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Blackstone Foundry and Forge, Thursday

Fjord was perhaps holding his breath the tiniest bit as he made his way in to the forge this morning. It was going to be normal, right? He could stoke the fire and pull out one of his long-abandoned projects and get back to work, and that would be that?

He let himself exhale as he stepped inside and looked around.

Okay.

Hell yes.

Good. Perfect. Then he had a rapier in progress that he'd all but given up on back when the shop started changing every damn week, and he was going to settle in and see if he could remember what it was he'd done to get it to the point it was at now.

It was good to have Thursdays back to normal. There was just something about a Thursday.

[OOC: Open!]

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And what was more normal on Thursdays that actual mugs of coffee right from the get-go?

"'Morning, Fjord!" Amaya greeted when she came down into the shop with the usual offering of caffeine, with a solid cheerfulness deeply mired in just how gosh-darn normal it was. "Might need a couple of these today; I've got quite a list of things that need doing around here today."

Coping mechanism? What coping mechanism? Amaya just liked work, dammit.

That poor rapier was never getting finished.

Poor, poor rapier.

"Mornin' Amaya," Fjord said, in his normal (fake) drawl, reaching for the normal (not fake) coffee, giving her his normal grin with a mouth that was the normal amount of tusky, and then looking around the room with a thoughtful nod. "I'm guessin' there's plenty of catchin' up to do now that things ain't all turned around on their head, hm?"

"Mmmmm...." Amaya hummed thoughtfully, almost a bit sheepishly, because that would make sense, now, wouldn't it? That would be pretty logical. But that was not what they were doing today, no. Not by a long shot. "Not quite."

Honestly, things had been so turned around on their heads that Amaya wasn't even sure which way was up anymore, anyway. She didn't remember even what she'd been working on, or trying to, at the start of the summer. Something with patterned damascus steel, maybe? Who knew? That was in the past, and the past was the past, no use dwelling on it, onto the future!

"It's a new project." An overly ambitious, wildly speculative project that was likely to only end in tears (not Amaya's, mind you, but someone's, probably), all based on a few glimpses into the guts some insane machine that she knew hardly anything about.

Like you do.

"One with lots of pieces and parts," she continued, "which means some foundry work today. I've already got the molds hammered out; what I'll need from you is the smelting and pouring and brushing up to make sure all those little bits and pieces, gears and pistons are nice and clean and ready to get fitted into place. Simple enough, but there's going to be a lot of 'em. Meantime, I've got all the casing and exteriors to finish up at the forge."

Edited 2019-08-22 14:08 (UTC)

"Huh," Fjord echoed, giving one last glance to his rapier (poor, poor rapier) and then shrugging, taking a pull from his coffee before making his way over to consider the pieces in question. "So, what is it we're aiming to make here, then?"

"We're aiming," said Amaya, "to replicate some of that machinery I saw when I was down there under the island. Just...miniature, of course."

And also not LEGO.

"And," she added, lest anyone think that was all, "trying to see about what I can do with getting the Crumbler to transform like that Biter thing did."

Because that was a healthy response to something that almost ate you.

Hey. Bards wrote epic songs about encounters with dragons, right? Artists painted pictures. It was kind of like that.

Fjord was now glancing sidelong at the Crumbler, squinting as he attempted to picture that.

"... You wanna turn it into an automaton?"

Hey, he was game, but there had definitely been Some Shit associated with that thing, so he was making sure, here.

Amaya considered the Crumbler in the corner for a moment a little thoughtfully and then shrugged.

"Seems like the next logical step in her evolution," she mused. "Either that, or getting her airborne, but I think I've got a lot more work to do before I'm able to pull off something like that. I can't help but imagine it'll increase her minute crumbling ability substantially, and just imagine how much easier it'll be getting her over all these steps when she can just amble on over them instead of me having to push her all the time."

Not that she minded the pushing, of course, but...there were...a lot of steps around here.

"... Can't argue with any line of reasoning that invokes those stairs," Fjord had to admit. "So long as she keeps her head on her shoulders right, I guess there ain't no harm in it."

If the Crumbler came to life and attacked them all, he was going to just sigh.

Sigh forever.

"And of course she will," Amaya said. "I made her, didn't I?"

Amaya had...clearly not been a victim of her own hubris enough yet.

"That you did," Fjord agreed, unable to quite bite back a little grin. "So at the very least, she's guaranteed to be bold, hm?"

Something about Thursdays meant that it felt like a good day for Beau to show up sometime in the early afternoon with a bag from Mooby Land and a couple of cold sodas and sort of hang around in the doorway for a few seconds.

