Potion of Common Speech (Works for 8 Hours)

*References to character death and slavery, implied multiple deaths, but no actual death in this short. Yes, my characters both have PTSD, and yes they are trying to act like they are fine, even in front of each other. This is part of a collection I'm making. Order is irrellevant to collection, but is relevant to prompts instead. Enjoy.

Dr. Collin Kin was a brilliant scientist. Never let it be denied. The young man was also a brilliant alchemist. Magic was something he could do easily. His own first language was the magical one of his home land. At the moment though, he was working on something to help with that. He had trouble speaking in common. He always had. His friends had tried to teach him, as had his uncle. Everyone hated that he had to use magic to speak common, only because he had to deal with a cut on his hand when he did it. His speech spell required a small amount of blood, and he tended to cut his hand in order to get it. Now, he was trying to work on a potion to allow him to talk in common, if only for a few hours.

Dr. Kin had been studying old spell books and potion recipes for years to try and find an alternative to his small spell. For such a tiny amount of blood that was required, he found it amusing how many people were concerned with his health because of it. Cutting his hand for a spell was a small thing compared to other bad habits he had picked up over the years. His worst habit, if he had to be honest, was how often he would teleport from the northern kingdom of Frost to the southern kingdom of Southern Point. It was over 10,000 miles after all, and he was always exhausted after teleporting that far. The only reason he even did that was to check in on the family he had been forced to leave behind. So long as they were safe though, he’d argue he was doing the right thing.

“Hey, King. What’s on fire today?” Dr. Kin turned with an unamused expression towards his lab door. His best friend, as well as oldest companion, Dr. Kaleem Omar was there.

Dr. Kin rolled his eyes. It was an old joke between a few of their friends that when they had been younger and sold into slavery by a wicked witch, Collin had been the king of the pits. He always hated that nickname, but not for the reason that the others thought. He was as dangerous as he was smart. It had been a shock to everyone around him when he finally revealed he had magical powers. That had been when the Queen of Frost had been doing a raid with her soldiers against the compounds that held him and his friends as a child. He owed his life to Queen Crystal, and was more than happy to offer his services to her and her kingdom in return for his friends’ safety and her discretion about his birth identity.

Collin rolled his eyes as he glanced at his friend. Kaleem was smart, but a touch dense. At least, that’s how Collin first perceived him. They had known each other since infancy, and it wasn’t until they were sold into slavery that Collin had started to notice it wasn’t Kaleem that had a problem… it was him. He wasn’t normal. Too smart. Finding his uncle had given him the explanation that it was just a family thing, as the entire family they came from was full of geniuses. Real hazard when one wanted to make friends, so Collin was lucky Kaleem put up with him most days.

Collin lit a single finger on fire with his inner magic, and held a vial with a purple liquid just over the flame. Each kingdom had their own magic that was given by birth. Collin and Kaleem were from Southern Point, so they were born with fire magic. Collin’s magic that didn’t include fire was the magic that had costs such as blood and other things. It was little wonder why the magic books were all locked up in the wizard’s tower. Too bad Magus Markus hadn’t thought about toddlers who could read ancient languages naturally by some weird twist of the gods. Collin wasn’t sure which of the gods to blame for his troubles, though his father and uncle both tended to be angry at Aphrodite. He wasn’t too sure it was entirely her fault. Mortals had plenty to blame for his life as well.

“Ah, so it’s another speech potion. Think it’ll work this time?” Collin shrugged. Kaleem snickered. “Let’s just hope you don’t end up speaking like a farm animal again, though that was funny.” Collin had to agree and snickered. It sounded like the rattling of a maraca as his voice was layered with magic naturally.

Sol Speakers, such as Collin, always had a hard time learning how to speak in Common. The more powerful one was, the harder it was. Unfortunately, a lot of people looked down on Sol speakers because of that, not fully understanding their magical abilities, as using Sol Magic wasn’t easy and wasn’t often taught. Collin’s father and Uncle had been trying to get the education system in Southern Point to add more lessons for Sol Speakers to help them, as well as teach the public how to speak in Sol again so that everyone would be on equal footing with their language and heritage again. That had been before Collin and Kaleem had been separated. Collin’s uncle as well. It had been a dark five years before Collin and Kaleem had gained their freedom and found Collin’s uncle; Julian. Julian had gained his freedom sooner and had become a royal scientist for the Frost kingdom to hide from the woman who had sold them into slavery and threatened their families should they return. Julian was smart, but he couldn’t figure out what to do in this situation than hide away and try to figure something out. Kaleem would always follow Collin’s lead, despite being older by four months. As for Collin, well, he was plotting and planning. That woman would pay for all the pain they had gone through… soon… very soon…

The vial in Collin’s hands turned a deep rich blue. He allowed the flame that danced upon his finger to extinguish and gently shook the vial in a stirring motion.

