"Deliberately."

As Svier said, you drink the tasteless potion slowly, sipping it down a bit at a time. It takes only a few moments, and you hand the empty vial back to Svier. Your heart is pounding, but you honestly can't tell if it's from the potion or nerves. "How long will it take?" you ask, wanting to clothe yourself as quickly as possible.

"It's already having an effect," Svier replies casually, washing out the vial and setting it on a rack to dry. "Like most potions, it achieves incredible potency with little magical cost. The downside is it takes its time to do so. A healing potion lets you recover from most any wound, but the cheap stuff won't help you if you're bleeding out on the floor." He leans against the table across from your cushioned bench and crosses his arms. "So, let's talk about you. What's your name, where you're from."

It takes you a minute to get going, but you tell Svier about your village, about working your uncle's land, and your love of the elder's tales of ancient heroes. You find yourself sharing thoughts long kept private to the smiling alchemist, telling him about the shame of having a whore for a mother, the scorn of the other youth, and even about your sweetheart being taken away by some baron's son on a white horse.

When you've told your story up to coming to the guildhall, you've quit fidgeting and swing your legs absently. "So I'll be an adventurer, earn my fame, maybe a title or two. Ride off with some other young lady on my own horse."

Svier chuckles along with you. "Indeed, I can see the appeal of such a dream, and why you'd come all the way here for it." He nods silently before looking at you with a piercing gaze. "But I can't help but wonder if it's really the right way to go about this."

You tilt your head and frown. "What do you mean?"

Svier looks up at the ceiling, as if it would answer for him. "Well, people always think in terms of expectations and how they fulfill them. Or how they don't. 'If we don't meet expectations, how can we be happy with ourselves?' I'm sure you've heard things like that before."

"Sure," you say, "but what does that have to do with not being an adventurer?"

"I'm sure the people you knew in your hometown would be impressed if you became a hero. You'd probably fulfill their 'expectations' if you had just taken over your uncle's farm for him when he got older. That'd be enough to be a 'man' in their eyes."

"I don't know about that," you say. "Seems just about everything I tried they told me I was ass at doing."

"Society has a funny way of motivating people," Svier teased. "I'd know. My father was a legendary sorcerer, something I was reminded of relentlessly. Of course they left out the part where he had four hundred years of practice, but what's that got to do with things, right?"

You laugh along with him, but his face becomes serious again. "But really, Roland. I think your mother had the right idea about this."

Now it's your turn to stare mirthlessly. "My mother had the right idea to be a whore?"

"Well, when you put it that way," Svier drawled. "What I mean is that she changed people's expectations about her. She chose to live how she wanted, and eventually she didn't fall short of some other expectation they set up for her."

You frown more, feeling uncomfortable at the alchemist's reply. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I never felt complimented when I was called a "bastard son of a whore."

"Ah, but who did the name calling? I'll tell you now that the women were jealous, the men were afraid of their wives, and the children because they followed their parents' example. Your mother was likely happy - I shouldn't really speak for her - but I am trying to make a point here. You, Roland, you felt like you had to become a man. You had to romance the girl, you had to be a leader of your peers, and had to secure your wealth. But rather than run the farm, you ran off here to be a hero. Why? Why come here?"

You want to deny it, to say that he's totally wrong. You're mad that he's all but dismissed what you went through living at home, but the anger seems weak compared to this other feeling budding in you. Why did you come here? Why not be the farmer you were groomed to be? Expected to be, as Svier would say.

Svier, to your surprise, came close and sat next to you, sincerity in his bright eyes. As close as he is, you can't help but notice that he's downright pretty, if you could call a man that. Perhaps the beauty of the elves was more than the myth you'd taken it to be.

"I think," he continues, "that you don't have an answer to that question. You want to be happy like anybody does, and you know there's an expectation for you but you don't want to meet it. So instead of being a failure or being a farmer, you take the third option. You become a legend, and then let's see what they say about you." He raises his eyebrows and grins. "Sound right so far?"

You nod slowly, your cheeks flushed after being taken apart so thoroughly. He claps you on the back with a laugh and leaves it there, an arm around your shoulder as he speaks. "Well, I think you were on the right track. I didn't want to be a farmer either. But I also didn't want to be an adventurer, and I think you don't either. I know you don't, actually, and Morri does too."

"Why not?" you say, still trying to defend yourself. "I came here, I signed up for this. That ought to make it perfectly clear what I want."

"Sure, sure. But I think you've yet to take into account what I did when I came here. I didn't want to be terrified every time I set foot into the wilderness, to sleep with a sword at my side. I didn't want to trust a mage with my life or a rogue with my purse. Most of all, I didn't want to put my life on the line for a bit of silver. Half the pay of being an adventurer is praise, Roland, and you can't eat praise or use it as a shield. And if I had to drink a potion to become a person willing to do those things, was it really the path that would make me happy?"