A Path to Gold: The Alchimia Immortal Dynasty (Latest Update: 12/9/14)

[Deme]

Part 5, B: A Different Perspective

Ah, I hope you readers don’t mind my handling of this next section. My shadowy patrons would rather I not spend so much on this romantic sap, and more time on the story of immortality and all, and since I like my kneecaps just the way they are, you know, intact, what they say goes.


 The next day was a day of rest – Ferrus and Diane mostly sculpted, one in an indoor station and one outdoor, due to limited garage space.

That evening, Diane had a party to attend to, being thrown by a fellow art-fan.

She’d decided to class her friend Cid, the party-man shown here whose name required a bit of digging into University records, as ‘just a friend.’ She was not, after all, an indiscriminate flirt. To borrow from Jaycen, she was a highly discriminate flirt.

Ferrus, not a party-guy, had his own entertainment for the evening. Under the needling and pressures of Amethyst, still determined to help fix his life, she decided to summon him a friend for the evening.

This was Holly Gabrielson. Nice girl, took well to being called from her life by forces unknown, and she and Ferrus were fast friends once they explained she was not abducted by aliens or other nefarious beings.

Time passed quickly – and during that time, great progress in the subject of Ferrus’s immortality were made.

Most crucially, he crossed the 25th ice sculpture, and would be able to work his mother’s odd Ice-9 creation, producing ice sculptures that wouldn’t melt at room temperature. At last, that glittering splendor, the slight slickness that gave a form a unique physicality, the way the light warped around it... Our neurotic little artist could handle these now without perpetual fretting over melting.
 The future of ice sculptures was secure eternally. There was room for great celebration there!

During the week, Diane went to other parties.


One of them had Nicholas with her as her date (generally, she’d be somewhere more low-key with Ferrus as her date than a bonfire party that was rained out). But…The mood was gloomy, the weather chilly and rainy.


And Nicholas couldn’t quite respect that there were, you know. On a date. It’s not that she minded him flirting with others – that’d just be hypocritical and rather shaming, both of which she was ethically opposed to – but the thing about dates is that that’s when you set other people aside to focus on one person. That’s what made it a date, as opposed to just hanging out. At her party, no one’d been there as a date.
Well, she reasoned, if that was the way things were… She couldn’t change what he was doing, so she could change whether or not it was a date. Simple enough… And in the end, it didn’t really change much of anything.

And whatever happened to Diane…Happens to Ferrus, leaving him feeling worried and unpleasant.



As he was there for her, Diane’s there to comfort him down from this odd experience.



They wonder where these strange visitors come from, and where they go…Or if they will ever be seen again.
I won’t spoil that one just yet – leave the readers in suspense that way.


Diane was still seeing Nick. Why wouldn’t she be? It was alright, though it was clear that the relationship was somewhat on the decline. No real reason – it was a relationship of passion, there because it felt right at the time. Simple enough, really.
And there were evenings she spent with Ferrus, too – the week passed quietly, and she came to think of how to answer it – the question of “What does that make us,” which had been posed to her.

It was the night before finals. A party, fancy-dress. She had Ferrus on her arm as a partner, and his uneasy ways pulled them up to the second floor: just them and a stereo playing.


”Shall we dance?” He asked her, already taking her hands in his.
”What else is there to do?” She shrugged, and fell into the natural rhythm of his step.



”Ferr-bear, can we talk?”
Such dangerous words cause any man to sweat – well, so it seems, anyway. I’ve never had ‘can we talk,’ and perhaps I never will.
”…Yes?”
“I’ve been thinking. About what we are, I mean. We’re… Just being ‘lovers’ doesn’t say what makes us special… What makes you so special to me… Is that you’re my partner. I’m not really sure there’s a word for that relationship, but… It’s what I feel.”
He smiled, softly – because to him, love and partnership were the same. She had been the only woman he had ever loved, romantically, anyway. And even in other contexts, by other meanings of love – his love was selective, jittery, cautious and driven. He was, and would always be, even when I knew him, insular, cultivating bonds not like fields of grain but like delicate hot-house orchids, taking the shape of bees dead long ago, the last echoes of their life.
Yes, he was rather like that. Singular affections, each a work of art.
 And he would never think to ask if that was always the same for her – it wasn’t. Her love was expansive, flung-open, love like a field overgrown and tangled wildflowers, rising across fields in waves. If he could be her companion through the world… Then they were, in some way, equal. For them, just this once, it meant the same thing.

