He Got Bettah!

Jerb:

Two sets of eyes studied the flask as if the purple glowing liquid might somehow begin speaking. Old, experienced eyes gazed with more curiosity behind them, crinkles thickening ever so slightly as she pondered over the contents. Locked within her aged mind a sharpness remained, brain collecting potential ingredients for the concoction with a fierce speed and eliminating unlikely suspects all the faster. Thick, woven silver locks slid down her back as she straightened up and away from the bottle, face no less readable than moments ago, though her eyes seemed to declare that she’d figured it out.

Younger eyes continued to bore into the lone item on the table as if it might spontaneously burst into song and dance or cluck like a chicken, brows furrowing by the second and lips twisting more and more into thought. Despite her young age the girl inherited her family’s dominant gray hair, though down the road it’d likely lighten to match her grandmother’s. ”Are…are you sure you created this…from our ingredients?” her soft voice finally asked, uncertainty dripping in every word. It still seemed…impossible in her mind.

”Yep!” Shade’s proud voice piped up, the girl smiling. Despite the long bout of silence it refused to lessen in any degree of brightness, the girl ecstatic with her creation. At any moment she expected little else than praise as this would surely be a best seller.

”I…” the younger woman hesitated, momentarily unwilling to burst that bubble, but with a strengthening breath she steeled herself. Playing nice would come back to bite her in the butt and both mother and grandmother raised her to be honest! ”I…don’t think we can sell this…”

Finally the smile vanished, replaced with shock and confusion, ”Why not?!”

”Well, I was really hoping for something more along the line of what we sell…I mean…we’re primarily in health in cosmetics…and…I did request you make a hair color changing potion. I even laid out some of the base ingredients for you so it was really more about creating a crazy and wild color design…” blue orbs briefly turned back to Shade as she tried to explain before returning to the flask in complete bafflement, ”I really, really don’t understand how you created a body transmogrification potion! I mean you turned that guy into a newt!”

”He got better!”

”That wasn’t the point,” the young woman groaned. At any moment palm threatened to meet face, the shopkeeper feeling a bout of exasperation creeping up on her.

”Well…it altered him AND his hair so…if anything it’s better than what you wanted! I mean it’s even more useful!” the summoner cried, a pout forming on her fair face. The older woman stifled a chuckle, almost sure she could see the young wizard’s hair puffing up in her clear annoyance at her creation being declared anything but a resounding success. ”Who needs sparkly hair or fluctuating rainbow braids when you could be a newt! And it’s not like its permanent or anything either, he wasn’t one for that long! Maybe some of these people could do with a little spicing up of their lives anyways!” At the end of her statement Shade planted her fists on her hips, chin raising in defiance of the other woman’s criticisms.

”Well, it’s not exactly what we’re looking for,” the elder woman’s voice interrupted her granddaughter’s, a hint of amusement laced in her deeper tone, ”but it’s not necessarily wrong either. We may have been looking for some new looks…but laughter is good for the soul I like to think.” A hand molded by the years reached out and picked up the bottle by the neck, bringing the liquid closer to the light and drawing the two warring girls’ attention to her smile. It reached all the way to her eyes where a mischievous sparkle could be seen for a few moments, ”Nothing wrong with a small joke here and there, and we can always make a few more animals for variety’s sake. Though next time I would appreciate it if you asked before borrowing ingredients from my personal stash.”

For the first time in a long while, Shade offered a sheepish apology.