"Hey, Fjord," she said after a moment, an expression somewhere between guilt and concern, partly obscured behind a fog of discomfort, on her face.

Aw, Beau. Fjord glanced up from his smelting and grinned faintly. Sure, he noticed the discomfort, but he wasn't going to draw attention to that unless she did.

"Beau," he said, nodding his greeting. "Been a while. How're you doin' today?"

He hadn't seen her during that whole toy... thing. He was grateful for that.

"Eh, you know." Beau shrugged, and most other weeks she might've been tempted to make a joke about how she hadn't gotten arrested yet so she was doing great, but. Probably a bad call right now. "That was kind of gonna be my question, actually, so good job stealing it."

Aw, look, she'd been concerned.

Also, she was waving the bag at him. "Plus I figured all the hammering and shit was gonna be tiring and you could use, like, a pick-me-up or something."

Someday she might figure out how to just say "hey, I thought I'd bring you some lunch" without feeling weird about it. Not today, though.

"Stealin' questions is what I do, now," Fjord replied with a grin. "Should've sent out a memo, now you know." He reached to take the bag. "I ain't about to turn down a pick-me-up, though. Hell, Beau, you're here just in time for lunch, even."

See? He could say the weird stuff for the both of them.

"Am I? Wow, dude." That was a ridiculously exaggerated look of surprise there. "Good thing I got enough for both of us, huh?"

And now the surprised look faded into a bit of a smirk as Beau handed over the bag and one of the drinks.

"Works out pretty nice," Fjord drawled. "I'd hate for you to miss lunch on account of makin' sure I eat, after all."

He grinned a little as he took the drink in hand and then peered into the bag.

"Niiice. Lookin' better'n I was plannin' on havin', anyway."

He would've gotten wrapped up in work and maybe remembered to eat somewhere around the last hour of his shift.

"Like I wouldn't just go ahead and eat without you," Beau scoffed, though not terribly convincingly.

It was just burgers and fries. Nothing spectacular or particularly healthy but you know, Beau had had plenty of that last week anyway. Sometimes you just needed garbage food.

Garbage food with your garbage bro, as nature intended!

Fjord grinned and snagged a burger, unwrapping it while he spoke. "Good, then. Gotta take care of yourself, Beau, or who the hell will there be keeping me in check?"

"I don't remember agreeing to take that job," Beau complained as she reached for the bag and tried to grab a box of fries, but it was really hard to sell the whole complaint aspect of it when she was half-grinning and looking delighted about the designation. "But if it means I get to kick your ass every now and then, sure, why the fuck not?"

"Sometimes I need a swift kick right in the seat of it," Fjord mused, holding the bag out to her with a smirk. "Just, maybe not too swift, hm?"

Beau pulled out the fries and shoved a few into her mouth, not really waiting until she was finished with them to start talking. So it was a little bit muffled when she retorted, "I'm, like, super dodgy and shit, and you want me to slow it down just for you?"

A loud, dramatic sigh, complete with a visible heave of her shoulders and an eyeroll. Smirking faintly the whole time.

"Yeah, okay, fine."

A pause for some more fries, which she was talking around when she half-mumbled, "Yeah, I kinda bailed on you for all that shit last week. Sorry, man."

Fjord blinked, pausing with the burger halfway to his mouth. He continued that journey a moment later, taking a bite before lowering it again and speaking.

"Hell, it ain't like you knew it was comin' any more'n the rest of us," he pointed out. "I wasn't even in my right fucking mind for half of it. Took a dumbass board game to snap me out of it."

Sorry was a sadistic game and whoever had invented it ought to feel bad about themselves.

It was a bullshit game and Beau would say as much if she'd played it, although watching her play would probably have been kind of hilarious.

"But you snapped out of it," she said, and couldn't keep the relief out of her voice about that. "I mean, not gonna lie, I'm not sorry I got out of that one. Some shit's a little too close to home for a repeat. I would've had your back if I'd been here, though. Just so that's on the record."

"I'm glad you avoided it," Fjord said, honestly. "It fuckin' sucked, Beau. Nobody on the island was made of flesh and blood. Didn't know who the fuck to trust."

Didn't bother hiding his accent. Freaked Amaya out a bit. Was such. A good. Little. Toy.

"It's over now, anyway. And if we never go back to that shit it'll be too damn soon."

And yeah, Beau had basically been her parents' toy for long enough, thanks. That would've just been an extra layer of horror on top of a flashback, really.

"Liam told me the same thing," she admitted. "I guess I just . . ."

She shrugged.

"Didn't want you to think I bailed on y'all on purpose."

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