”A word… Maybe I don’t know anyone who describes what we’ve got. I mean, we can’t be the only ones in the world, but… It’s like that. Our own rules.” He considered his smile to be woefully dopey.


”Well… Look, you can call me your girlfriend or something – good enough, anyway. Because… It’s not like I want to be totally exclusive, but…  Yeah. Besides, it’ll be easier if you decide you want to get married.”
He froze. He was now sure she was not his Diane, and was instead an alien from an alternate reality. Diane of Earth-2. Aurum had tinkered with her brain.
 He was being punked.
The world was about to end.
This was all a dream, and he would wake up and he’d be in elementary school again.
He hit his head. She hit her head.
Brain slugs. It had to be brain slugs.


”But you hate that stuff!” He exclaimed, gulping like a fish. ”Your beliefs hold fundamentally against the notion of love-with-ownership as implied by an outmoded and patriarchal binding like marriage!”
He was very nearly quoting.

”…W-well, it’s not exactly my cup of tea, but… If it’s something you want, then it’s OK. Love needs compromise, and… I… If it’s you, I’ll understand that it doesn’t mean anything like that. I’ll know – even if the rest of the world doesn’t, I’ll know what the plumbob I mean.”

”…You’re different. That’s all.”
And for once, that made him very happy.

[Rhoxi]

Daw, so sweet! What the plumbob, indeed. So out of left field for Diane! I guess this means generation three is not far off!

[Shewolf13]

Awww!  That was adorable!

[Nettlejuice]

I can't get over how gorgeous Ferrus and Stannum are!

[Deme]

Thank you, thank you.
...I know it's been a while since the last update, but I'm afraid I don't have a good explanation: for some reason, trying to assemble an update these past couple of weeks has been like pulling teeth, and it's making me a bit miserable. Honestly, I'm reaching some sort of micro-depression centered around this story, where ever finishing seems, at my pace, more and more impossible.

I'd like to get something out by next Friday, and actually get a schedule down after that. I think for the next couple of days, though, I'm going to cleanse my palette and not think about it for a while, and see if that improves things.

[Deme]

Alright, update! I'll get another one done for next Friday, I hope.

Part 6: Masterpiece

Unfortunate news, dear readers: It appears that a small, but not inconsiderable, amount of source material from this period has been lost – I asked my shadowy patrons of it, but they only said that it was lost long before they managed to recover the documents; something about an, I quote, “visionary attempt at paper-fire smoking, to get that delicious learned flavor.” Well, from the sound of that sentence, I know exactly what happened to them; though, I’m getting ahead of myself. No, I shall make due with simple causality and conjecture, for a moment. In order for what I am going to show you next to happen, the following events needed to occur:

The first was that finals were greeted and conquered, with all of the house getting full marks. Of course, the graduation was, according to university records, a disaster, and no one actually managed to enter the building successfully – and so, for all their efforts, little profit was made. I think Aurum intended to perhaps try again, but Ferrus and Diane were both contented.

Still, all returned well. Ferrus was soon off again – on a small trip to Egypt for the sake of an opportunity.  He took Diane with him, planning a lover’s getaway (It is worth noting that she never did exactly end things with Nicholas, nor did she have any intent do so. There is a limit to compromise, even with your partner… Still, with the distance between them, it was unlikely they would ever meet again.). Of course, he must have had another scheme – a scheme of love, which, unweighted by school or the crowds of home, rounded its final corner on the open desert dunes. Egypt was so like home, and so unlike, and it let him context her anew …
Into his fiancé. While it would have been to both their likings to elope, right there amongst the Nile riverbanks, I think they had a reason to hold a small wedding, at home, at least:
No one, just no one, would be able to get in the way of Darleen Dreamer seeing her only daughter get married and live to tell about it. 
”I’m not that stupid. She’d get a knife and it’d have a pretty bow on it or something,” Diane would be heard to say on the subject, though she was mostly joking.

