#“have you ever wondered if your centuries long war were caused by the royal feud or was it because you and france were sexually frustrated”

[roseydoom]

has anyone done a cunk on earth art of hetalia or not yet because i think that shit would be funny af

[imjustthemechanic]

Natalie Jones and the Golden Ship

Part 1/? - A Meeting at the Palace Part 2/? - Curry Talk Part 3/? - Princess Sitamun Part 4/? - Not At Rest Part 5/? - Dead Men Tell no Tales Part 6/? - Sitamun Rises Again Part 7/? - The Curse of Madame Desrosiers Part 8/? - Sabotage at Guedelon Part 9/? - A Miracle Part 10/? - Desrosiers’ Elixir Part 11/? - Athens in October Part 12/? - The Man in Black Part 13/? - Mr. Neustadt Part 14/? - The Other Side of the Story Part 15/? - A Favour Part 16/? - A Knock on the Window Part 17/? - Sir Stephen and Buckeye Part 18/? - Books of Alchemy Part 19/? - The Answers

Desrosiers tells her story, and makes a promise.

Natasha had so many questions she wanted to ask, she wasn’t sure where to begin.  Fortunately, Sharon was there – she’d brought her digital recorder, and she had a procedure for questioning, inherited from her police work.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” she said, turning the recorder on.  “What’s your name?”

That shouldn’t have been a difficult question, but Desrosiers looked like she had no idea how to answer it.

“The one you were born with,” Natasha suggested.  “Neustadt said you were Perenelle Flamel.  Is that your real name?”

“No,” Desrosiers sighed.  “No, my name is…” she paused, thinking about it.  “The modern equivalent would be Phuong.  I was an alchemist at the court of Chungsuk – the Yuan let women study alchemy, but by that time it was a bit of a dying art.  The old masters who’d sought the secrets of nature were gone, and all that were left were a bunch of herb-grinders.”  Her voice was wistful.  Natasha didn’t know as much East Asian history as she did European and American, but she suspected anybody talking in that tone about Mongol-ruled Korea was looking through very rose-tinted glasses indeed.

“I went travelling to look for somebody who could teach me more,” Desrosiers went on, “but in China there was just more of the same.  The old immortals were dead or in hiding, and the living alchemists were herbalists who knew what to do but not why they did it.  I was told that further west there were nothing but demons and barbarians, but I went on with the silk traders to see for myself.  Turned out there weren’t any demons, just people… as if those aren’t bad enough,” she snorted.

Sam had snorted, too, and quickly amused himself.  “Sorry, I’m just amused by the idea of somebody from the East coming west to search for forgotten wisdom.  Go on.”

“It took years, but I found my way to Europe, and there were finally people who still wanted to know the secrets of how the universe worked,” Desrosiers said.  “I met Nicolas in Paris, and he was the first to agree to teach me, despite me being a foreigner and a woman.  The two of us decoded the book and created the Philosopher’s Stone together.”

“Did you marry him for his money?” asked Nat.

Desrosiers glared at her.  “I married him because he and I respected each other!  We had two children,” she added.  “I haven’t seen either of them in seventy years but they always turn up sooner or later.  Then Nicolas, who could have lived forever, was murdered for the key, but he had enough warning to hide it in the mummy case.  I have spent a hundred and fifty years trying to get that mummy back so I could destroy the key, and now it’s in the hands of Neustadt!”  She looked at the six members of the CAAP as if this were their personal fault.

“And who is Neustadt?” asked Natasha.  “That’s the only name anybody’s used for him.  Who is he and how old is he?”

“You really haven’t figured that out?  He left me a note signed with his initials.  You were here, you must have seen it.”

Nat recalled the post-it, which had seemed to end in mid-sentence: missed me in.  Missed me was a statement in itself, so the initials must be I. N.  N obviously stood for Neustadt – she really should have recognized that at once – so I must be his given name, and Neue Stadt was German for…

“New Town,” said Natasha out loud.  God damn.  They’d talked about him, they’d used the name, and she’d never made the connection!

One by one, the others figured it out as well.  “You have to be kidding,” said Sam.  “Are you telling us that the man we talked to in the restaurant yesterday was the immortal Sir Isaac Newton?”

“Yes,” said Desrosiers.  “That is exactly what I’m telling you.”

Natasha looked around at her companions, and found them all stunned and unsure of how to respond to this.  She wasn’t sure, herself – was this good news or bad?  It was nice to know who they were fighting, but it was a man who’d gone down in history as one of it’s greatest geniuses.  That might not bode well.

“Okay.”  She took a deep breath.  “Assuming that Newton did steal the mummy and now has the key, he’s obviously going to decode the book and make the Philosopher’s Stone.  What does he want it for?”  She knew what answer she expected, but it was probably best to make sure.

“That’s the trouble,” said Desrosiers.  “Most people would be happy to just make themselves fantastically wealthy and go home, but Neustadt thinks he can transmute his own body and become a god or something.  I’ve never understood his ramblings – frankly, I don’t think he ever recovered from his bout of mercury poisoning.  But it doesn’t matter,” she added, sitting up straighter.  “Whatever he wants to use it for, the Philosopher’s Stone is incredibly dangerous.  If you just follow the instructions in the book, you get a reactor of enormous power that cannot be controlled – it was only by good luck that Nicolas and I didn’t destroy ourselves in our first test!  By the second we had figured out what precautions we had to take to contain it, but history is littered with people who have not been so lucky.”

“Like who?” asked Nat.

