fandomtownies | Dite's Decadent Delights

As a woman thoroughly unconcerned with randomly appearing stains and generally considered them a fact of life (bloodstains? Did anything hurt? No? Then probably nothing to worry about), Amaya had barely noticed anything amiss that day. Unless you counted her making her way into Dite's at all after her class somewhat amiss.

Which she might.

But the fact that she held two to-go cups from the Perk in her hand should give everyone an idea of where this might be going.

"Irene." She gave a stout nod of greeting, and lifted one of the cups. "I don't know what's going on with the Perk lately, but I ordered a coffee, and wound up with a tea instead. Don't suppose you'd want it."

It was Earl Grey! Which she figured was the fanciest and most British of the options, of course.

Edited 2022-10-26 12:18 (UTC)

If there was anything that could distract Irene from the island victimizing her personally, as it clearly was -- well, that anything had just walked through the door. And offering a return volley of one of Irene's own flirtations, look at that.

"They really need better help over there," Irene commented, a slow smile spreading over her features as she moved over to take the offered cup. "Thanks for thinking of me."

And for going with a very fancy, British choice -- she very much approved of the Earl Grey, thank you much, Amaya. Or, rather, thank you confused barista, of course.

Very confused and totally real barista, clearly far too concerned with worrying whether that stain on their apron was coffee or blood they couldn't even tell coffee from tea! Tsk, tsk.

"Well," Amaya said, with a shrug and a sigh that bordered on theatrical and a shake of her head, "would be a shame to just let it go to waste and all."

"I'm having such a terrible day, Amaya," Irene told her sadly, lifting the cup in a little toast. "Cuppa always helps my mood, though. As does the idea that I'm doing my part to not waste tea."

She wasn't quite -- you know, Seivarden about it, but it still would have been quite a shame! If it had been truly imperiled, anyway. The theatricality in play here was kind of adorable, though she knew better than to say as much.

"Do I want to know why your day's been so terrible?" Amaya asked, adjusting her hold on her own beverage so that now that a wasted tea crisis had been successfully averted, she could start enjoying her coffee with a peace of mind.

And that was a layered question, if there ever was one, really, a question just as much to herself as it was to Irene, as it felt like it could be broad and unchartered territory that she was not properly equipped to tackle.

But, then again, she really hadn't been properly equipped for anything past the initial Saving of the Tea, either, if she was perfectly honest.

Thankfully -- outside of the likes of truth day, Irene was fairly reticent when it came to the actual terrible days. That was why she'd gotten a dog, after all. Dogs couldn't ask probing questions about how sad she was! (Or, worse yet, reject or not know what to do with the information if she ever did cough it up, which was much more her concern when it came to Amaya.)

"The stains," she sighed, plucking her black sweater between two fingers to draw it away from her chest to show Amaya the sticky, faintly-visible reddish stain. (Oh, no, Amaya, you'll have to look closer at her chest, couldn't have been prevented, so sad.) "Island thing, I think, since it's every bloody thing I own."

And not even convincingly bloody, either, bah-dum-tss.

And look closer was exactly what Amaya did, leaning in and squinting a little and wondering if that whole thing about wearing her glasses more would have helped in this case, because she genuinely had difficulty seeing it. Then again, she was also completely unaware of her own, non-fake-blood related smear of pumpkin guts from her class on her hip at the moment, so it was really sort of a toss-up.

"Well, that doesn't look too bad," she reasoned, once she did sort of pick out the more reddish hues amid the black, although, yes, she did realize who she was talking to, and then there was the other part. "But bloody everything, huh?"

If asked, she'd insist the faint grin tucked in the corner of her mouth, now being tucked into another sip of her drink, was purely for the wordplay, nothing else, really.

Although she would feel bad if it turned out not to be just island thing.

"I almost wish it really was blood. I know how to get that out," Irene commented irritably (or at least, faux-irritably, since the wordplay was quite good there, yes.) "But yes. Everything, as far as I can tell, from my winter coats down to my bras."

She hadn't done a full inventory, of course -- who had that kind of time? -- but at a cursory glance: yes, everything! The most dramatic and upsetting answer possible was the right one!

"Got you, too, by the looks of it," she noted, casting a critical (and vaguely concerned) eye towards those pumpkin guts at Amaya's hip. "I think WD-40 takes out pumpkin, if I remember correctly."

Irene was not what one would ever call handy, no. But she did know how to use her hands more than most people gave her credit for, and treating your expensive garments in the sink was much quicker than running crying to the cleaners every time!

"Hmmm?" asked Amaya, who blinked a moment before following Irene's eyes toward the offending stain in question. "Ah. Well...." She gave it a few cursory brushes to with the heel of her hand, which was doing absolutely nothing, of course, except possibly spreading it onto her gloves. "Pretty sure that's actually unrelated.

"From class," she offered up, a beat later, lest Irene start having concerns about unrelated pumpkin guts.

"We did pumpkin chuckin'," she extrapolated further, and any confusion that may have lingered after that was on Irene, because who needed more than that?