…And so they returned home, where our records pick up.


^{From the Journal of Ferrus Alchimia}

We’ve been working on art since I got back.

Diane says she’s going to get ice-sculpting down, in case I need a hand with that later. I know Mom was concerned that Dad… Wouldn’t last long enough, to help with me all the way. I mean, I can work out our kid, but... Nevermind.


And everyone’s happy to really be settling in back at home. I know Mom missed Dad, even if she didn’t exactly show it. Dad doesn’t work and Mom does nights, so they spend most of their days together.



While Stannum was spending his days looking for a date to prom. He managed to meet a charming older lady…

And his sister, but no luck on girls his age. His school couldn’t even turn up a female babysitter.



Stann and I have been getting along, too. He got my letters, and liked reading them, so we’ve been taking the time to hang out more. I’m glad.


And the next day… We decided to hold the wedding. Nothing big – just enough chairs for our families. Still… Even though it was just fine, I’m not sure either of us were quite satisfied. I know I wasn’t – it was so impersonal, and while this was a wedding for casual dress, and just small attendance…
It was special, too. It was personal and close, and I wanted to bring something special of my own to it.


So, putting omens of bad luck aside, I pulled Diane aside in her dress and set to capturing it – the ice could not take her somewhat embarrassed, somewhat exultant glow – but it could catch the energy in her posture, the energized tension of her shoulders, the sway of her back; it could know the customary eager smile, pulled wider than usual; it could capture a fraction, if only a fraction, of her beauty in the gleaming ice.

This gave Dad the idea of doing one of me, for a personal touch with the matching sculptures. I was a little embarrassed, but – well – he was so excited. ”No, this’ll be a neat thing to remember it by! Kind of a sweet thing. It’ll look great.”

Dad wasn’t the only excited parent.

”Ooooh you’re so beautiful~! My little girl’s gotten so precious before you even know it!”
“Mom. Choking. You’re doing it.”
“Now, I want to see a grandkid within the week, understand? A cute little cuddly gold-or-brown baby! Oh, you two are just so adorable, you’ll make the cutest little –“
“Mooom! Brides need air!”



It was evening before everything was set up and everyone in attendance –

Well, everyone was mostly Sheila, who surprised us all by sentimental wedding-crying on par with Darlene.

She’d also brought her cat – had it been a girl cat, we maybe would have tried for kittens, but it was at least a different playmate.


And then there was nothing left to do: just this, this single moment in which everything culminated.
Nothing but these words, with which I’d make the woman I love my wife, which would

“Diane – I – well, I’ve always felt – like –”
Smooooth.
“Like you and I should always be together, that nothing in this world would be enough to keep me apart from you, and now –“
”Ferrus? Don’t worry about forcing fancy words for what we already know. Just take the ring already.”

Laughing, I slipped the ring on her waiting finger.

”I can’t promise any of the normal things – honor and obey, till death do us part… But I’ll always love you, death-parted or not. That’s the promise in this ring.”

I suppose that’s all we really could say – I’m not sure I know how my vows should have ended, in words.
Only that they ended perfectly, in a kiss.


Reading this, I recall a conversation I had with Ferrus once, long after this moment – indeed, long after Diane had since passed, when Ferrus was the only occasionally disputed lord of the art room. It was a morning when I was watching Ferrus at work painting. As he fretted and sighed over the invisible, possibly imaginary flaws on the obvious in-progress masterpiece before him, I finally grew curious and asked him, “What exactly is perfect? Your perfect, the one you’re always looking for?”

