Alicia The Alchemist
1364 Words
"Y... Yes, Your Majesty, you summoned for me?" the lady before me stammered and was feeling a bit jitters as she was summoned to the domain where she was least expected. She was clutching one hand at her chest while the other hand at the sides of her long dress and I laughed at her behaviour.
"Are you feeling insecure standing before me? Don't be scared... What I'm going to propose is for your own goodness in the near future, you hear? Relax... Don't be too fidgety and afraid of us."
Actually, she was afraid that she might have done something wrong and somehow she was feeling afraid of being reprimanded even though she was unsure what she had done wrong in the first place.
"You were the one who suggests the method to extract the oils from lavender and some other flowers and plants to make the hair wash shampoo right?"
"Tha... That's right, Your Majesty. Only a few of us knew how to do it since it's quite a laborious task. In the past, we can't do that but now we could."
"What's your name? I didn't get your name in the first place."
"I am called Alicia, Your Majesty. I am a Mackenzie and we came first before the rest of us followed. My dad works as a delivery that sends the bread to the town."
I rubbed my chin and found that this lady in front of me was just about 15 or 16 years of age but had the experience to be the future Alchemist in Gracehaven.
"Do you know how to read or write because if you don't we need you to take the basic class to learn first OK?"
"On top of that, we would need you to run a*****e for us where you would be noting down the ingredients and the portions to create them. Like creating oils and essences from flowers, plants or resins."
Alicia nodded her head as she listened and I got her to repeat what I had relayed as she prompted me exactly what I had her to repeat which was, "Repeat what I had relayed to you."
Clearly, the information got lost in translation somewhere...!!!
Eagle looked at me and laughed lightly while I facepalmed myself. "Alright... Let me repeat once again. I will get someone to make a*****e. You would create the extract. Then you help us think how you would it as a perfume. Where you would smell nice all day long and smelled like you were a part of a flower or a plant, something like that."
"Don't make yourself smell like a flower and those bees would be hunting you down wherever you go... Hahaha...!" Eagle couldn't control himself and he had to laugh or he would double over and be in a fetal position and laugh like a hyena...!
Frankly, the way I describe things were much worse than explaining to a 3-year-old boy. Maybe becoming a dad at a young age turns me into an old man fast...
I facepalmed once more and asked if she understood what I mean but she either mod or shook her head thereafter. I then make another simpler example.
"Take the body soap. It is lemon-scented right? So how are you going to make it on yourself to smell like a lemon without hanging the soap to your neck?"
Eagle laughed even louder when he heard me using the bar of soap as a metaphor. But you get the picture, don't you?
"Aahh... I now get what you are trying to tell me, Your Majesty. You are trying to ask me on how I would make the scent diffuse around me without actually having the bar of soap hanging on my neck."
"Teeheehee... So, all you need is a porcelain bottle which could be injected like making a biscuit but inside a mould where it would be slowly fired inside a kiln. The good thing is that it would be somewhat cold-pressed."
"The white porcelain vial would be used to store these oils and the outlook is better than the ones made from red clay. The oils could be dabbed onto these pine cones like what I have now around my waist supported by these braids and it would smell nice wherever I go."
What she had said makes a lot of sense and what she had shown also makes sense as instead of a belt, she had a braided cord of some sort around her waist with a tassel at the end. Near the tassel was some pine cones and as she jiggled them in front of us, the scent of flowers diffused from it.
Like potpourri... Another Frenchie word invaded in England.
"Hmm, makes a lot of sense... Who knows how to make these ceramics? Do you happen to have a recipe for it and ways how to do it?"
"Yes, Your Majesty, I do have the recipe for it and also the process on how to create them. Several of the Irish Travellers knew how to make them, I mean some of the widows of the later batches."
"I don't know if they are engaged in the crops but a person with mould and ingredients could make a few dozens of those white porcelain vials a day complete with a screw-on cap and a loop to tie a string through."
I put up my hand at her and write something in my journal under the what-to-do list and continued the conversation with her.
"Alright, find the person who could do that and gather her here. Let me and Eagle here take a short break and find us in an hours time."
With that, she excused herself and bowed slightly before leaving. As she turned and left, I asked Eagle, "What do you think? A small Alchemist shop with distillers inside it and also someone who makes the porcelain vials with a kiln too."
"Visualise this, an open-aired store, a shop front selling or displaying oils and essences while the back with 2 separate areas to process the oils and also a small kiln for the vials."
"Not only the Alchemist would be adding fragrances to the Hair Shampoo and the Body Soap, they would be making perfumes, selling them in vials and also potpourri in the form of pine cones."
"Heat gives off the scent... So we might even venture into scented candles which are much better than incense sticks or cones that you used to have in the thurible."
"Hahaha... You do have a great vision there, Your Majesty. I am sure even without a kingdom, you could create an empire. Sometimes I wonder what you have in your mind all the time."
"Frankly? After the twins had been born I might travel the lands and chart the map that we have now to see how far we could expand and what influences we could get when we happen to acquisition the lands that had been developed but abandoned like Roecliffe on our East, Torp and Burghbrig on our North, and whatever towns in the West and South of us."
"Maybe you could advise me on the land acquisition if we errmmm... Take over those lands and rule them under Gracehaven? Is this possible? But if a town is empty... Could we encroach their borders and integrate with ours?"
"That's quite a mouthful for us to spoon into our mouths to chew and more even to digest. Maybe the Marchioness would know more about it."
"How about we invite them since it had been ages since they had been here. Make in on the monthly wrestling match by end of June? What do you say? At least you have a month to prepare."
"Sounds great and at least I could brag about my twins. Hehe. I'm a daddy, you know and I don't even know how to hold a baby in my arms. Hahaha...!"
The dusting of the rooms had been done and its a matter of days before Heather and the twins would be ushered back to our home. Yipee... We are going to have so much fun playing with the twins...!
- Writer