"By hand?" Irene had to wonder, able to extrapolate to that point (though the why eluded her a bit -- that much she was fairly willing to just chalk up to Amaya being Amaya, rather than the island being the island, at least.) "Or with catapults?"

She was, for the record, fairly relieved she would not have to contend with pumpkin guts herself (unless Amaya's somehow ended up on her), and it showed.

"No," said Amaya, as if this should have been obvious, "with trebuchets."

Which were, clearly, the superior siege weapon, and if Irene felt differently, then Amaya was just going to have to seriously reconsider a lot of things right now.

No, no. Irene had a question before she could form an opinion.

And speaking of things showing, she didn't take any care to hide her uncertainty about asking -- on the one hand, it would betray a lack of knowledge. On the other...she'd get to see Amaya talk about weapons.

Easy choice, really, even if it called for a little humility. Good cause, and all.

"What's the difference?" Other than that trebuchets were French.

Irene. Irene.

Amaya looked at her for a moment like the real, true reason she had come into the shop today had finally been revealed.

"Well," said Amaya, in a way that seemed almost like a warning, a way to prepare her for the barrage of information about to come her way, "you see, technically speaking, a trebuchet is a type of catapult, because a catapult is, really, just any machine, any ballistic weapon, used to hurl projectiles without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants. It's usually a matter of weight and tension. The type of machine most people associate with catapults when they hear the word is actually an onager, which uses a bowl or basket or some kind of sling at the end of a throwing arm to hurl its projectile. Usually shorter, squatter, and you basically force the arm down against a series of robes to create tension, and release it from there.

"Meanwhile, conversely, a trebuchet focuses more on the sling aspect and uses gravity to its advantage, rather than tension. They're going to be much bigger and taller, because you want a good long arm on a trebuchet to get the most range out of that sling. On one end," and here was the point where she was definitely using her own arms to demonstrate, "you have the sling. On the other? A counterweight. You load the sling, and then drop the counterweight, which then raises the arm and the sling with enough force to send whatever's in the sling flying. Much more dramatic, much more finesse, with a greater potential for distance, speed, and variable weight flung. An onager? Don't get me wrong. Solid machine, I took a lot of their design for the base of the Crumbler, actually, and it'll get a job done, but a trebuchet? Now that's got elegance. That's got class."

She may have been playing to her audience a little bit on that last part.

"A trebuchet's like mechanical poetry in motion. And just trying to figure out that right balance between all the elements to get that perfect projectile?" She closed her eyes for a moment, imagining it fondly. "Mmm. Can't get that with any old catapult, I can tell you that much."

Honestly, even if Irene had known a trebuchet from a catapult (or an onager), she would have delighted in pretending she didn't just to be on the receiving end of this explanation. For all the things that she absolutely adored about Amaya -- and there were plenty, from her eyes to her stubbornness to the whole thing with sticks -- there really was very little she loved as much as watching her dive into something like this.

Intelligence was attractive. Passion was attractive. The combination of being passionate and informed about something you could make to the point where phrases like mechanical poetry were being invoked --

Well. Be still Irene's heart.

"They've got catapults -- onagers, I s'pose -- at the Tower for tourists to play with," Irene offered after a moment of digesting that information, having to shake her head a little to break the spell. "So I'm a bit more familiar with them as far as seeing the thing at work. Sounds like with a trebuchet there's less of a chance you'll just throw whatever -- the pumpkin you're chucking, I guess -- straight at the ground, too."

"It's definitely not impossible," Amaya pointed out, "but you would probably have to work on biffing it that bad with a trebuchet."

She took a drink of her coffee just then, in part because that had been a lot of explaining, but also for just a moment to do some of her own work with weights and counterbalances in her head.

"I could show you sometime," she then offered, looking down at her cup to make a superfluous adjustment to the lid as she lowered it, "if you were interested."

If she was interested. Amaya. Really, now.

"We've mostly moved that lesson over to the danger shop, since there's a particular lack of nice wide open fields on an island this size, but I can whip one up....a small one, of course, nothing to large or impressive....easy enough, and I do sometimes miss just chucking the gourds out into the preserve or the ocean."

"Sounds like a date," Irene replied, her smile a little more fond than she would have willingly allowed, had she been looking into a mirror. But really, it sounded fun, and moreover, "Besides, 'round here -- I know the Lady Crumbler does quite a lot on her own, but I can't imagine a small trebuchet would go amiss on an island like this."

Could've spent half of yesterday tossing cats, if that was your thing.

"I honestly wouldn't mind one day rigging her up with some sort of collapsible trebuchet apparatus," Amaya noted, with the air of someone who'd had something like that simmering just under the surface for a while now but never really had any need to go poking at it. "For all your quick trebuchet needs on the go."

And, ohhhh, just you wait until the day she finally moved onto the Crumber II.

"Like a soft top convertible or cabrio," Irene commented thoughtfully, considering this (and, just for a moment, missing having a car.) "Probably could just tuck it away when she's not using it. Useful for the odd kraken attack, perhaps."

