Brotherly Bonds, Brewing Blunders

Leo, bless his alchemically-inclined heart, was having a day. A day that started with the best of intentions and was rapidly devolving into a spectacle of operatic proportions. He’d only wanted to brew a simple charm, something to, you know, *enhance* their already decent brotherly bond. A little something to make Finn’s already bright smile even brighter when he looked at Leo. What could possibly go wrong with that? Apparently, everything.

The charm was meant to be a subtle whisper of affection, a gentle nudge towards a more harmonious existence. Leo pictured it as a warm, golden shimmer, like sunlight catching dust motes in Finn’s music room. Instead, what he’d managed to create was a volatile, iridescent sludge that smelled suspiciously like overripe plums and regret. He’d been meticulously measuring out powdered moonpetal, a delicate ingredient known for its soothing properties, when a particularly aggressive sneeze, brought on by a stray puff of dragon’s breath pepper from a previous, less successful experiment, had sent the entire vial tumbling into the bubbling cauldron.

“No, no, no!” Leo yelped, frantically trying to scoop out the errant powder, but it was like trying to catch smoke with a sieve. The sludge in the cauldron, which had been a gentle lavender, now pulsed with an alarming fuchsia. A few tendrils of steam, smelling distinctly of regret and overripe plums, curled up towards the ceiling.