sorcerors. Those who wish healing go to the hospitals, the clerics, those who can call on their gods and give their gifts. I receive those who only want the cheap charm, the love spells of old, those spells where belief is the most powerful ingredient.
I call myself an alchemist but what have I discovered? Those over in the techtowns have their elements, so many! They look at our works, our brotherhood of curiousity and laugh, calling us dabblers, telling us to go back to our cauldrons, our homiculous, our elementals, just as a mother tells her children playing at being grownup to go back to their dolls when they tug at her skirt. The mages can be just as bad, though they are often better at seeing the threads between their work and ours."
Gets up, bringing the candle closer to the silent bird. "But the words are still there, the looks, the feelings that creep over you and weigh your shoulders down until it's amazing that one can even move. I have not done great works but I feel shame at their words! Have they not seen that magic and science are _both_ a part of this world? Have the mages not walked through the techtowns and felt their magics bleed away, to wait till they leave that area? Have the techs walked through the mage territories and found their robots, their computers to be but pretty, and heavy, scraps of metal?"
The candle's light glints off of more tears. "And yet all of _them_ can show what they have learned, display their gifts for all to see. Where are _my_ accomplishments? I have my shop, but all I am doing is surviving. I study and yet have nothing. Even if I did find that which is most seeked, I have no need for the Elixer, for I do not wish for immortality." A shudder, looking into the shadows as if through a window at time passing. "How can any mortal stand eternity without special help or grace, for without great strength how could one not go mad watching the centuries pass, until every day is like an eon."
"Gold would be nice, but then what? Would I become another Midas, cursed by my gift and doomed to curse others? Would I become a target, my shop the goal of all thieves in Nexus?" A frown at the thought of her friends, her flasks, her books, in the hands of strangers who might not even know what they held. Or even worse, did know, in the case of Tome, binding him once again to a service he could not leave, a service he gave to her as friendship and which she gladly returned.
A soft sigh. "Alchemists dance that line between science and sorcery, a line thin as a knife and just as hard to dance on. We look to the past for glimpses of the future. We study that which is here to find what is above and below and beyond. Some accuse us of worshipping false gods." A harsh bark of laughter. "When so many of our great ones were followers of Christ," a quick thought, "at least those _after_ His birth. We look to the Great Creator for help in our creations, apprentices looking to the Master for guidance and approval. Unexact and exacting on the person, alchemy doesn't take the base metal and make it pure, it takes the base human and makes it pure...or at least as pure in heart and spirit as one can be in this life. It is a chemistry of the heart and soul." A wan smile, the heat of the candle below bringing a shine as if from a fever. "Hermes Trismegistus, Geber, Paracelsus; our line of saints and martyrs, heroes and villians, goes on, no matter what the time or the world."
Eyes went darker as the smile ran away from her face. The raven's eyes reflected her back to herself, the candleflame multiplied into endless suns of endless worlds. "I won't ask of your Lady 'Why me?, just a 'What am I to do.' Like Diana Yulan said, 'If you ask of the Great, 'Why me?' They will say, 'Why Not?' And you will list why not, every reason, until time stands still. And They will listen to every reason, and at the end, will simply answer, 'So?'"
The flame went out.
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