In an admittedly unorthodox fashion, Demi learned the basics of Fluid Alchemy and managed to produce a number of potions and medicines of various effects. She worked earnestly at it even though she was not earning any experience toward Fluid Alchemy levels and thus remained at level one.
Demi was anxious to be of some help to Tata, so she focused her studies on making potions and medicines as opposed to, say, bombs. Both Stable and Fluid Alchemy had quite a lot to say on the subject of bombs.
Alchemists just love things that explode, don’t they? Demi mused. Even things that probably shouldn’t explode. Alchemists seem to want to try and make them explode just to see if they can.
Demi primarily focused her attentions on making things that did not explode. The last thing she wanted to do was to make some kind of bandage that blew up in Tata’s face.
Just a little more, Demi thought to herself as she looked at the medicines and potions lined up on her shelf.
After several days of hard work, she felt that she had quite a lot to be proud of.
There were medicinal herbs drying on a rack, and rolls of medicated bandages nearby, along with antiseptic, ointment for sore muscles, bug spray, and coagulant. She also had simple herbal medicines for nausea, fever, headache, and cough. These were the results of her dedicated study.
Each one had been a little better than the last, as she learned what she was doing, but she still thought she could do better. For one thing, even though the potions showed positive effects when she examined them, they all smelled so terrible when she opened their bottles that she had not yet chanced to drink one herself.
(She reasoned to herself that it was because she wasn’t hurt or sick, but the real reason was that they smelled so bad she was sure they would taste like liquid death.)
So she would keep practicing.
Demi couldn’t stand the idea of going to see Tata, getting her hopes up, and then not being able to even ease her distress or quiet her symptoms.
So Demi put on the little hood and shawl she had begun to wear whenever she went gathering in the forest and set out to acquire some more ingredients, singing to herself all the while.
“Magical goddess, magical goddess, akazukin Demi. ~”