2.2 Potion of Youth

LEO

Nothing lasts forever.

This happiness, this life. And following a visit from the Grim Reaper, I was suddenly brought face-to-face with my own mortality. For the first time, it terrified me.

Grim Reapers hated alchemists for the same reason they constantly haunted us: our ability to escape death. I dredged up the old journals I had tucked away in a corner. It seemed like an eternity ago when I had sat with Yuki in the coffeehouse, pouring over these very volumes.

Simpler days.

I searched the journals until I found the page I was looking for: the potion of youth. It does not reverse ageing, it merely prevents it. If continuously taken, one can live forever. It was a subject of mild interest among rich folk and a myth among commoners, and in my hands was the recipe.

Libra ran up to me. “What are you reading?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” I said, patting her head.

“How much older?”

“Say, in another ten years. How old are you in ten years?”

“Fifteen?”

“Exactly.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll neeeever be fifteen.”

You will be, sooner than you think.

“Don’t worry honey. I’ll be telling you before you know it.”

I watched her run outside. She was never still for long.

I sat for a minute, locked in a staring contest with the piece of armor that still occupied the corner, reminding me that it will still be here when I am long gone. But I lost, of course. The mortal always loses.

I carefully replaced the journal on the top of the box. To make the potion of youth, I needed the ingredients, of course. They were relatively easy to get. And I also needed…

“Yuki?” I called.

Yuki poked her head out from around the corner. “Yes?”

“What do you say about expanding the house?”

—–

Ok. Ok. I’m gonna suck it up and ask people to read this.

I’m terrified.

I kinda feel sick.

But if I don’t, nothing’s ever gonna change.

It’ll be ok. It’s not like there’ll be lots of people.

I still feel sick.

Here I go.