Blackstone Foundry and Forge; Saturday [05/13].

[special_rabbit]

Throughout the week, Amaya had been pretty busy and focused on crafting up all those shiny new parts for the Squishy machine, and, by the end of the day on Friday, she had them all ready to go for the next step, which would involve a lot of bending, manipulating, and, best of all, welding.

And what? Like Amaya was just going to let welding wait until Monday?

Please.

Go on. Find her a better way to spend a Saturday than fusing pieces of metal together with a little blowtorch so hot that you had to wear a whole special mask over your face just to protect you from it. She'll wait.

The Forge is open!

Comments

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Knock-knock."

Ah, there was Margo, looking fabulous as usual, strutting in in a red dress, and supporting a delighted quirk to her mouth. "A little bird told me you had something smashing for me."

[special_rabbit]

That red was a good choice, being able to snag Amaya's attention in the periphery of her work quickly enough that she could finish up the welding of the piece she was currently working on and shift her attention over in time to catch that pun. She snorted with appreciation, flicking off the torch and lifting up her mask to glance over, greeting Margo with a nod.

"You could say that again," she noted. "I think it's going to be a real hit."

Seriously, why did you people encourage her in these ways?

"Let me just grab that for you," she said, setting aside the torch and pulled off the mask, taking a moment to wipe her gloves on her skirts before heading over to behind the counter, where she had the weapon in question waiting and protectively wrapped, albeit mostly for the reveal. A good length relative to Margo's size, with maybe just a little extra weight and volume to the head to really make the most out of the fact that extra oomph she'd no doubt be putting into it when she was swinging it, what with all the impotent rage and all that. Dark and sleek, with maybe a little extra edge in the pointy bits, and detailed with a little bit of filigree laced with gold in a way that you didn't necessarily always notice it until it caught in the light in certain ways.

Amaya herself was just going to take a moment to admire her own work before handing it over to Margo, with all the confidence that if it turned out it didn't work for her, it would definitely still work for someone out there, or just look great on the weapons wall until then.

"Let's see how that does it for you."

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Holy shit.

"Holy shit," Margo said, with roughly half the admiration her mental voice had communicated to her personally. She did have a reputation to keep up with, yadda yadda. "You know, you do to weapons what other people do to diamonds and shit. If I ever get that invite to the Met Gala, I'm calling you."

Only then did she reach out, and curl her hands around the handle. And okay, that was heavy, but taking it didn't make her fall to the ground like a fucking cartoon. So. Definitely less heavy than she'd secretly expected.

[special_rabbit]

Well, it wouldn't do much good if it looked nice, but Margo couldn't even wield the damn thing, now, would it?

Amaya may have been taking a small moment of pride to sort of just appreciate what was, essentially, pretty much the perfect response to presenting anyone with a new weapon, in her book, before her attention shifted slightly to judging how Margo did take to it, because that was more important than anything else, making sure the weight and the balance were right for her.

"What's the Met Gala?" she asked.

Not that it mattered, because a job was a job, and she'd happily take that one, too, if an invitation did come Margo's way, but it was important to note that Irene had clearly been slacking in sharing that particular bit of popular culture with Amaya, because seriously. A goldmine of hilarity with that one.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"It's a big fuckin' party where everyone has to dress up like something from a batshit drug-infused horror movie," Margo said. If she sounded distracted, well, she was a touch busy holding up that hammer, staring at the details, moving it around. Feeling that... balance?

[special_rabbit]

"...huh."

Was the image this description conjured up in Amaya's head very accurate to the actual events? Yes, and no, and the no part of it would leave her incredibly disappointed.

But she, too, was a bit distracted, for reasons aligned with Margo's own, before finally embarking on the real important questions here.

"So," she said, "how's it feel?"

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Like I could fuckin' kill a bitch with this thing."

It was fantastic.

[special_rabbit]

And, really, you couldn't ask for a better review than that.

"Mission accomplished, then!" Amaya remarked proudly, even with a little brush of her hands together for the job well done. "Good to hear it! And I might want to actually steal that blurb for the website, that's one helluva testimonial."

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Go right ahead." Did Margo sound absolutely thrilled, in that slightly-gravelly way that she had about her? Yes. She gave the weapon an experimental swing. "I'll write you a whole fucking book blurb if you want."

It was a miracle Amaya didn't get happy homicidals throwing themselves at her feet every day.

[special_rabbit]

There had been, it was true, a surprisingly short supply of happy homicidals in need of shiny new weapons these days.

And Rosa only had so much room in her closet...

"Well," she said, "maybe not a whole book blurb, but I definitely wouldn't mind too terribly if you felt compelled to bring it up in a conversation or two. Word of mouth is still definitely the best way to get people in here, and, I'll admit, I miss getting a good project like that in here, so thanks for staving off the boredom for a good few more weeks or so."

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"You're welcome."

A beat. Margo looked Amaya over. Searchingly.

"... You got anything I can hit?"

[special_rabbit]

"There's always the practice dummies," Amaya noted, and she was halfway over to pulling one out from the corner by the time she pronounced, "I'm on it."

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Yeah, Margo said, smirking, and raised the weapon up to her shoulder. "Let's have it."

[special_rabbit]

"And now," Amaya announced, as she shifted the pracitce dummy around a little bit into a good spot with plenty of swinging space and locked the stand into place, "the real test: does it work?"

Of course she knew the answer. It was a Blackstone original; of course it did! But who didn't love a small bit of dramatics? She took a few good steps back and nodded to Margo.

"Let's see what you got, there, Margo."