Margot
When Doc's death ray had backfired and burned the hell out of his hand, the lesson came to a quick hard close. Don't try to kill shit with Prime, don't try to erase from existence, because this is what happens. Margot remembered when her bloodwork backfired, turned her blood to acid and burned back up the vein into her forearm. Then she'd only been an Apprentice, trying to sense and expore. She could figure easily enough that trying to kill something with magick strong as Doc's meant the backfire had to be equally risky.
She'd wondered, hovering in the doorway of the obnoxiously green living room where Doc had thrown himself on the couch to recover, how much worse it could have been. Scowling faint as usual, she left him with the company of dust and a little monster he'd created who squacked only every so often like a broken clock may remember to tick.
The afternoon had bled deep into dark by the time Margot decided to check back on him again. Ned was still out, and she'd found herself standing at the kitchen counter after eating a solo dinner, drumming fingers anxiously and wondering why something didn't seem quite right. Like something was missing.
When she'd peeked back into the living room, she realized what it was: the rusty bird sounds. She'd grown used to them as background noise after a time, and their absence hadn't been missed by the back of her mind. The couch was empty, the blanket she'd tossed over his legs and waist at some point crumpled near the arm. The beanie that she'd turned to a nest for the birdling was empty as well, crusted and abandoned on the coffee table.
She went to the staircase next, hand on the banister, and started climbing on a path for the library. It's was where she figured she would go if she just woke up from having a ritual go sideways.
"Doc?" A curious searching call sounded up the stairs. Marco.
Doc
It may very well have stricken the kids that the only time their mentor sleeps is after he's been on the receiving end of a nasty paradox backlash. For so long as they have been living together under the same roof, the bedroom he claimed as his has looked about as lived-in as the hotel suite where he had holed up after his eviction.
That is to say, not at all. Now he has an entire library in which to stash his books, and he has been slowly converting the caverns downstairs into a laboratory. But if he were in the lab, the door to the basement would be closed.
She calls his name.
He calls back, "WHAT."
[rolling dice for his little experiment.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 4, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Margot
Small cues were learned (basement door closed = Doc in the caverns/laboratory), and they were calling through the house at each other. Other Mages were no doubt perplexed by the odd little cabal that formed as the result of the mad scientist Sepúlveda taking on a pair of lost apprentices. Though Margot and Ned seemed to get on well enough, serious little shits that they were, there was a public perception of flexed brows and minor bickering when the three were caught out, on the occasions that transpired. For that, though, under the roof they seemed to cohabitate just fine.
Margot's head popped around the doorframe into the library, peering in before actually entering, stocking feet making minor static charges on the threadbare runner rug that remained tacked to the floor.
She'd doffed the hoodie down to a black T-shirt, and the jeans with streaks of baby bird goop gone crunchy were traded out for a pair of similarly black yoga pants. Her hands were folded behind her back as she roamed in, peeking at whatever he was up to.
"How's your hand?"
Doc
Trivial paradox flaws have just as likely a chance of being imperceptible to folks around the afflicted as they have of broadcasting the strangeness. In this case, all Margot knew was that her mentor had been knocked backwards and favored his left hand as he half-limped, half-dragged himself back inside.
He had not moved for several hours, which made it seem as if he would sleep well through the night. If he was hearing voices, seeing red, or felt as if he had literal butterflies in his stomach, Margot could not tell.
What she can tell from the doorway is that he is sitting on the floor with his antiquated chemistry set, his back to her, his small frame occluding whatever it is he's doing. The floor is his worktable.
How's your hand?
He lifts his left hand to flip her the bird, silent and over his shoulder, before adding one more droplet to the bird's body.
"Be quiet," he says, "I don't want this thing to turn out retarded."
[extending!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (3, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Margot
Doc favored the floor when he was working in the library. Margot took preference to a circle-topped display table that was about as high up as her ribcage. It wasn't for preference of the shape, so much as it was the preference for standing. While Doc had been crafting the caverns into a library, Margot herself had claimed a narrow but deep closet under the staircase with an exposed bulb and dusty walls with curling white paint. She'd wedged a table in the very back and put shelves up on the walls to start stashing supplies. There were some feathers and a small pouch of bones tacked up to the walls, plus autumn leaves with colors that struck her fancy. They were still rather bare, but there was little doubt to them filling in over time.
