The Alchemists

"They're not too bad." Ophira lied as she boosted herself up onto the half-wall. She placed one foot on the wooden plank and tested out how much weight it could handle. Her stomach dropped slightly when she felt the wood slightly give beneath her foot, but willed the feeling away.

She then added her second foot and paused to catch her balance. She didn't dare look below; the less she knew about how high up she was, the better. She walked with little grace, but she remained steady on the long board. "We really had to go this way?" She laughed, trying to take her mind off of the fact that she was one gust of wind away of falling.

When he got to the end, Andreas jumped lightly down onto the porch, waiting to offer his hand to Ophira. "I'd rather people not know exactly where my apartment is. Don't want the front watched." Here at least, their course was partly obscured by the large marquis. No vantage points from the street.

"Quickly, come inside now. I imagine you must be in shock, even if you don't feel it yet."

"I see," Ophira remarked. She took his hand and jumped down after him. "I guess it was for the best."

Ophira paused for a moment. There was a pit of nausea seated in her stomach. And she was feeling slightly dizzy. And anxious even though there was no longer any reason for her to be. She thought back to her psych textbooks that she had to read in her classes. What were the symptoms of shock again? Nausea, dizzyness, anxiety, rapid heartbeat... But she couldn't be in shock, could she? It was just because she had walked across some rickety beam God-knows how high up after stumbling through a pitch-black theater. That had to be why she felt so scared, right?

"I think I'm feeling it now."

"Ah, come with me, then..." Opening the large glass doors, he slipped into his orderly room, closing the door behind Ophira. "No one else is home. I only have one other roommate and he's out at the..." Shit. Ven. He'd just bolted, without even thinking about leaving Ven with no clue of what was going on. "Well, we're alone." He turned around, noticing Ophira's expression with some concern. "Do you... need to sit down?"

"Yeah, that'd be nice." She was trying to mask her nervousness with a polite tone. She chuckled even though she didn't find her situation very funny. "You know, you read so much about what something like this would feel like so you'd know how to help someone suffering from it." She was cold again, a layer of cold sweat breaking out on her skin. She breathed in deeply, as if she couldn't get enough oxygen into her lungs. "It feels so weird actually going through it."

She pressed her hand up against her chest as if that would slow it down just a bit. "Sorry about this." She attempted to smile.

"It's alright. Here. You can have a seat." He gestured to his bed, neatly made. "I know you're in shock right now, but can I ask you what you were doing when they found you? Did you uncover something?"

Ophira shuffled over to the bed and sank down slowly into a sitting posistion. "What was I doing?" She repeated; everything was blurry. "I was just walking down the street looking for a pay-phone to call you at." She rested her hands on her knees as if just holding onto something made her feel more grounded. "There had been Alchemists at the library. One was incredibly paranoid and was convinced that I knew something, but the other one was normal and convinced him that I didn't know anything."

Her mind flashed back to the scene with the two strangers in grey. "So I was just going to call you. Once I found a pay-phone I saw that it was being used by this man dressed in grey, so I went to leave but he told me to stop." Her heart was racing. She felt bile rising up in her throat. "He was with a woman, and she said Caldwell told her everything."

She hurried to wipe tears out of her eyes. "They're torturing Caldwell, I just know it! And they were going to do the same to me..."

Ophira reached her hand out to Andreas. "Please, can you just sit with me for a moment? I really don't want to be alone right now."

Andreas listened calmly at first, absorbing. He was about to ask if she'd found out anything interesting, besides having two run-ins with the Alchemists, when she started to tear up. The words caught in his throat, and he made an odd kind of strangled sound. He wasn't good with crying. He was the younger brother, so he'd never comforted Halcyon. Plus he...

"M-Miss Alves... I think, that it would do you some good to, um..." God, wasn't their some kind of manual on how to handle crying girls? "Er, of course." But he just stood there awkwardly. His gut reaction was to expel all the information he'd found. That Pioneer of Dawning Social Studies thing, extrapolate on theories.