And if you were looking for it, that was the ghost of a flush that rose across Irene's cheeks, because -- well. That drill had been a very early morning, and she'd blame most of her judgement and conflicting feelings on the hour.

And any hint of a faint smirk summoned up by any reminders of those all too looming threats of attack by way of kraken was clearly just an effect from getting to speak so much regarding the Crumbler and all her various capabilities and future improvements.

"Real trick there," Amaya mused, almost idly, because, really, these were all things she'd thought of before, it was just that they never really saw the light of day outside of her thoughts and sketches, "is going to be weight, of course, and room, but the hydraulics help with that first bit, and the second bit is just a matter of figuring out how best to bend and fold something into itself and still have it be viable when it's bent and folded back out again."

"It'd probably need to be a bit lighter weight in material than is traditional, in order to fold," Irene commented, giving this some serious thought. "Could the arm be telescopic, you think? Like -- hang on a tick."

She held up one perfectly-manicured finger, set her tea aside, and strode off a few feet to retrieve a small black rod. With a quick flick of her wrist, the crop grew out to full length, and Irene gave it an approving nod. "Maybe fiberglass or the like, too, to keep it light."

When Irene went to go retrieve something, from her shop, Amaya's mouth opened immediately to object, but that objection halted right at the gate when she saw what had actually been retrieved. Her mouth shut, and, instead, she would just take a moment to appreciate the demonstration, unnecessarily as it may have been, for what it was worth.

Followed by a now much wryer statement than it was going to have been originally.

"I know how telescopes work. Problem lies in making it too light, because it still needs to be able to withstand all the force and weight of the projectile and the counterbalance, too. That right there, then, is the key. Balance."

And figured out that balance was pretty much half the fun of it, really.

"But that just comes down to the material, doesn't it?" Irene wondered, more than happy to still play with the crop and examine it a bit more before folding it back up. This wasn't the sort she liked, of course -- more of a novelty than anything, but she felt the demonstration was helpful! It was so rare she had something around to demonstrate this sort of thing with! Usually it was just all wobbly silicone and batteries and embarrassments. "Don't the telescopey bits fit into one another in a way that might help with the counterbalance? Though I suppose it comes down to whatever you want to throw with it, too, and you don't want to make too many concessions there."

"Nooo-ooo-oooo," said Amaya, very slowly, as her distraction took a hard shift about halfway through that and found a particular thought to glomp onto right at the end there, a thought she was squinting at a little bit as she tried to really dig it out, "you don't, but...if you're compromising weight for transportability, maybe it's not so much about adapting the new build to suit the old ballast, but rather," a snap of her finger, with an englightened finger remaining lifted as she grinned wildly, "adapting the old ballast to suit the new build."

Ugh. She was so cute when she was inspired. Irene might melt.

"There you go," Irene replied, her smile having much more to do with watching Amaya's stroke of brilliance than the actual matter of what had been decided. (Her internet search history tonight would be a treasure trove of betrayal if ever uncovered -- a trail from "ballast" to "trebuchet" to "sexy blacksmith" seemed likely at the moment.) "It's just a matter of adapting in the right direction, right?"

"Materia's pretty light," Amaya nodded, eyes off in the distance to some little workshop in her head, already putting a few pieces together, "and can still pack a pretty big punch. Plus, it's adaptable, so you can also adjust for any elemental weaknesses in what you're trying to attack. Honestly?"

Her nodding head now turned into a bit of a headshake of disbelief.

"I'm surprised I didn't think of it sooner."

"You just needed the right inspiration, clearly," Irene told her, and that was of course her cue to pose -- cue the admiration, thank you -- before folding up the crop again. "You'll let me know if you need an extra set of hands, yeah? I want to help. Especially if at the end I can chuck a pumpkin into the ocean."

It just sounded very satisfying.

A coffee cup lifted to one's lips was a poor way to cover up any increasing level of redness flowing to Amaya's cheeks at thoughts of inspiration, but that certainly never stopped her from trying before, and it wasn't stopping her now, either, especially as she told herself that it was interesting what a good cup of coffee and a riding crop could manage to pull out of a person, all while ignoring that, good as they may be, a cup of coffee and a riding crop didn't exactly bounce things back when you bounced things at them.

"Well," she then stated, "I'll need to spend some time at the drawing board before I make any leeway on any of that, but...luckily, you don't need to wait on that to chuck pumpkins into the ocean. How's your weekend look?"

As free as nearly every other weekend.

"I could move some things around in the name of pumpkin-chucking," Irene decided, pretending to think about it. "Provided we aren't buried under a deluge of sheet-ghosts or something by then."

She had, indeed, noticed that this week had a theme, sigh.

'Tis the season!

Amaya snorted faintly at that. "Well," she said, "maybe if we're lucky, whatever it is on Saturday, we can just chuck that in the ocean, too."

"Unless whatever it is can fly," Irene noted with a theatrical raise of her brows.

Well, Irene, are you trying to jinx things?

"Well, then, in that case, I guess we'll just have ourselves some target practice."

Boy, was Amaya going to be so disappointed when all they got were whispers.

Dite's Decadent Delights | Wednesday

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