 “Perfect is…” He thought about this. “Perfect is when ‘what is’ finally reaches ‘what ought to be,’ when there’s no difference between the best something can be and what is actually there.”
And here he paused and put his brush down. For the 15th time since he started painting, he took out a rag and wiped the wet paint from his fingers.
The look in his eyes, which were by then very old eyes, was distant. He looked not at the painting, and not at me; whatever he looked at, in his heart, he looked at it with a faint smile and a lonely, wistful look.


“But sometimes, you miss it. You get something else, and you realize that ‘what ought to be’ honestly and irreplaceably is ‘what is.’ Not because it became that way…But more importantly…”


“That that is what it was all along. And it’s simply a matter of recognizing it, of making the simple fact of the matter ‘official,’ because it’d be there whether you saw it or not… But when you see it, when ‘what ought to be’ was there, the whole time…


That’s perfect. The sort of perfect you get, maybe once or twice in a lifetime.”

And then, he sighed, shook his head with the weight of more than a lifetime on it, and returned to fretting about the light.

At the time, I didn’t make anything of it – only remembered it. Now, having read his story, and seen his feelings for Diane grow and develop … I think he certainly must have been thinking about this day, when two people who had always been together, who wanted to always be together, made a promise, until death would part them. Perhaps longer; because he would still remember it as perfect, long after.



And it certainly seemed they’d set on a quick pace to give Darleen her wish.

But…Not everything was joy in the Alchimia household. In the excitement of the wedding, something had been forgotten. Something, overlooked.

Neon Dreamer, faithful dog, was already gone with Grim, had already left this world, by the time anyone besides the cat noticed. He was perhaps 64 days old, though record-keeping for the ages of pets is somewhat dubious. No one could say he lived a bad life…
But there was a small shard of guilt in everyone’s heart, for not being there to see him off. And so death came to the Alchimia household silently, touching it and then leaving without a word.

This would not be the last meeting – and Aurum thought about that often in the coming days.

[LivvieLove]

Oh wow, marriage for Diane? Odd, but I can see it. It's cute how much Ferrus loves her.

No rush with the Updates, I know how hectic life can be! This was a very good chapter though, I got a little teary eye-d knowing their history! I also loved her wedding dress!

I'm surprised Diane said yes to a proposal that quickly, but I think I'm starting to understand their relationship a lot better now.

[Shewolf13]

Oh that was just... beautiful!  I don't know how you do this every time Deme!  So much feels!

[Nettlejuice]

The wedding set up is gorgeous. RIP, Neon =[

[Hallucination]

RIP Neon. I feel bad about this, considering there are a lot more involved, colorful characters, but Darleen is definitely my favorite. She's so happy and sweet and childish. I tend to think of her as an overenthusiastic puppy.

[redmare]

Thank you so much for pushing through and writing this! I wonder if there will soon be nooboo in the house! I hope so!

[RaiaDraconis]

I think that every writer comes to a point in their stories where it is difficult and in some ways burdensome to continue. Those bits can be challenging to conquer, but you managed quite well. Excellent update.

This would not be the last meeting – and Aurum thought about that often in the coming days.

A rather foreboding bit of foreshadowing, there...

[Rhoxi]

Oh gosh. As a notorious doubter of their relationship, it's pretty amazing, I think, that their wedding made me all teary-eyed in its beauty. Something about Ferrus being an old man and looking back on that as a moment of perfection was just . . . seriously, very touching. Also, he looks smashing with that new hairdo. It suits him much better. I guess he's finally coming into his own. Diane and her "just take the ring already!" was hilarious and oddly sweet. Love it! And hey, no pressure from your audience. The most important thing is for you to enjoy the process of playing and writing. Don't worry about the pace of it all.

[Deme]

General notes, thank you all for liking it! I'm glad it came out well!

Oh, and don't worry I'm stressing myself out by trying to schedule this. #1, I'd stress myself out anyway, because this is my personality. (Ferrus's high-strung artist concept, slightly autobiographical? I have no idea what you mean) #2, I actually work better with a schedule, and with the imaginary belief people expect something from me. In other words, this idea is largely for my own benefit. If I need to cancel or delay a week, I will.

Oh wow, marriage for Diane? Odd, but I can see it. It's cute how much Ferrus loves her. 