“Perhaps you’ve heard of Thira, the volcano that’s supposed to have inspired the legend of Atlantis?” asked Desrosiers.

“Santorini,” Nat said.  Where this Maslanko fellow lived.

“That was no eruption, just a fool who made the Philosopher’s Sone and couldn’t keep it contained,” Desrosiers told them.  “I’ve been there, and I recognize the signs.  Or perhaps Tunguska, in the early 20th century?”

“That’s supposed to have been a meteor,” Sam objected.

“Yes, and they’ve had to come up with ever-more-contrived explanations for why they’ve never found a part of it,” said Desrosiers.  “That was Rasputin, and it was lucky for him that he wasn’t in his laboratory when his apprentices got it started!  Not lucky for the Russian royal family, of course,” she added.  “If Neustadt tries to make the stone the same thing will happen, a blast equal to several nuclear bombs.  In the political climate we’re in that could start a war, depending on who takes the credit or the blame, and it will doubtless cause devastation no matter where he sets it off, and if he’s dead because he jumped into the fool thing, he won’t be able to do anything about it!”

No wonder she didn’t like sharing this information, Nat thought.

“So why don’t you just tell him that?” asked Sam, who was generally the group’s voice of common sense.

“I have.  He doesn’t believe me,” said Desrosiers.  “He thinks I’m just trying to keep him from becoming a god.”

“You were pretty selfish about your healing bacteria back there,” Sam pointed out.

“I healed your friend,” Desrosiers protested.

“You could heal millions of other people, but you don’t,” said Sam.

“It would become something people fight over, and I don’t want that,” said Desrosiers.  “I would rather nobody have it than it be the sole property of the rich, or parents refuse it to their children because it’s not natural.”

Both those possibilities actually seemed worryingly likely, but that was beside the point right now.  “Newton told us to go to Montenegro to get something he left there,” she said.  “What is it?” “I don’t know,” said Desrosiers.  “He’s got things stashed all over Europe and northern Africa, but I’m really not so interested in him as he thinks I am.  Unlike him, I have better things to do than feud.”

Nat didn’t think that was quite true, either – the two of them certainly took great pains not to be like one another, in philosophy, in dress, in claimed nationality, and anything else imaginable.  “If he’s left Athens, where will he go?  He mentioned Australia.”

“I doubt he’s ever been to Australia,” said Desrosiers, “but it wouldn’t surprise me if he has friends there.  He’s always liked having criminals as followers, because if they don’t do what he likes he can simply turn them in.  Some of them could easily have been transported.”

“Why should we believe you over him?” asked Sharon.

“Because unlike him, I am telling the truth,” Desrosiers insisted.  “You saw me heal your friend!  Why would I have done that if I had any but the best of intentions?”

“Maybe to keep us quiet,” said Nat.  “Maybe to bribe us.  Maybe your bacteria will take over his body and make him your zombie slave.”

“You’re impossible,” Desrosiers groaned.

Clint raised his hand.  “I just want to say that I am not on board with the zombie slave plan,” he said.

“All I wanted was knowledge,” said Desrosiers.  “I wanted, and I still want, to know the deepest secrets of how the universe and the body work.  I’ve never wanted wealth.  If I did, I would have it.  If I wanted to kill you, I could have done so, but I saved his life instead.  What more do you need from me?”

“You obviously wanted immortality, too,” said Nat.  “I mean… you’re still alive.”

“Nobody wants to die,” said Desrosiers.  “Even those who think they do.  Attempted suicides who survive always talk about how they realized in their last moments that death was not the answer.  I’m no different from anyone else that way.”

“Neither am I,” said Jim.  He must have felt that he’d waited long enough through everybody’s questions and it was now his turn – he gently pushed his way to the front of the small group, and stood there a moment trying to figure out what to do with himself.  He looked like he might bend down to look Desrosiers in the eye, but then he changed his mind and straightened up again, folding his arms over his chest for a moment before deciding against that, too, and letting them hang down at his sides.  “Can you help me?” he asked.

Desrosiers looked him over.  “You’re just like the rest?” she asked.  “Quickly made and quickly discarded?  He hasn’t done anything special with you?”

“Not that I know of,” said Jim.  “I want to live, too.”

“I suppose you do,” Desrosiers said.  “The organism duplicates everything in the original DNA, and that will include your survival instincts.  Very well, I’ll try my best, but you have to let me go back to my own hotel and prepare some things, without following me or being watched.  I don’t trust you.  It’s not personal,” she added, “I don’t trust anybody.”

“If we don’t follow or watch you, how do we know you’ll come back?” asked Nat.

“You have my word,” said Desrosiers.  “That’s all I can offer.”

“What if you were to leave something valuable of your own with us?” Sir Stephen suggested.  “Something you must come back for?”

“Such as?” she asked.

“Your passport,” Nat suggested.  A French citizen would be able to travel around the EU without it, but it was still a valuable document.

Desrosiers thought about it.  “All right, I can do that.  It’s in my purse – if you’ll free my hands, please.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Sharon unlocked the handcuffs, and Desrosiers found her passport and gave it to Nat.  It was an ordinary French one, with a dark red cover and the words Union Européenne; République Française on it.  When Nat opened it, the information inside described the holder as Helene Desrosiers, age thirty-seven, born in Seoul.  It was a fake, of course – anybody who wanted to live forever would have to know how to get fake ID – but it was a very well-done one.  Hopefully getting another copy would be enough of a headache that Desrosiers would prefer to come back for this one.

“All right,” said Nat.  “Go.”