Seduction of a Princess

Chapter Sixteen

I'm having a marvellous weekend; somehow I've managed to find time to write in between canoeing at sea, being sore all day from said canoeing and getting to hear the best villain song I've heard in quite a while. And what did I write? You guessed it: SoaP!

It has become a pretty long chapter--perhaps even the longest, fairytales included. I don't mind though; there's a lot of Terrance being Terrance in here, as well as explanations and Terrance mocking Marc (oh, I do love when that happens!).

Anyway, enjoy whilst I listen to that villain song for one last time!

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          They gathered on the wagon; Terrance and June and even Marc, who was a little bit curious of what they were about to do. He was a skeptical though, when Terrance announced they were going to make a healing potion.

          “Have you even seen these books?” He gestured to a few of the many books on alchemy that were stacked up in the back. “Those alchemic recipes are difficult. How are you going to create a healing potion from that, with all that we have here? This is not a laboratory!”

          Terrance shrugged, saying, “Of course they’re difficult. Else, they wouldn’t be books on alchemy, but notes on alchemy. But do you know what the disadvantage of books is? The authors are idiots. They don’t know their stuff and occasionally even make up things—can you imagine it, authors making up facts?” He shook his head. “No, I’m not going to use those books.”

          “But… have you seen what they say about healing potions? They exist of whole loads of elements, all very specific quantities. Deviating from the recipe… may have lethal consequences!” he read from one of the books.

          The werewolf simply laughed.

          “Of course they say that.” He took the book from Marc and tossed it away. “According to the Bible and just about any other book on demonic presences, disagreeing with werewolves has lethal consequences as well.”

          He turned away before Marc could determine if this was a threat, or if he was actually making a point—he didn’t seem to care what Marc thought. Instead, he focused on teaching June.

          “So as I said, alchemy is the second pillar of magic. We’re going to make a healing potion, which is the same as saying that we’re giving regenerative properties to a liquid while avoiding giving lethal properties too—you don’t have any idea how many times those two go hand in hand…”

          He paused for a second, to see if June was following. When she nodded, he proceeded.

          “What we’re about to do is first get some pure water. Then give both properties to this water, and after that, we’re going to extract the lethal from it, making it okay to drink. Some might say that it’s an overly complicated process, that it’s outdated. But personally, I think that the drink is worth the trouble: it’s a much stronger potion than anything in its category and it comes with only one side effect.”

          “What?”

          He grinned. “If you drink too much, you’ll fall asleep, simple as that. It’s a harmless potion.”

          “Sounds good. How will we make it if it isn’t in the books?”

          He tapped on his forehead. “I’ll use this. I know a lot of recipes, you know. A lot more than those books do. So let’s get started. You get the pure water; just fill the jar.” As he handed her the jar that had previously been filled with holy water, he nodded towards the Mirror’s Lake. She rushed to fill it, but when it was full with water, she wondered: would the remains of the holy water hurt her now that she was a werewolf? Would it burn her like it did Terrance?”