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Stupid, dumb potion.
Shubble huffed at the boiling pot.
She was determined. She would that she would perfect it.
Yes, maybe she’d failed a couple times. Maybe she’d botched up magic before. Maybe she'd never succeeded. But Shubble would not let that stop her. Especially considering she had a more friends that needed help from such a potion. …especially since she herself needed that magic too.
“Good first impression. I need a good first impression first. These people need to know I mean no harm and that I’m good at what I do.” She poured the potion into some smaller vials. She learned after last time. Mixing potions needed to be done methodically and tested in small doses.
Otherwise, you’d have an upset stomach which was far more pain than it was worth.
Sometimes learning the hard way was good though. Shubble had figured out the ups and downs to being a witch so surely…
…surely this was who she was. Shubble was born a witch... yet...
“I can do this.”
All the motivational quotes in the world couldn’t save her. All the impowering words she told herself didn't change her want to flop on her bed and cease to exist. But Empires had guests. And even without guests, Shubble had a life. She had goals to achieve, problems to solve.
She couldn’t just succumb to some emotional and physical pain every time it rolled around for that dreaded week a month. She couldn’t help the fact that throughout the day blood just decided to randomly glob up on her. She couldn’t help the fact that her insides screamed in agony. She couldn’t help the fact that she felt hopeless and utterly useless; one minute happy and one minute terribly depressed.
But even with all circumstances Shubble couldn’t control, she knew she had to stay resilient. A child could excuse dramatics, but Shubble was on her own now and that meant she had to stay competent for herself. She couldn’t just lie around all day.
Shubble had to move on in life, get things done.
~ ~ ~
In a very weird chain of events that Shubble couldn’t really explain… somehow she’d gotten an apprentice? Even though she technically never graduated from magic school? Somehow she’d gotten someone who wanted to be taught by her? Seriously?
She could about cry, but that was also the hormones speaking. It really wasn’t right of her to cry either. She’d just gotten her chance and who was Shubble to botch it up by being an emotional wreck!
Either way, she now had Tango following her back to her Empire, with the goal to learn how one did witchy things. Shubble, by all means, was no teacher, but she would be honored to share such a skill. And maybe if she did it well, she could play off all prior incompetence!
Of course… she was Shubble, so of course she fumbled along too.
“Well, the hat sort of comes with the magic, you know? And since I’m teaching you magic, you might as well keep the hat!” Shubble explained.
“But the Sheriff did say we weren’t supposed to wear—”
“And who cares what the law says?” Shubble interjected. And maybe that wasn’t a good first impression — most people cared about being law-abiding citizens. “I mean– not that I want to go against rules, of course, but just– I personally do not care if you wear the witch hat. I mean, it’s an honor really, to think that you like it. And I think it looks good on you!”
She was rambling. Shubble knew she was rambling, but in some ways, she just couldn’t help herself. Interactions were difficult, and she was awkward… and…
…Tango would probably make his way out of the magical, fog consumed forest pretty soon, once Shubble got annoying.
“If that’s the case, then I guess I’ve got to wear the hat then!” But if Tango’s enthusiasm to all things witch attire and witch magic said anything, he might’ve not been annoyed just yet.
She led the way into the small brewery building. The area was still a mess from earlier, the potions all scattered around, books opened to different pages including her own for note taking, ingredients not yet put on proper shelves… Shubble hadn’t been expecting guests, but still.
Before Tango could get a good look at the counter space, Shubble quickly closed up the books and piled them on top of each other. Then she pushed back the potions to a corner of the counter behind some other potion appliances. Putting away the ingredients was harder, though she had to thank the witches of the Academy that they didn’t teach just anybody what ingredients did what. …that all this was for her work-in-progress potion that would cure ailment of menstrual cramps, of all things. That would sound dumb to any outsider who didn’t understand it.
Yes, thank the higher witches that this man who’d just randomly showed up in Empires, knew little to nothing of magic, and thus, would never notice anything was up.
Of course, maybe in her rush it might’ve revealed she had secrets, though.
“Sorry this place is such a mess. Didn’t really expect company, ya know?” Shubble said breathlessly.
