Flakes of metal fell from my fingers like silver snow. I was digging into a lump of metal with the edge of a dagger I had also made from scratch, one tool being crafted to build the next and the two of them combined for all the following implements. Each motion was slow and deliberate, the majority of my mental enhancements going to use to negate my strength and confine my senses and reflexes.

These implements had to be flawed by design and manufacture.

All would be consumed by the frothing brew at my left side. It would have been better if the cauldron, charcoal, and water were completely my own work as well, but I reasoned even the most self-sufficient farmer had to be given his plot of land and the rains.

Long white hair brushed against my right arm.

“Wouldn’t it be faster to use telekinesis? Why waste your time and attention on these… toys?” Livia asked me, scrunched against my right shoulder.

The two of us were seated in a hollow that I had ripped into the bulkhead with my bare hands, carved by my fingernails and smoothed by the pressure and friction of my palms. It had been a small construction effort at first and with my alchemical supplies, Livia, and myself squished in it became far too cramped altogether. The space had been crafted to fit myself alone, but a man didn’t get everything he wanted from the universe.

“The point is not to use the gifts I’ve been given by the gods and Augustas.” I said before amending, “Or at least as little as I can.”

There wasn’t much I could do about my body being more durable and less fatigued than it should be without using other powers on myself.

“Why though? And before you say alchemy, I get that it’s that, but why does my medicine need it done that way?” Livia said.

Seeing her with violet eyes and frostlike hair was still strange after so long knowing her as a Servus.

An Imperator and a Silver one at that. I would have been more pleased with myself if her condition didn’t fluctuate so much.

“I’ve been getting caught up on humanity’s knowledge of alchemy since we left Iulius. It has proven frustrating and convoluted.” I said.

“More of an art than a science then.” Livia said in sympathy.

“The worst of both, more like.” I muttered. “As subjective and vague as art but as boring and complex as science. I’d shoot myself if the bullet wouldn’t atomize itself against my skull.”

“A tortured genius.” She said with exaggeration.

“Truly.” I laughed. “Maybe drop the genius part, but tortured fits.”

Fighting was my natural element, a perpetual arena of risk and rage, but when it came to more academic, political, and scientific matters I felt more like an ordinary person trying to cram hundreds of years of knowledge into one study session before a final exam.

Livia tapped the tool I was working on, pulling back my attention to what she had asked.

“The chunk of alchemy that leans to art and chaos rather than something reasonable is the imparting of meaning to the ingredients. Alone, they’re usually nothing. Half things like leaves in boiling water with a helping of dirt and half components like large amounts of highly toxic metals stirred in. Deadly but childish at the same time. You have to impart something into it.” I explained.

“Power.” Livia said. Hunger had lit in her violet and Silver eyes. For better or worse, Livia had the starved pride and devouring desire that so many lacked. Even after her memories had been wiped.

“If only it were that simple. No, not power. Symbolic action done with intention and effort. If a potion calls for chopped turmeric root, you can bet against the heavens themselves that having it done by someone else will never brew something as potent as one where you sliced up the roots yourself. Spending half an hour making painstakingly precise cuts is worth a thousandfold of a fast but rough one.” I said.

“A Imperator could do it as neatly in a blink. Let alone a Golden one. Let alone you.” She said, kicking a boot against the other side of my scraped-out alcove. Each kick left a shoe shaped indent in the wall, three of them.

“And that would be worth less than if I had chewed it into a mush and then spat it out. There’s a reason why Imperators rarely bother with alchemy. If one of the gods created it personally, they made its fundamentals forgetting what sunshine on your face and fresh air in your lungs felt like.” I said.

I set the knife aside to pick up a small pot of honey and sprinkle some arsenic in it. Livia lifted up the little blade, peering at its scratches and tarnished flaws.

“Surely something sharper and longer could be made though.” She said, spinning the knife through her fingers like it was a pen.

“Sometimes you don’t need something flashy and dangerous when a simpler tool will do the job.” I said.

“Mm.” She replied.

“I heard you trashed an entire deck of the flagship. I almost went to go handle it.” I said without judgement in my voice. Or trying to anyways, I had broken too many things to criticize that harshly.

“There was an insect.” Livia said.

“An insect.” I said flatly.

