Soo... I did a lot of procrastinating and decided to get this story out today. Here it is. I'll try to make a steady upload schedule but don't expect too much from me. I respond to comments!
It's Saturday. If I'm not hanging out with my friends or doing something to save the Elvin world, I'm at Slurps and Burps. The Elvin world hasn't needed many favors and my friends have taken to hanging out in the evenings, so I'm stuck behind the counter. I'm mixing a potion that turns your tongue green when Sophie Foster walks in with my father.
I phrased that wrong. That would imply that they were walking in together. My Father just happened to come in the door two seconds after Sophie walked into the shop. My parents pretty much trust me to run the store now, so they leave and get things done while I'm working in it. It's rather convenient. I have the store to myself to do things like make green tongue elixirs instead of cough syrup. I also get paid, so I can do stupid things like put a secret contraption in my room that gives me Mallowmelt when I tell it to.
"Hey Dex," Sophie says, going deeper into the store to look for something.
"Hey Fos Bos," I reply. She turns over her shoulder to glare at me. I send her a wink and then turn back to my elixir, which needed to be stirred. My father goes into the back of the store, I can hear him grumbling as he digs around looking for something. He comes back to the front of the store with a large box of different ingredients. During business hours we make elixirs up in the front instead of in the back room.
"Hey," my father says to me. He looks at the little vat I've made of green-tongue elixir warily. "What you got there son?" I smile sheepishly,
"Noottthhhiiiinnngggg," he nods his head,
"Mhm, so believable. I totally believe you. Just, when you're done with whatever that is please work on something people actually want to buy," I nod at him, we both know I will. My parents stopped funding my gadget making a while ago and I need a steady income. I use a lot of wire. He digs around a little in the box he brought out.
"Cassius wants me to brew him a potion that we don't stock," he mutters half to me half to himself. "Oh, Kesler, do me a favor," he mocks, "I need something that'll make Keefe concentrate harder, nothing too strong, just strong enough for him to actually care about his empathy. No big deal Kestler, no big deal," my father is fuming. People come to him all the time to ask him to make things that he doesn't normally make. "You're talentless, so you don't belong with us, but you make elixirs that work so when we think you're useful I'll shower you with compliments and large amounts of lusters," we don't need the money. All elves are given the same amount when they are born, so the idea of a class system is rudimentary and not necessary. "If it's so important," my father mutters, "make it yourself," Sophie comes to the front of the store as my father mutters something about being putty in their hands. She puts several vials on the counter. Just generic medicinal ones for coughs and headaches and such. She digs around in her pockets for her lusters when I wave her hand away.
"On me Sophie," Again, money is pointless. Unless… "Dad, you know what we could do?" He looks up from his box as Sophie puts the vials in her pockets. They both turn to me. "We could raise prices. They can't do it themselves, so if we wanted to charge a hundred lusters instead of ten, they would have to pay," at the same time, Sophie goes
"Dex, that's genius," and my father goes,
"That would never work," my father crumples his brow, "They can just go buy from someone else, what about other people like us?" By us he means the working class. He can't bring himself to say it. Sophie and I are getting excited now.
"We get the rest of the apothecaries to raise their prices too," I say. This makes my father nod, "We use the same prices for people who own businesses, or we get everyone to do the same thing,"
"I could get Grady and Edaline in on it too," Sophie says, "And we could get Stina and the Heks in too," My father is brightening now.
"It's time for an emergency apothecary meeting,"
The guild of apothecarists is not the biggest, or the best of all the guilds. There's about twelve apothecaries across the lost cities. Twelve people with either no powers or less powerful ones like polyglots. Most of the time the guild meetings are just the families getting together for dinner and light discussion on the topic of elixirs and potions. It happens about twice a month. But today is different. There's only about twenty people in the room, and Sophie and I are the only children in the room. Sophie is getting some strange looks. We're sitting at the dining table at Rimeshire. My mother is on one side of me, Sophie on the other.
Nobody's ever called an emergency meeting of the apothecary guild before.
My father is standing at the front of the room with an empty blackboard and some chalk. He could use telekinesis but he prefers to write it out.
"I bet you are all wondering why I called this meeting," my father says. An amorphous blob of affirmation sounds course through the room.
"I have a high commissioned elixir that needs to be brewed, Kestler!" Someone yells. My father uses this as an opening.
"And this is what we're going to change!" He's getting excited now. He writes on the board Raise Prices. "I'm done being treated like trash! We're not just vessels with which you get what we want. We're elves too!" People start what he means, cheers fill the room. "If we all raise our prices then they have to buy from one of us!" He yells, "We get other professions in on it too. The bakers! Animal Rehabilitators! Tailors! They can't do it themselves, they'll have to pay!" Everyone is standing now. I turn to Sophie, she twirls me in her arms.
It's Happening.
It's Really Happening.