I'm surprised Diane said yes to a proposal that quickly, but I think I'm starting to understand their relationship a lot better now.

Well, she did say she was OK with it, if it was something he wanted! She's got a sappy side of her own, at the end of the day.
Anyway, That's actually not a special outfit; that's her second casual wear she was wearing. Sort of a "nice date night" dress. Seemed appropriate for a casual wedding. It does look nice, though.

The wedding set up is gorgeous. RIP, Neon =[

The ice sculptures sure added something, didn't they? I was pleased with myself over that one.
Poor Neon. I was so surprised...Well, I mean, not surprised that he died, because his bar had been full for ages. But surprised that the game had neglected to tell me.
He was a good doggy.

RIP Neon. I feel bad about this, considering there are a lot more involved, colorful characters, but Darleen is definitely my favorite. She's so happy and sweet and childish. I tend to think of her as an overenthusiastic puppy.

Don't feel bad! ... Darleen's great. I'm always sad there's not more I can think for her to do, because it's so easy and fun to write for her. She is like a happy puppy. Mostly, she does chores, plays chess or paints, and makes kissy-face with Darren. Maybe she will have more to do with her inevitable grandchild ^^

Thank you so much for pushing through and writing this! I wonder if there will soon be nooboo in the house! I hope so!

You'll find out next chapter whether or not there'll be a nooboo soon!

I think that every writer comes to a point in their stories where it is difficult and in some ways burdensome to continue. Those bits can be challenging to conquer, but you managed quite well. Excellent update.

A rather foreboding bit of foreshadowing, there...

Thank you! I'm always glad to be done with these little crisis periods...
The amount of foreboding is what you make of it.

Oh gosh. As a notorious doubter of their relationship, it's pretty amazing, I think, that their wedding made me all teary-eyed in its beauty. Something about Ferrus being an old man and looking back on that as a moment of perfection was just . . . seriously, very touching. Also, he looks smashing with that new hairdo. It suits him much better. I guess he's finally coming into his own. Diane and her "just take the ring already!" was hilarious and oddly sweet. Love it!

Ah-ha! I win! Ah, just kidding.
I was actually rather touched (and pleased by my coming up with, if I allow myself a bit of pride) by that idea myself; it's something that could only work here, and I'm glad it could work.  And I enjoyed Diane's comments; someone has to stop the overwhelming sappiness (No, they don't)!
Also... I love Ferrus's new hair, too. I was really happy when it came out, since it's the closest there is to his childhood hair texture. The lighting on it's kind of odd sometimes, but on the whole, I think it looks great!

[Deme]

Since this is only about half the length I wanted, but I did want to get something out today; I'll get the rest of what I thought of as 'this update' later.

Part 7: Fertility Statue

With Neon’s death – we haven’t set anything up yet, not exactly; we’re not sure what to do, in terms of memorial for the dead. Maybe in a little while, I’ll do some remodeling; I’ve had a lot of plans for that. Mom’s policy of ‘not until we need it’ is going to be trouble, oh, I just know it! – Quicksilver needs some extra care and attention, to keep the sorrows at bay.



But there’s more to the household than Diane and I’s newlywedding (I’m redoubling my focus on the arts, for one – I’ve got a lot of learning to do), or even mourning Neon…

For example, Stannum went to prom. I was so nervous at prom – I can’t help but envy that everyone else seemed to manage it much better. Is that my eternity, watching people be so much better with people than I am?
…Oh. The answer to that is “yes.”
Records from the time indicate that there was not a single girl at this prom. Not a one.
There was, however, Kris. And Kris saw in Stannum, if not in actuality than at least in potentiality, someone like himself: someone interested in anything with a pulse. And maybe some things, specifically ghosts and vampires, without. Or maybe he just liked Stannum, and I’m projecting. Dangers of delving in history, I suppose.
Stannum, for his part – freshly named prom king and proud of it, picking fights with other students – had never thought of himself that way, but Kris smiled and brought him punch, and Stannum shrugged and pulled him onto the floor for a dance. He could do worse for a first love.