“You’ve never seen Scar’s chest monsters, have you?”
Shubble didn’t really know who Scar was, though she remembered the name as one told in the multitude of new interactions she had. Given this statement though, she could only assume these “monstrous” chests were far worse than what was scattered across her desk.
“No, I haven’t. But still. Part of witchery 101 is to keep a clear space. Clear space to have a clear, focused mind. There’s more room for mistake and mishap if you accidentally put in the wrong ingredient.”
Shubble finished up putting the spices and additives in the respective spots. It was a rushed job, but evidence of any experimentation was out of the way.
“So, what kind of magic would you like to learn first?” A small bit of anxiety bubbled up as she realized she was offering magic advice. Shubble. The witch who couldn’t actually do magic well at all.
“You’re the teacher. What’s a cool spell I could learn quick?”
Oh.
There were… a lot of spells. A lot of “easy” spells that even Shubble couldn’t do. And most of the simple ones were more functional.
“Like, how’d you turn your frog purple?”
Shubble sighed a bit. That was easier to explain. “Well, tortoise turning purple was a bit different than a typical spell. That was my magic essence. And each empire has their own essence. Mine just happens to be perfect on toads. You can try it too, if you’d like.” Shubble looked around for some spare.
“All I have to do is toss some on a frog?”
She handed him the small bag of dust. “Not too much, but that’s the idea!” She felt a bit more comfortable now. Teaching about magic essence was far easier. It wasn’t something so bizarre that she couldn’t teach it.
Though it did take a demonstration and a couple of overdosed-with-magic frogs.
“Yeah, you’ve got the hang of it!” Shubble encouraged once he finally turned his third frog purple.
And she was far more happy than she could describe that Tango was excited over it too. “My own purple toad!”
“You’re officially a witch now!” Shubble beamed at him. “Now then, maybe I should show you something more standard, like working with potions.” They went back to the potion building, the place feeling a bit more cramped after they’d been outside working with magic.
“So what kind of potions have you made for people?”
“Well, one time I tried making something for fWhip, which was what gave him the enlarged goblin ears. It wasn’t really… intentional, you know, but I take full credit for his improved hearing. I could never figure out how to reverse it either…”
“He sounded pretty proud of those goblin ears. He even gave Scar a pair of the wing-ears.”
Shubble gave a small laugh. “Yeah, those were the second time round. Somehow I made the ears even bigger and I was surprised he didn’t absolutely give up on me then.”
“Well, mistakes were made, but they’re pretty cool mistakes.”
Shubble didn’t comment further. She didn’t need to. She already exposed herself for botching up that, and if she talked on her failures too long, Tango probably wouldn’t trust her at all to teach him. (Who would trust Shubble? She’d screwed up plenty of times already.)
Instead Shubble flipped through one of her other potions books, seeing what else she could come up with. And ended up getting so focused on finding one and experimenting with potions, that she bored her company and he…
Disappeared? Turned into the toad in the room?
TURNED INTO THE TOAD IN THE ROOM?!
“Uh, Tango? What-where did you go? Did I– Did I somehow turn you into a toad? Or did you run off? Or something? Did the fog consume you?”
How could Shubble just ignore her first ever apprentice like this?
She knew she wasn’t meant for this position, she knew she couldn’t do it, she knew it would be a disaster.
“Tango? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
Panic rose in her chest and she knew it wasn’t productive to freak out like this, but of course this was going to happen.
“I’ll try to fix this.” She opened up different cabinets. She had to fix her mistake. She searched and she searched but there was nothing in here to tell her how to fix people who’d been turned into toads. And there was only one movie she could reference for a fix and she would not go down that route.
Ooooh no, she wouldn’t. Especially after how it failed with Scott and Owen.
The idea that her options were limited (if she had any at all) were not comforting.
“...oh no, what do I do? How did this happen? How can I reverse it?” She paced around the room, trying to steady her breath.
And then the door opened.
And there was Tango.
Shubble looked up at him and blinked a few times. “Oh. Oh my goodness. You’re okay. I thought I’d— oh—” She wrung her hands a little, getting all excess anxiety out of her. “I thought somehow you’d turned into the toad here, because that sounds like something that could happen to me and I probably do have a potion that could turn you into one. And– oh, that nearly gave me a heart attack.”