“A big one. Gross too, vile really.” She said. “I didn’t mean to destroy part of the ship, even if it was only a small bit.”

“Go on.” I said. “Tell me about what happened.”

“I was eating on Deck Thirteen when a cockroach crawled out of my food.” Livia said.

“You didn’t sense it if before you started eating the meal?” I said.

Livia shook her head.

“I have been trying to dampen my senses as much as possible. With the way Antonias taught me. It is a really good one.” Livia said.

“Oh, I’m familiar with it.” I said, smiling lightly at past memories.

“Anyways, I purposely had diminished my hearing and smell and was attempting to ignore everything else. Otherwise, it’s maddening, Adrias. Every movement and every voice screaming constantly in my ears, you know how it is.” She said.

I nodded in silence, stirring the scalding cauldron with a finger after dropping one tool in, leaving just the knife.

“The roach crawled out and I smacked it. It wasn’t even- it wasn’t even like I was trying to to send the table through the deck’s floor, it was just a reflex. I couldn’t stop my body from moving.” Livia said.

“That would be Bronze Rank’s reflexes added in. Easy to twitch and send someone through a brick wall.” I said.

“Funny you should say that.” Livia said. Her facial features had changed, but the grimace was unmistakably hers.

“Who did you throw through a wall?” I asked. “Please tell me it was Toni.”

“The person was me.” Livia said.

I raised an eyebrow. “You threw yourself through a wall?’

“Three. Three walls. Maybe four, I don’t really remember it that well. I had just smacked the cockroach to oblivion and the table through the floor and then everyone started screaming and running around. I couldn’t think, couldn’t remember how to block out all the noise.” Livia said.

“And then you panicked.” I said.

“Yeah. Yeah, I freaked out. Just like the table, it was like I was a passenger in my body as it moved on its own. I wanted to run, to get away, and the rest of me did just that. Smashing through wall after wall.” Livia said, her hands shaking slightly.

I scraped some shavings of oak wood with my makeshift knife into the cauldron.

“Keep going.” I encouraged her.

“Then people tried to attack me and that made it worse. The noise and the colors and the psychic emanations from all of their angry and terrified minds were swallowing me up and I snapped. Then I was the one screaming and I cannot remember what happened after.” Livia said.

Holding up my palm, I let an azure flame manifest into being. Glittering shards of telekinetic razorblades followed in the candleflame’s creation and danced around my hand. A Silver’s divine lightning gifted from the Skyfather came last, buzzing from my fingers to the blades and then little flame.

“Oh.” She said.

“Tore right through Deck Thirteen like it was butter. Only reason I didn’t show up was because Antonias and Persias told me that they would take care of the problem.” I said.

“Are you angry with me?” Livia said.

“Look at this,” I said, turning my attention back to my hand.

The lightning and the telekinetic constructs faded away with a soft humming and the sound of glass cracking.

Leaving only the blue flame.

“Toni and I once burned down a theater as Copper Imperators, you were there even if you don’t remember it. And that was only at Copper. You were granted Silver all at once without the time and slowed progression to experiment and learn. You said you didn’t mean to, and I believe you. Things will be alright.” I assured her.

“Nobody died, right?” Livia said.

“No.” I lied. “Persias staffs his servants with younger and lesser Ranked Imperators because he doesn’t trust the Servi and we have the best of modern medical technology. There were only injuries, but you should stay out of the public eye for now on the flagship. People might still be upset.”

She nodded, bottling up emotions.

I finished the brew by adding my low quality knife in, save for the last step, turning to her and generating a needle with enough glory and might behind it to extract a few drops of blood.

“I’ve got some.” Livia said.

When I looked, my senses still suppressed, I was shocked to see a red stream coming from her nose and left eye.

“When did that happen?” I demanded.

“Just now.”

“That is… very not good.” I said. I held the cauldron over to her and Livia dipped her head down to let scarlet drops fall like rain.

The transformation had not been stable, even after her memories had been wiped. I had found stopgaps to slow and reverse degeneration, and that would have to be enough until I got her to Augustas’s labs.

Her blood primed the elixir, turning it shades of lilac.

“Drink up.” I told her.

“How long until we reach Terra?” She asked, wiping her mouth.

“Soon.” I said. “Very soon.”