That evening, though, Diane and I went out on the town.  We’re both looking to meet more people, with… varying degrees of excitement at the prospect. But we don’t know a lot of people in town.
 And though we’d been having a quiet day – there was no sign of it, the sudden shift in my life that lurked, not even as visible as an iceberg or a shark.
She hadn’t been sick or anything – there was just the news, like a bolt from the blue.

She was pregnant.
To say that the life of the third immortal was…different…from the start is no exaggeration; perhaps a reader should mark it as an omen.
 
Of course, that’s not how I learned it. I learned like this, when I came back from introducing myself to someone:

”Hey, Ferr? I won’t ask you not to freak out, because some things are just impossible, but… Don’t freak out too much, OK? A minimum.
…I’m pregnant.”
For a moment, there was nothing but that sentence, filling up the cosmos. My entire awareness, funneled into that statement: I was going to be a dad. I’d always planned it, on the edge of my awareness, but… That’s different.
And then, a splintering: Did we need more money? Babies cost money, right? We needed to child-proof the house; I know we have some uncovered electric sockets. He could stick his fingers in there. Or she. How am I supposed to be a good father when already I’m making assumptions like that? Would I love her less if she were a girl, is that what I’m saying? How do I know when I love a child enough? What if I don’t? How do I deal with a person who depends on me for love and wisdom and support – I’m barely good at dealing with new people depending on me for small talk about the weather!

”Ferr? How much freaking out are you doing?”
“I’m trying not to,” I muttered.
”Look. You know who’s going to be a great dad? You are. You’re sweet and your sensitive and you’re patient. …And then I’ll have to teach her – or him, or whatever pronoun she eventually goes by, you know, whatever – how to fight for what she wants, and not panic, and not just accept blindly what the world tells her... And it’ll all be great.  Deep breath. Iiiin. And Ooouuut. OK? We’re OK. She’ll have a hyphenated last name, and it will be fine.”
“Is that last part really relevant?”
”Nah, just thought I’d mention it while you’re still reeling.”
I laugh. “Yeah, OK. A little Alchimia-Dreamer.” I take the deep breaths she instructed. Initial panic, slowly being replaced by a mounting excitement. Good. Good. It was going to be fine. It was going to be just fine, terror being replaced with cautious optimism. Of course we had enough money. We could absolutely get the electrical outlets covered, geeze – you think Mom the super-alchemist couldn’t work out how to childproof some electrical devices (she might, however, not see the value. Still. One worry at a time)?
…And of course, whoever, whatever this child is, I’ll love them. All those nerves will attest to that.
We’re going to be parents.
“That’s amazing.”
”There you go. Now, we came here to dance, right? Let’s dance!”
“Wait,” I say as she pulls me to the dance floor. “What about the baby? Your condition!”
”I just found out today – you don’t have to worry yet, alright? I’m not letting this slow me down!”

Well, I can’t argue with that…


But I can assuage my fears by getting us both to read lots, and lots, and lots of pregnancy books when we get home.

A small update on the rest of the household: a small incident made the greenhouse watering system not work as well, so they switched to sprinklers.

This had the obvious results.


Also, look at all those gnomes. Aurum was taking notes on gnome behavior, making particular note of turning on devices and having large, cabal-like meetings. According to her, the appropriate collective noun for a group of gnomes is a “Garden,” if you are being fanciful, or a “Swarm,” if you are not.
I say that gnomes travel in a ‘creeps me the plumbob out,’ but this is why I don’t study gnomes amongst my talents and arts.



As we sat and watched the stars, thinking wistfully of things just yet to come, still looming on the horizon – the baby, what to name it (Mom insists on a name befitting her art, but I’d like one at least relevant to mine… I think I know a good compromise.), what we want out the near future… We look up, and we see…

Lights. There’s a unicorn, somewhere out on the house lot tonight – I wonder if it’s hanging around because it knows something that we don’t.
Perhaps we could call this visit Omen #2 – but then again, maybe not; it was certainly, though, an odd thing.