Commission: A Violet for a Rose - Preview 2

Hitting the ground running back into comms, two previews in about a weekend? That there's good pace to be back on. So, without further ado, the inciting incident of this little tale.

"The pair finished tea over the evening, each going their own ways until the sun set and replaced that orange glow with a more blanket dark. Rose retreated to grade what she’d actually received from her students, and Violet got to once more take over the living room to sort her mess.

“Don’t stay up too late,” the redhead chided. Her concern seemed almost motherly, until the educator in her revealed itself, “You’ll need your full attention for your classes tomorrow.”

“I won’t,” it was a blatant lie, but she couldn’t exactly go making her roommate fret; she needed her asleep for what she had planned.

When you want something though, waiting for it is the worst bout of impatience you’ll experience in your life. There was every temptation every few minutes to go peek around the corner, out her head into Rose’s room to see if she’d tucked in for the night. Doing so would be inviting suspicion, which was the last thing the noirette wanted.

She did her best to occupy herself with sorting her notes, at least getting some small headway as she changed off of directly trying to apply sheets to classes and started sorting them together into single lessons; the ones she remembered at least. Her mind kept wandering back to that special page of notes currently in her bag. She felt bad keeping it from the curvy beauty she shared a home with, but it wasn’t homework, far from it.

It was from her personal studies, found browsing through old bookstores around the campus grounds. The college library was a goldmine for the mainstream, but tucked away in the crevices was where you found the truly interesting occult works from around the world. This one was in the back of a little Asian curio shop, just a few scattered scrolls that made up a strange spell. Her Japanese wasn’t the best, but it roughly translated to “milk magic”, and the old hand-painted images of a lithe little twig of a woman turning into a voluptuous goddess told her all she wanted to know.

This was it. Violet could make herself into something worth a second look; particularly the look of the woman that made her heart flutter just a few thin walls behind her. She’d wasted no time jotting as much as she could, as detailed as she could, into her notes. Now, it was just a matter of waiting to have a few free hours to figure it out.

Each time her school notes were still, she was sharpening her ears. She still couldn’t directly check on the redhead, all she could do was listen for the click of the light, or the end of any motion in the beautiful teacher’s room. The minutes passed into hours, even the commotions outside coming to an end, before the lithe noirette felt confident to start making her move.

Violet collected her notes, slipping them into the corresponding books, and went into her bag for the spell. She could feel her fingers trembling with excitement, her heart racing from the blend of anxiety from sneaking around and the unbridled anticipation she would be getting her wish.

Tiptoeing her way to the kitchen, she did the translation in her head. She’d need a large pot first, easy enough, she was also going to need a smaller container though for some minor ingredients in the later steps. She didn’t want to wake Rose. Every movement needed to be slow and deliberate, so as not to make too much noise. The pot would be under the sink, but for something small… she needed water anyway, a quick rinse of one of the evening’s mugs would do.

The running water had worried electricity running through her, as she filled the vessel of her spell to the half point. Onto the burner it went, and before shutting it off she gave the closest cup a rinse and set it aside.

“Kay,” the occult student whispered under her breath, turning the heat to a low boil and going back to her notes, “first the milk thistle.”

Another slow creeping back to her bag, fishing out as quietly as she could the small shopping list of ingredients as she’d translated them. There was something to be said that ancient scrolls referenced things still being used today, albeit in less direct terms. Often a flower or plant of some sort, later found to be a chemical in its composition. From a scientific approach, you could probably have narrowed these all down to an exact thing needed from their makeup.

Violet wasn’t a scientist though. She was, at best, an amateur witch following instructions.

Back in the kitchen, the goth bit her lip as she crushed the thistle in her hand, feeling its thorns dig into her and its warm sap leak through her fingers. “That should be good,” she let the drops fall into the aside mug before dropping the plant into the makeshift stew to boil.

Black cohosh was next on the list, needing just the roots diced and pressed. Each step made her hands shake a little more, the rattling of their cutlery nearly making her jump out of her skin. Rose seemed still asleep, and so she took the small bundles and got to work.

She needed some haste. The pot was starting to properly roil, the crushed thistle breaking up to its crumpled leaves and turning the concoction a pale green. As fast and silent as she could she chopped through the tangled root, getting right to the point the step turned white, and turning the blade on its side to press any liquid out. The juices went into the cup, the dried cuttings into the mix.