The middle finger with the favored hand didn't get much reaction, and the bidding to be quiet was heeded well. Her brows quirked with curiosity as he commended on the retarded state of what she could only guess to be the bird. She took a few steps further forward to try and gain better sight of what he was doing over his shoulder, but didn't get so close as to crowd him (if he flopped backward his head might hit her toes at worst) and kept her hands folded behind her back.
Look with your eyes, not your hands. Wonder with your eyes, not your mouth.
Doc
Birds are not terribly complicated creatures. Their nervous systems are fairly standard, their bones are hollow, and their feathers tend to figure themselves out. If Sepúlveda were inventing a new creature, this would be far more difficult, as he would have to think about what he was doing. All he was really doing was returning the die to the state it had been in before it became bone.
When Margot is close enough, she can see the creature perched on the wooden rack of the chemistry set is not the embryonic wretch her mentor was going to destroy earlier this evening, but a fully formed if still somewhat damp mountain bluebird. It opens and closes its mouth with more intention than it did before, like it's working the kinks out of its new jaws, and its open eyes have a primal intelligence in them.
Sepúlveda is drying the bird off with a washcloth he pilfered from one of the bathrooms, helping it to fluff up its feathers with his burnt hand. He stops once Margot's shadow falls across the floor and he realizes he still has an audience.
"Stupid fucking asshole bird," the Etherite says as he gets to his feet.
Margot
Though the girl didn't present herself is a particularly feminine creature-- seldom in skirts and dresses, her make-up routine simple, favoring jeans and T-shirts seven times out of ten others and being quick to climb the roof to pull rotting shingles and nail down new ones. Unafraid of (albeit disgusted by) clogged drains and typically covered in blood and ash and so was unafraid of dirt.
Still, her eyes went bright when she saw what the terrible little primordial dino-bird-baby had become. Small, delicate, brightly blue and adorably fluffed even if it was still a bit damp. Her mouth curved in a small closed smile, and her hands moved from behind her back to hover at her sides. She wanted to scoop it up again but resisted. The light in its own little black eyes was brighter too, though for intellect and understanding now.
Doc accused the bird of being an asshole, and Margot just smiled a little more and glanced quickly to him before back to the bird.
"Plenty of people would've just squished it," she observed. "He looks way better. Is he.. y'know, complete?"
Doc
"We don't call dumbasses 'bird brains' for nothing."
This he says as the bluebird ceases its preening and cants its head to one side, getting a better if somewhat bleary view of Margot. It has no memory of its own existence prior to this moment, coming into being at the cold bony hands of a man who smells like tequila and cigarettes and spicy aftershave, who looks like he has never heard of a comb. Sepúlveda did not have to imbue the bird with an attachment to him. Imprinting is a very real thing, and so far as the bird is concerned, the mad scientist is its mother.
It will warm to Margot quickly. She is not a threat. But right now it cheeps to protest its maker's exit, and tries to fly but only ends up fluttering to the carpet. Its wings are still too damp to alight.
"Don't get too attached to it," he says, pointing at the bird at the doorway, his eyes on Margot, one eyebrow raised in sharp warning. "You start talking about destruction being your only option again, I'm going to blow it up like a Butterball and cook it for Genocide Day."
Margot
The little bird's distressed cheep and attempts to flutter after Doc coaxed a sound from Margot that would have been a full 'aww!' if she'd let it get farther than her throat. She knelt down on the floor with her stocking feet tucked under her rear, one hand on the floor to help her balace while the other hand was offered palm-up a couple feet in front of it, fingers curled gentle instead of held flat.
She laughed a little at the threat to supersize the bluebird and cook it.
"Alright, fine." A halfhearted teenaged promise not to get attached to the cute little bird she saw born from bones. "What are we doing with it until Genocide Day, then?"
No comments:
Post a Comment