Fear suddenly melded with a slight embarrassment. "I'm being stupid aren't I?" She found it increasingly difficult to look Andreas in the eye. "I'll be fine; don't worry." She monitored each breath that she took, breathing in and out slowly. She managed to slow her rapid heart beat just a bit, and the nausea wasn't as bad as it was before.

Ophira placed her hand on the empty space beside her, as if she were signalling that it was open, just in case Andreas decided to sit beside her.

"No, no! It's just..." He took a calming breath, running a hand through his tousled hair. "I'm not very good at this. I haven't had a lot of experience with women. In general! I don't mean that I think this is... Well, I..." In one fluid, decisive movement he sat down beside her. "You're not investigating Alchemists because you're greedy, you want the gold process. You're doing it because you care for Caldwell." The look on her face when she thought of him being tortured was awful. For that, for her heart, he supposed, she didn't deserve to be punished, even though she was an outsider. He patted her hand awkwardly. "We'll find him." Although in what condition, he wasn't so sure.

---

When Halcyon arrived home she made herself a cup of coffee, screw carcinogens, and rummaged through the movies in the cupboard beneath the TV. Documentaries and a few foreign films. She put one on just as background noise and couldn't help her mind from wandering. The image of Gary and his black lips. She smiled. He was the only one who ever got even with her, sly bastard. A noise interrupted the thought, from Andreas' room, then the soft murmur of voices.

Mug in hand, Halcyon opened the door to her brother's room and grinned. "This is new. Since when did you start bringing girls home, little brother? Just a tip, you won't even get to second base if you hold her hand like that. It looks like your fingers are having a seizure."

"Don't worry about it," she said with a chuckle.

Ophira smiled sadly at Andreas. "I really hope so," she said in response to Andreas' comment about finding Caldwell. For a moment her mind wandered, wondering if Caldwell was okay. She hated the thought of him being all alone, but her mind wasn't able to stay on that topic for very long. Her cheeks were warm again as soon as Andreas began patting her hand.

Then the sound of the door behind them opening caused Ophira to jump slightly. An oddly familiar voice made her turn around to see who was there. Ophira recognized her instantly. "What are you doing here?" Her tone was just a tad sharper than she had intended. Why on Earth was Liana, the Alchemist from the Library, here? She couldn't have been connected to the pair in grey, could she? Ophira tried to appear casual as she glanced around the room, searching for possible exits...just in case.

"The girl from the library," Halcyon muttered. "So you're the little bird that got my brother involved with this mess are you? I'm here because I feel like it. How'd you get him to help you, Ophira? Just because Andre's never had a girlfriend before doesn't mean you can manipulate him into the path of danger, it just means he's entertainingly awkward."

---

"Halcyon! Knock, first! Would you?" he growled. He ignored her when she muttered an apology, negated by the 'didn't look like I was interrupting anything terribly important'.

"Halcyon this is Ophira Alves; she contacted me about Caldwell a few days ago. She was a close student of his. Ophira, this is my sister, Halcyon. Apparently you've met."

Ophira crossed her arms. She resisted the urge to glare; she was much too tired for a drawn-out argument. "I'm not manipulating him," she defended anyway, then blushed. "Especially not in the way that you're thinking."

She turned her head to look over at Andreas. "She was one of the Alchemists that I told you about, the ones from the Library."

After grabbing a quick coffee, or rather, a pitiful excuse for what the counter service had decided to name their brownish water, Ven followed a winding path back to the copper shop, to fulfill his promise. As he walked, not particularly rushing and occasionally pausing to absently stare in ware-filled shop windows, his mind began to wander. His recent projects, a slight tinge of worry for his roommate, who Ven knew could handle himself just fine, but was nonetheless a concern, and, of course, his past. Of all the things that had fallen from him when leaving his past life, his memories were the things he wished most that he could leave in the other time zone.

It'll never work. You know that.

But, what if it does? Just, think on it, a little. Really, what can they do?

What can they do? What can't they do You don't know them like I do. I'm not even considering it, or we'll truly end up star-crossed. I'm telling you, it won't happen the way you think it will. Please, just listen to me.

Fine. If you won't go through with it, I will. Tonight.

No!--I mean, please, don't. Give me a little time to think of how to go about this. One week. Just a week.

