Work Text:
A Dour Professor pushed the stack of student papers she was meant to be grading aside, disturbing a precarious second stack at the edge of her desk. What did it matter if they fell? None of them were worth even the paper they were inked upon, much less the time wasted on reading them. A pervasive sense of unfairness permeated the Professor's life; she was meant for more than this, for more than the Arts Department, teaching colour theory to bored Young Stags and dreamy-eyed Bohemians already assured that all the artistic inspiration they needed was best found at the bottom of a honey jar.
Her study of pigments was meant for more than a simple destiny as paints.
Pushing away from her desk in disgust, the Professor turned to contemplate her bookshelf. Teaching never suited a mind like hers, too subtle, too cunning. Carefully, she counted, one, two, three, four... She already knew which book to push, the motion long since worked into her bones, but the ritual calmed her, gave her a moment to savour the anticipation of going to her true work. A push at the ancient cover of a German tome, then pull the small volume three books to the left a quarter of the way out to disable the trap that would set her secrets ablaze if any would-be academic thief should try to carelessly break in: a smaller shelf slid aside, revealing a hidden door. The University held countless such secrets for those discerning academics who cared to find them.
The mere line of warm light seeping through the crack of the door was enough to leech the tension from the Dour Professor's shoulders, to make her thoughts stray to her mother's apple pie in the warm glow of a Surface afternoon–she hastily donned protective goggles before distraction could escalate. Within her secret laboratory, she could distill and refine any pigment to its purest form. Already, her latest work produced a clearer and more potent shade of Cosmogone than even the Parabolan Sun itself.
(Well, probably. What, was she meant to risk her own life and limb braving the wilderness behind the glass? No, thank you. What was the point of tenure if not to have others to do the tedious (and dangerous) field research for her?)
Just a few drops of such a pigment blended into an ink used to pen a tender letter, could be enough to harm–if not the body, then the mind. Even a touch of melancholy could be spun into madness, could be spun into 'unfit to inherit'. Add a hint of Apocyan for a former lover for a maddening nostalgia for what could have been, and now never will be. The cruelty of Violant to underscore the effect for life. A truly refined buyer could enact almost any torment with the stroke of a pen.
A Professor's salary only stretched so far, and secret scientific breakthroughs didn't come cheap. The Dour Professor was careful to keep a complex web of proxies and false fronts between herself and her clientele. No one knew she was the seller. She tapped an agitated rhythm with her nails against a glass instrument, very firmly not thinking of a letter hidden in the lowest drawer of her desk. A so-called colleague, all pleasantries and poisonous hints. An Academic of some slight renown, whose highest highs and lowest lows both outpaced the Dour Professor to a galling degree. Was there no reward for consistency in the world?
It must be a bluff–maybe they caught a hint somewhere, maybe she let slip some hint of her interests somewhere, somehow, but they couldn't possibly have any proof with which to blackmail her. For the very formulas and methods of her work, no less! A would-be rival! Well, the Dour Professor would not be intimidated, d__n them. How dare they? None of those scatter-brained weirdos running around and setting fire to their own hair had ever given her or her work a second glance, and now suddenly one of them wanted to steal her life's work for themself? They were looking down on her. They probably didn't even mix their own Violant ink! She wouldn't have it. She was a serious scientist, busy conducting serious experiments worthy of awe and respect. She would ignore the letter, and nothing would change.
Things did change, as things are wont to do. The Professor's favourite café suddenly closed. Rumours swirled of the owner selling everything he owned to afford passage to meet with a wealthy Khaganian pen-pal. Her second favourite café also closed. This time, the owner had won a parcel of land in the Hinterlands in a lottery she didn't remember entering. The Professor's third favourite café remained open, but an abrupt change in ownership preceded a notable drop in both quality and cleanliness.
Unlucky coincidences. A drainage issue forced the Professor out of her lodgings, but the smell of the black sludge leaking from the sink seemed to stick to her clothes for weeks. The attic room her hasty search for housing turned up was shared with a revelrous fraternity of youthful L.B.s whose political passion for tenants' rights and unionization brought unwelcome questions from dangerous-looking men with big sticks to the door at all hours of the day, but made themselves mysteriously scarce whenever rent was due.
