CHAPTER 8: One step closer – Part III
It took time untill the late evening, but finally, Varian managed to finish his experiments and researches on the Moondrops. When he came towards Cas and me, who were sitting in another corner of the room, he proudly showed us two small testing tubes which were shimmering in a light tone of violet and something blue from the inside of the crystal glass.
"That's it. These are the only two samples of Essence of Darkness ever held in a container. At least so far."
He turned the tubes a little and the 'Moondrops' inside the tubes softly swashed from one side to the other.
"Sadly, those are the only samples we can get, at all. As you know, the Cassandrium-generator vanished during the science-contest, back then, and so, all that was left of the material was the stone on Cassandra's necklage..."
His cheeks turned a bit red as he talked about the present he gave to Cassandra once. And it seemed to me, that he still had some trouble, understanding why she still had been wearing the necklage, although he had tried to kill her just one month ago...
"But it worked, and -TADAA!- here we are..."
He closed his hands around the tubes and sat down next to us on a small box, which stood simply around.
"Oh! Wait!"
All of a sudden, he jumped up again and rushed over to his desk again. There, he carefully laid down the test tubes and rummaged around his stuff for a second.
"I almost forgot to give it back...", he admitted and pulled out a small but colorful necklage from under a stack of papers and books.
"There you are..."
He went back to us and turned straight to Cassandra.
"There's not much left of the Cassandrium, for the tubes swallowed over half of the material...", he said, holding the necklage towards Cassandra who seemed to be pretty puzzled about his action, "But as you seemed to like it, I put back together what I could and fixed a new Cassandriumstone for you..."
He stared down on the wooden floor under his shoes and presented Cassandra the new piece of jewellery.
No reaction.
"You... You don't like it, do you?", he asked, voice trembling. Then, he lifted his gaze and faked a smile.
"It's okey! Never mind! I'll put it somewhere else then and..."
Varian turned bright red, when suddenly Cassandra grabbed his arm and made him sit down next to her.
"Where are you going?", she asked reprehensively, "You haven't eaten anything, since we arrived at Old Corona and you worked all day to find out, what it is all about those drops. So, for God's sake: Just sit down and eat."
She released his arm and put a plate infront of the alchemist whit some bread, cheese and meat on it. Then she grasped the necklage out of his hands.
"And stop running away with my presents!" With this words, she put on the necklage and hid it under her pullover again as if it couldn't belong anywhere else.
In fact, it did, I thought smiling, while Varian seemed a little confused. I knew, they had been very good friends for a very long time. And I was sure -despite the things that had happened – they still were...
So, after Varian had recovered from this 'shock', we decided to spent the evening together, mainly focusing on how to use the so called 'Moondrops' in the end. And, concerning myself, I was also thinking of Eugene. Hoping, that he was alright and would really be able to close up to us again before we had to leave Old Corona...