Ahh. Well, we've gone this long, another seven days can't be much worse. You have your time.

Ven was startled back to reality by a rough jolt from a passerby whom he had not seen while in his coma. Half dazed, half alarmed, he glanced around, attempting to assess his surroundings. Still on course, more or less. He trotted the rest of the way to the stall, looking like he was literally attempting to avoid the clutches of oblivion at his heels.

As he arrived at the shop, he was taken aback by the lack of shimmer, or rather, the lack of everything. The copper had up and vanished, leaving skeletal posts and wires where it had once been housed. He cautiously made his way around the counter, unsure if he was intruding or perhaps in the wrong location. The interior was much in the same state, barren of all except the wooden furniture, with only a scrap of yellowed paper where the crystal ball had once huddled to indicate that there was ever a human presence in the hut.

He approached the table, more concerned than afraid now. Had something happened due to his mention of Caldwell? It was true that all Market walls had eyes, but he assumed places like this were closer to blind spots. He lifted the parchment, and, glancing around, pulled up a modest chair and began to read in the dusty ocher light.

"What were you doing in the library?" Andreas asked his sister. "Not being helpful are you?" he remarked snidely. "Actually, if you really are in a helpful mood, would you mind picking up Ven from the Market? I left unannounced." His voice was almost toneless, the barest hint of annoyance now.

Halcyon huffed. "Fine. Make your sister run errands for you. Oh forgetful Andre." As she walked out the door, she was muttering a string of wise retorts. "Can't just call him, nooo. So top secret is this little mission we're running around like chickens with our heads chopped off. Sheesh, and I thought being a sweeper was f..." Her words trailed into silence.

"Sorry about that." His awkwardness was replaced now by annoyance. "My sister is a handful. If she was at the library, she must have been looking into Caldwell's disappearance as well."

Ophira smiled a bit. "Don't worry about it," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She cleared her throat. "So, did you find anything in your research?" Thankfully her heart rate had gone down enough for her to actually think over it. "I couldn't find anything of value at the library."

"I did, in fact," he murmured. "Although it might be nothing."
Andreas took out his phone and showed her the picture he'd snapped from the book in the Emporium. "Pioneer of Dawning Social Studies," he muttered under his breath. "What could that mean?"

((blah blah blah, Halcyon is going to the Emporium...skipping the travel scene...))

"Strange..." Ophira thought aloud. That phrase sounded oddly familiar, almost too familiar. "I'm not sure what it means," Ophira said, staring at the picture quizzically, "but it reminds me of something Caldwell used to tell us in his lectures all of the time." She smiled at the memory of the man, the way he used to pace back and forth in front of hundreds of students, each eagerly devouring every word of wisdom that spilled forth. "He used to tell us all of the time that we were each pioneers in the great study of philosophy, because philosophy is always changing, so everything is a new beginning."

Ophira shrugged. "I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the Alchemists, but it's definitely a start."

"Philosophy is always changing..." Andreas got up and paced back and forth a couple of times, running his hands through his hair once, twice. "Alchemical philosophy is always changing? He must have gotten involved with something." He made a noise of frustration. "But what?"

Ophira hummed to herself and tried to think back to anything Caldwell might have told her, anything that could give clues as to what he could have gotten himself into. "Maybe we're looking in the wrong places," she mused. Her gaze snapped over to Andreas. "Remember when I first called you? I found your number tucked away in Caldwell's desk. Maybe there are other things hidden away that could be of value."

'Iterum sulphuris palmam sal sol.
Numquam ad carnem, vix ad os,
et tamen iam in finalitatis,
de aeternum mutata lapidem,'

Ven sighed a small, quiet breath as he read, shifting a bit in the chair and moving his eyes to the bottom of the page, where he noticed a few more scrawled words, written in less formal script but certainly by the same hand.

"I wish you the best dearie. This may help you on your way, and keep what I had you order. You'll find it all of use. Don't worry of me, you may have the chance to show your thanks, once you know what you're thankful for. ~P"

He nearly heard the words echo in the hollow space around him, and again shifted in his seat, something like a shiver traveling through his spine.