#clc fics

Emotions boil in the air along with the large pot at one end of the single room that makes up the entire house. It simmers over a low fire, keeping the shimmering purple contents boiling slowly. The tang of the ingredients hangs in the air, burning your nostrils slightly with each breath.

You barely notice though, too focused on your work to pay attention to something as arbitrary as discomfort. The contents of the pot are the product of weeks of work, messing up and trying again, adding too much or too little, spilling it across the floors just as you’re about to reach a breakthrough. You’ve worked long hours before, and in fact you’ve dedicated so much time to this project that you’ve barely slept enough in the past week to tell one plant from another. 

Slightly fogged pair of goggles protect your eyes as you carefully maneuver the spindley homemade clamps to slowly pour the acidic contents of the glass vial into the pot. Bright smoke pours into the air as the potion reacts, neutralizing the acid to the human touch and reacting with the steeping ingredients. The acrid scent lingers in the air with the previous odors, mixing into something almost intoxicating in its bittersweetness.You choke as you impatiently dump the rest of the vial into the pot and it sends a particularly volatile puff of smoke at you. 

The vial is set gently on the overcrowded table next to your cauldron, and you carelessly toss the clamps underneath it to be angrily retrieved later. But you couldn’t care right now. You’re so close to finally figuring it out.

You drop the spell protecting your hands and the wavering encasing of magic fades away. Time ticks onward as the wax of your candles dribbles ever downward, the moon following in your path. The pot is no longer belching green smoke, and you carefully remove the journal stuffed full of notes and barely legible records of your past attempts from underneath a few other glass bottles stacked haphazardly on top of it, consulting the notes and recipes you’re following this time around. 

Recognizing the compound you needed for your next step, you toss down the book and launch yourself off the stool, leaving a small piece of paper that had fallen out drifting to the ground. The shelves are crowded and messy but you’ve alway kept things well labeled. It came in handy as many of the odd nectars and ground roots and other miscellaneous ingredients for the tinctures you constantly produced looked quite similar in the dark. 

You quickly find what you’re looking for after hopping up onto the clear spot workbench also full of all sorts of strange magical components to rummage around on the very top shelf. The small box presents itself right away, and you tuck it in one of the many large pockets of your apron, snatching a small bottle of a thick gold liquid before turning and swinging back down to the ground. 

You pop the cork of the small bottle and tilt the contents into your mouth, feeling the rush of warmth and energy surge through your veins as you walk back to your fire, a fresh urgency in your steps. The bottle, now drained of all its contents, disappears into a different pocket and is soon forgotten as you throw yourself back into your work. 

You retrieve the little box with one hand as you draw the other through the air above the pot, the bubbling mixture inside following the movement. Popping the latch open, you sprinkle a pinch into the palm of your hand before setting the ornately carved box to the side. 

Taking a small dagger from the table, you place the knife between your teeth and press the index finger of the opposite hand to the tip of the blade, drawing blood. Squeezing your finger slightly, small drops of blood land atop the small pile of powder in your palm. The fire crackles warmly as you soak the powder, using another finger to mix them together. 

Another drop or two of blood to smooth it out, and you plunge your hands into the pot to add the paste to the swirling contents. The purple potion is cool, and the material is perhaps the strangest thing you’ve ever felt. It’s certainly not a liquid, feeling more like a heavy gas if it could even be categorized, perhaps like what sticking one’s hands into a grey cloud full to the bursting would feel like. 

Once the paste has been washed away you draw your hands out of the pot, finally setting the knife to the side. You turn and cast a loving look at the massive slab of crystal on the table to your left. Encased inside is Seunghee’s body, looking exactly the same as she had the day you found her in the woods, a fatal arrow wound in her chest. Perhaps it hadn’t been the best idea, but you were in too deep from the moment you panicked and rushed to carry her home, spotting the large piece of quartz you had bought off one of the more sketchy of the sellers you knew, and the ideas starting formulating immediately. Over the course of seven tireless hours you had grown the originally dinner plate sized gem to be large enough to crack down the middle and seal Seunghee’s body inside. 

“Soon, my love,” you whisper, trailing a hand over the side of the crystal. A smeared handprint of translucent purple liquid is left in the wake of your touch, shimmering in an unsettling way on the stone. It begins to sizzle and eat away at the crystal, and you quickly wipe it away with your apron before the damage can reach anywhere near the depth of Seunghee’s skin. You wave your hand over the rough patch and mutter a spell, and it slowly begins to repair itself. 

You wipe your hands on the apron as well, and a strange hazy smoke drifts from the fabric. But you pay it no mind, perching yourself back on the stool with another glance at Seunghee, emotion sizzling in your gaze. You still had work to do.