It sounded a bit dumb. Sounded dumber to think that Shubble likely had made a potion of toadness on accident.
“Oh, sorry. I was checking out the empire. No unwanted toads here.” Tango sounded much less concerned than he should be. “But you think you could turn me into a toad?”
Shubble laughed nervously. “Probably. I mean, I haven’t done it yet, but I wouldn’t put it past me.”
“Could you do it?”
“What?”
“Well, you just said you thought you turned me into a toad, so maybe you could actually do it. It might be fun! And then you could turn me back when I actually have to build and do redstone and stuff.”
He was far too interested by this idea.
“Well, I don’t know if that’d be a good idea. I’m not— I can’t–” She laughed again, this time fighting a weird overflowing emotion of embarrassed sadness. It was totally out of line. She shouldn’t act like this in front of someone. “I mean, I can try, but I don’t think I could do it, and if I could, I’m not sure I could fix it.”
She turned away, trying to focus on mixing random ingredients. This went from trying to teach Tango how to make a potion to trying not to have a full meltdown over virtually nothing.
“Well, if you don’t want to do it, I won’t force you to. You’re probably right. It’s pretty risky and I’ll need to be a human if I’m to finish up on a redstone machine I’m building for fWhip.”
Shubble nodded as she chopped up some netherwart. “Don’t let me keep you if you’ve got better places to be.”
“I still want to learn this potion you’re working on.”
She took a deep breath. She wasn’t getting out of this so easily. “I don’t know if I can actually do it. You’re better off learning from some guide book.”
Tango stood next to her, leaning over to watch everything she did in preparation. “That’s boring.”
“I’m sorry, but I– I– I can’t do it. I don’t know how to explain what I do, I don’t even know what I’m doing half the time, and nearly all the time it results in failure. I know I’m supposed to be a witch, but there’s a reason I live here instead of with all the others that can do magic.”
Shubble finished mashing up the netherwart and took its juices and mixed it with the water.
“But what’s magic if not a bunch of botched up attempts and then one amazing success? Redstone’s like that. Building’s like that. Have you known anyone to do anything effortlessly?”
She looked up at Tango with a look that answered his question enough. “I’m a witch. That’s who I am. That’s who I was born to be. Everyone else can do it, maybe not right away, but they caught on. I… haven’t.”
He didn’t really have a response for that. Even Tango couldn’t deny such a statement, despite only hearing of Shubble’s failures, never a witness to it.
“I explode things, I ruin things, I’ve nearly made myself sick over potions. I grew fWhip’s ears twice. I messed up a whole massive chunk of this world and we had to reset it.”
He pulled her into a hug. It wasn’t any encouragement, any false statement to say that she was just being hard on herself — Shubble wasn’t, everyone didn’t believe in her, even herself. It wasn’t a solution.
But by all means, Shubble knew Tango didn’t hate her. And maybe that meant far more than being a good witch.
“You know, Scar was telling me he was going to talk to Jimmy about his whole toy nonsense. He said he was trying to convince Jimmy that he was more than a sheriff, that who he was wasn’t a toy or a leader or anything of the like. And same to you. You’re a person. You’re not just a witch, or a bad one or a good one or whatever title you think you have. You’re Shubble, and that’s all that matters.”
Shubble tightened the hug. “Thank you. That means– means a lot more than you could know.” The hug lasted for what felt like eternity (though eternity would’ve been awkward, so Shubble had proof it wasn’t that long). “Do you maybe want to help me with potions and stuff? And that way we can figure it both out as we go along?”
“That sounds amazing. What are you in the middle of?”
Shubble looked over at the potion pushed off to the side. It hadn’t really been completed yet. There were still problems to iron out, rather, rebrew out.
And yeah, she’d put it to the side because she didn’t want anybody knowing her need for such a pain relieving potion. …but maybe it’d help just to have another eye on everything. Maybe it’d help to have someone at her side when work got just a bit overwhelming and she needed somewhat of encouragement to keep going.
“Well, you know that potion I put up when you got here? I could use some help with it.”