Her third ingredient required less care. Fenugreek, already in its dried seed form thanks to a trip to the bulk store. The spell called for a handful, definitely unhelpful, but she followed accordingly. Tearing into the thin plastic bag she poured some out into her palm, waiting to the point she could just wrap her fingers around it to drop it in the pot in a rain of grains.

By now, the mix was a deep brown, starting to grow thick as the water began to boil away and leave just the plants.

Next was a honeycomb. The instructions said to scrape the honey into her side dish, she hoped a little from the bottle in both receptacles would do. Squeezing the little bear-shaped container until it looked like how much would come off, she added a dash to the pot for what would have been left in the hexagonal chambers and tossed the waxy construction in.

It finished up with a pinch of salt, sprinkled in a ring about the top of the muck she was working with. It didn’t change much, still looking like a thick slop at best. The wooden spoon she’d grabbed to stir was hardly moving through it.

Too late to start over now though. She was at the last steps: drawing the symbols and beginning the chant.

She didn’t want to take the chance with a marker or lipstick, so had gone out of her way to the campus store for a piece of artist’s charcoal. One hand holding her scrawled notes, she drew them around the rim of her pot, the implement crumbling a little more with each stroke of the oriental characters. The metal was radiating heat just in front of her touch, threatening to burn her if she got too close; not helpful when you’re already riding the edge.

Violet singed her finger only once, swallowing her outburst and quickly correcting the character with the dish towel hanging nearby. It all looked good. Now, it was the moment of truth.

Barely above a whisper, she prayed her Japanese was on point. One character at a time, it was honestly just gibberish. The odd word here and there, strung together with connecting syllables. It felt like mixing Latin with the eastern tongue, and her eyes were glued to each letter she’d drawn.

They wanted to go elsewhere though. The concoction she had been working the night away on began to stir, glowing an eerie teal. The symbols lit, dragging a ring of light around the pot. She could feel her heart beating a mile a minute, afraid it might burst out of her chest at any moment.

She picked up the mug, continuing the ritual on her tongue. All that was left was to add the separated ingredients and touch it to her lips. She dipped it in, the sticky saps leaking out into the muddy potion.

The light rose up before her, a trail of sparkling dots on the air. She pulled the messed cup from the stew, ready to drink, only for the sprite to startle her with sudden motion.

It flew around her, then like a lightning bolt out into the living room. Fear swelled to a crescendo inside her, and at once she dropped the mug to chase after it. The magical light fled up the hall, guided by some unseen force into Rose’s room, filling it with a flash before casting their apartment in darkness once more.

Caution went to the wind. Violet dashed out of the kitchen, full tilt, to Rose’s room. Her voice failed her, her nerves having pushed all the way up into her throat. In a cold sweat she peeked her head into the doorway, terrified of what she might find.

The redhead was laying there, sound asleep, her bare shoulders peeking just above her blanket as her chest rose and fell from her breath. She was… Nothing changed, the same beauty she always was, making the younger girl’s heart flutter and crash from the stress.

The spell, what happened? Was it a dud? The noirette made her way back to the kitchen, what was once a point of mystical wonders now little more than the mother of all messes. The mug was half-sunk in hot muck, but with her senses heightened to this degree, she figured she knew what happened.

That was Rose’s cup, from their tea. The spell said it, to “touch it to your lips”. It must have been literal, and her hasty rinse hadn’t gotten all of her roommate’s lipstick off the rim.

She was raking her own lip, suddenly nervous for an all new reason. Nothing had happened, save a glorified light show; she might even have imagined it. Still, there was an unsettling feeling festering in the pit of her gut.

There was also nothing she could do about it. Any extra information the scrolls might have had were still collecting dust at the back of that curio shop, and she was out of ingredients; even the symbols she drew on the pot had burnt off in the display.

With a disappointed sigh, Violet heaved the goop over to the sink; still not wanting to wake her crush, but she had to get this mess cleaned up before they woke up. The thick melange went down slowly, needing a hard scrubbing that left her feeling exhausted by the end of it.

Physical exhaustion still did nothing to settle her mind though. As she collapsed with a squeaky thud into her sheets, she was still fretting over her stupid mistakes, and praying again. This time, that nothing would befall her precious Rose." A Violet for a Rose by Madam Materia