Kaleem frowned. “I hate that you have to do this…” Collin shrugged, seemingly not understanding the problem. “If you die again, I’m not cleaning up the mess.” Another snicker from Collin. Collin’s personal special ability of Phoenix Fire allowed him to die and then come back to life unless certain conditions were met. His final death was predetermined by himself and the gods as far as the legends of the ability went. If Kaleem hadn’t seen him die so many times, he wouldn’t believe it.

Collin held the vial out to Kaleem to analyze. Kaleem grabbed a notebook and wrote down the chemical foundation and ingredients, as well as anything else his own ability, Chemical Analysis, would show him. Once Kaleem looked up at Collin and nodded, the scientist drank his own potion.

Alchemy, chemistry, magic, baking, it was almost all the same to Collin. It was a mixture of something or other, and if you got the compounds right, the results could be amazing. It was about one of the few reasons he tolerated his ability of Phoenix Fire. It meant that he didn’t have to worry about someone else accidentally dying from his experiments or recipes.

Kaleem grimaced as Collin stood back and waited to see if anything happened. “Well? You gonna die again, or what?”

Collin rolled his eyes and started muttering under his breath. “Die again, he says, as though I like doing that, sheesh, the nerve. Dying is painful. Haven’t died peacefully once.”

“OH! Oh! I understood that!” Kaleem fist pumped the air as Collin turned to look at him, his mind processing what that meant. Kaleem also stored that information away for later. Ouch.

“Ah, finally!” Collin’s blue eyes sparked with excitement despite how his expression looked a tad annoyed.

“You did it!” Kaleem cheered.

“Pfft, is this the part where I say that weird word… Eureka? What’s the point of that word again?”

“Hehe, I don’t know, I’m just glad you finally got a formula that works! Just imagine how many people this will help!” Kaleem beamed at his best friend.

“It could revolutionize the entire speech problem not only from Southern Point, but also for any Lune speakers as well!” Sol and Lune were both magic languages, but only those who spoke it realized how similar they really were. It was like speaking the same language but with a slight accent. Collin was rather proud of what he had accomplished this time.

“So, how long will it last?”

“How the heck am I supposed to know this early?” Collin raised a brow. “You’re the guy with Chemical Analysis. Can you tell?”

“…No…”

“Well alright then, we have to wait. This is one of the more annoying parts. I know I drank an entire eight ounce vial worth of this potion, so we’ll just write down that, and I’m already aware of the time of intake, so once we have the time for when it wears off, we’ll be able to write that down and calculate the length of time it lasted in order for it all to be documented.”

“… you know you could just say we’ll just write down how long it lasts, right?” Both doctors smirked at each other.

“Kaleem, I hate to burst your bubble, but I’m a rather long winded fellow in general. This is just up for par now that I don’t have to cut my hand every eight hours.” Collin went on to start making more while the two continued talking, testing how long it lasted.

Collin was rather amused to find that the potion lasted as long as the spell. Both equaled out to eight hours of speaking common without pain. The components for the potion were cheaper for making batches rather than individual sets, so he made the list of ingredients with the locations to find them and the recipe to send to the royal families of Frost and Sol respectively. He also made a second set to send to all the hospitals in the two kingdoms. One of the perks of being a royal doctor and scientist is that people tended to listen to him on these kinds of things, despite not knowing how old he was… or perhaps because of it, Collin thought ruefully to himself. At least he could finally get his friends off his back over his cutting, and get his uncle to calm down over how often he bled. Surprisingly, bleeding out was not one of the ways he had died yet. He rolled his eyes as he thought about it. Maybe he should go to therapy… or back to his baking. He liked baking… yeah, going back to baking would be good for him. Too many people as it was knew what he had been through, no need to mentally scar someone else… and no one but his uncle needed to know that he had successfully pulled this off at the tender age of 15… he’d never hear the end of it otherwise.