"We're staying here for the time being!" Mr. Demetrius announced over the table, almost causing me to choke on my meal. The morning had just started; I still remained in my nightgown, and my eyes still carried the weight of slumber.
"We are?!" I covered my mouth as I spoke from disbelief.
"Is that...an issue?" The white-haired alchemist asked, watching me eat. My head shook rabidly in response. I smoothed my nightgown flat, my hand hovering over my mouth again as I spoke.
"Just surprised...we've been moving a lot as of late, so..." I heard a soft hum come from him; whether it was reflective or merely him being humored, I didn't know. Without a word, he stood. My eyes followed him as he made his way to my side of the table, his hands picking up the wooden plate that was gracefully put before me.
"I've chosen this region to start your training; it's perfect." He smiled, stacking the plates into a pile on the table. They started to shake and float to the back, each one in a curated line. Alister washes the dirty dishes as they arrive. "Besides, the sea air would do us some good, yeah?"
"Yeah..." I said my hand was playing with the fabric that sat on my body. I wanted to ask him something, though I'm not sure I should...but, I want to know more about my past.
"Mr. Demetrius..." I pondered, looking up to the man with more thoughtful eyes; he looked down to me with a curious expression.
"Was I an alchemist... before?" There was a silence that lingered in the air after my question. Part of me wished I never found the courage to utter those words. Yet a wave of relief washed over me, feeling his hand falling upon my head.
"The best alchemist I'd seen..." His soothing hands rubbed against my hair, frills poking through the gaps in his fingers.
"One that far surpasses me..."
His words then should've filled me with pride but I thought nothing of it at the time; to me, they were just that, pretty words meant to motivate me…I truly don't see myself as a genius, and I don't think I ever will be.
"We'll be going, then." Mr. Demetrius waved goodbye to Alister, his form taking the shape of a tree that hugged one of the valley's many hills. We'd often blend in like this; despite my questions, Mr. Demetrius would never really say why. "Lock up for us ok, Alister?"
I can hear the creaking floorboards inside from all the way out here, almost as if he were speaking to us. I looked back at him before we went on our way, giving him a small wave myself.
I looked to the journey ahead. The path we're about to take was little more than a deer trail, winding through hushed groves and across meadows where wildflowers nodded in the salt-kissed breeze. The silence between us stretched, filled with the whisper of the long grass against my legs and the distant, rhythmic crash of waves on cliffs below.
It was a comfortable silence, yet charged with everything left unsaid. My mind kept circling back to his words—the best—but found no purchase, like a bird fluttering against a glass pane.
I focused instead on the feel of the sun, gentle and warm on my skin, and the solid earth beneath my feet, things that were simple and real.
"Let's get going, Isabelle." He spoke softly...
"R-right," I spoke up, running up to catch him, walking side by side. My eyes looked up at him; he wasn't starting a conversation. It's extremely unlike him. His face carried a somber expression, eyes fixed on the destination ahead. I looked at his pouch loosely swinging across his waist, a piece of paper loosely hanging out of it.
'A commission?' I thought, but my mind quickly moved on from it, thinking of it as nothing but business; no matter what it is... it has nothing to do with me.
***
"First lesson!" Mr. Demetrius spoke up suddenly, his hand holding two stones, rolling them between his fingers with practiced ease. "First, what are these?"
"Two pieces of stone?" I questioned, not quite sure where this is going. We continued walking in the middle of a forest surrounded by trees that towered over us. Their heavy leaves sway with the wind, yet their bark hasn't moved an inch.
He showed me closer. One of them was a rock that could be near silver, its polished outline and jagged edges rubbing against the other's whiter shell.
"Close, it's a stone and quartz." He nitpicked, a string of irritation striking my consciousness. "To be an alchemist is to be spiritually in tune with reality."
He tosses the rocks up into the air before catching them with a firm grip, his eyes staring into his fist, urging me to look too. "We're not gods, so we cannot edit the world as we see fit."
He opened his palm, and my eyes widened; a sudden gust of newfound excitement lashed into me as I saw it. Within his palms the rocks had merged, almost as if they were always one.
"Matter cannot be created, nor can it be destroyed by us, only altered." He showed me the stone closer, allowing me to take it within my hands. "To make something we must give something of equal value...whether it be matter, energy, or more..."
"Amazing..." I muttered, looking at the unnatural stone piece, rough and rugged, within my hands. "You're saying I could've done this?"
"And more," he added.
I could hardly believe his words, honestly thinking of them as fables at the time. Though if anything, even if I didn't know this art back then... I want to learn it now.
"Now, I'll leave you to separate them." His words almost didn't sound real.
"Huh?!"
"You heard me." He spoke up as he walked ahead, forcing me to get up and follow. "You won't learn anything else if you can't master this!"
"B-but Mr. Demetrius—!" I tried to reason, but my words would fall on deaf ears, despite even the forest hearing my cries. Suddenly he stopped, and I almost stumbled, startled by his sudden halt.
"Oh right, as you work on it, I'm leaving a quote with you…"
"A quote?" I repeated, watching him smile as he said
"As above, so below; as within, so without."