By the time the Midnight Fireworks Society had chosen the street beneath her window as the location for their nightly practice for the third week in a row, 'on anonymously submitted request from neighbourhood enthusiasts', the Professor began to suspect that she was being targeted.
Coworkers commented on the changes such upheavals had brought about in her behind her back, on her pale, pinched expression, on her erratic jumping at shadows, on the dark circles set permanently under her eyes. Were they in on it? Was there anyone on campus she could trust?
A careless mistake that saw a sample of Virric tainted with a trace of Irrigo and lead to the Professor nearly erasing her own ability to dream was the final straw. This couldn't go on. Just last week, her own students spent a whole class enthusiastically discussing a recently popular poem which, seemingly innocently, contained several allusions to an important letter left forgotten in the bottom drawer of a foolish side character's desk. The same day, a tin of her favourite fungal crackers went missing from her bag, and none of her coworkers seemed to even care that a thief was boldly raiding a Professor's belongings. She had found the tin later behind her desk where it had fallen from her bag, but still! No one was on her side.
That d____d letter. The sender was no colleague, but a demon emerged straight out of some deeper, darker hell than even the devils operated out of, sent to torment her. What normal person could have done all this!?
In absolute privacy, the Professor retrieved the letter with the same care she would handle a live bomb. She scanned the page, reread the paragraphs, searching for some clue. Aha–there. A highly diluted solution of Peligin dabbed atop the page, and... with all the lights turned off, Gant letters peeked furtively from the page. A single line. A drop-off point. If she had found this straight away, the Professor might have been reluctantly impressed. As it was, she was too scared and angry to take any pleasure in the trick.
Through the night, she copied all her notes, all she had ever learned of the Neathbow in her studies, even the specifications for the more specialized parts of her distillation equipment. In the morning, she dropped off the lot, doing a very poor job of acting normal and inconspicuous. But never mind. In her office with her fourth cup of coffee, things were already starting to look brighter. She hadn't given anything up, not really. She hadn't lost her original notes, or her laboratory. Her existing clientele was still hers, and it would take time for an upstart rival to establish a foothold in the illicit poison trade. She was practically a criminal mastermind, d__n it all. Now that this horrid spot of blackmail was over with, things would go back to normal, and she would still be a far more established scientist–and seller–than some vile dabbler.
A fifth cup of coffee, and then she would get back to work. And not a single unexpected thing would go wrong today.
A package delivered with breakfast. The wrapping was a page from a freshly unpublished newspaper, but this particular page was filled merely with brisk summaries of the least interesting news items of the day:
STUDENT PRANK TURNS INCENDIARY
A once-respected Dour Professor set her office on fire after mistaking a group of prankster students dressed as Special Constables for the genuine article. The students, who referred to their fraudulent costuming as 'performance art', sustained relatively minor burns and are now in custody pending judgement. The Professor is believed to have p–
The impatient recipient discarded the crumpled page without a second glance. Of far more interest were the wrapped contents, a selection of exceedingly small vials, each able to hold a few drops of liquid at most, just enough to coat the insides in shimmering colours. A note accompanying the paltry array was seized by eager claws.
I have lately come into control of the only source of a set of ink pigments of some charm. If you should happen to be interested, a generous offer might persuade me to share. But, of course, if you find that this sampler is enough to satiate, I shall humbly keep the lot to myself!
P.S. Release the Blemmigan & Cream back to its original owner, and I might consider your first offer, you lout. Their new coffee tastes of river water.
Ink. With all the vials combined, one might optimistically have enough to write out the word 'the'. The recipient uncorked a vial and took a long sniff, then promptly sneezed, having inhaled the lot. There went half the 'e'. The purity of the Virric would be acceptable for affecting a suggestible human and no more, as the recipient's pen-pal must also have observed, else the note would have contained some ineffective attempt at nefareptitious application.
Aesthetically, the colours were pleasing, however, only enhanced by the slight piquant tingle of manipulative effect. It would be a delight to write with them. If one had more than a few drops. Eyes narrowing, claws fumble for an ink pot. This little joke would require swift, merciless castigmonishment.