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 Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 7:40 pm
"Are you some crazy-a** prodigy or something?" the girl demanded. "Because they won't even let me do metal shop until I'm a teenager."
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Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 8:03 pm
He had to smirk impishly, the joke of such a question irresistible. "Yes!" he exclaimed, and laughed briefly but warmly. "I'm sure you'll enjoy it when you're older." Which made him sound disappointingly like a grown-up. "You can always do tinkering in the meantime."
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Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 8:09 pm
"I don't really tinker," she said unexpectedly, and had the vague wonderment at why she was being so forthcoming and not prickly -- "like, I took apart the alarm clock and the toaster, but man, gym is more my thing. I am a gym star. I am a kung-fu master."
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Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 8:25 pm
"Looking like that, I'm not surprised!" It was a simple, admiring observation of the toughness and power Jace strove to project, but there were so many ways it could be badly misconstrued. One way: you are a butch stereotype. Another way: I'm a boy and I was looking at you. Or a third way: I'm a total geek and I don't understand you. The third way explained Talos's next words: "You must be really strong." The sort of thing a four-year-old might say to a weight lifter in the middle of a weight lifting competition.
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Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 8:36 pm
It was impossible not to be flattered. The girl in front of him immediately flexed her arms: she did not have terribly impressive biceps, but she did have a certain look of wiriness to her, a bit of childhood muscle. "I can do some stuff," said Jace, with a certain air of trying to look cool, shooting the s**t. "I'm known around here to be pretty bad a**."
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Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 10:01 pm
"I bet!" agreed Talos cheerily, retrieving the vent cover and covering up the hole in the wall. He still had a job to do. "I had a friend like you once, she was the baddest a** on the block. ... That works, right? Baddest a** on the block?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 6:11 pm
"Well, that dictionary definition is now me, so sucks for your pal," said the redheaded girl. "I am pretty much the baddest a** on the block. It is agreed I'm the baddest a** on the block. Ask anyone. Except don't ask any blue-haired teenage prisses whose names rhyme with mantony, they're liars."
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Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 12:30 am
"I won't!" Talos laughed, lined up the vent cover and used a motorized screwdriver from the pack at his waist to zip the bolts back in place. There was a little whirr of gears and grit. "So, you go to school here? Do you like it?"
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Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 6:34 pm
"Eh, it's school," said the other girl philosophically, and sank down into the splits -- it wasn't that hard, considering -- as she stretched herself back and watched what he was doing avidly. She seemed to like the motorized screwdriver best. "My mother -- M.B. -- is the maths teacher and my best friend is like, this huge gigantic nerd-ball, so it's like we do homework for fun. Do you go to school here, prodigy boy?"
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Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 12:49 am
"No, I've never attended school. I wanted to, once, but it just wasn't an option." He rubbed his nose self-consciously, leaving a smear of dust across the bridge. Probably better not to try and explain how he had once been a partridge, once wanted to have the life of a normal kid, or how instead of school he had been given an apprenticeship to a man who should have protected him but had not. He had left all that behind him. "Your friend, does he like inventing stuff, too?"
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Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 6:06 am
She put her hands flat on the floor to try to extend out the stretch, looking at him. The eyes were different. Talos might have remembered a pair of greys: this girl's eyes were a bright tangerine, a few shades more orange than her very red hair. "Oh, Rel's a she, right? And I don't have any invent-ory friends. Uh. I don't think I know anyone inventy at all. My mother's math-y, Uncle Jack is... uh, a crazy magical hobo? Why couldn't you attend school? Do they keep you in a poor person's orphanage with the other Victorian kids?"
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Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 8:39 am
Talos did the only thing he responsibly could do: he dropped his screwdriver and stammered, "It wasn't really, I mean, in my position it just--"
Jace always had been good at driving right to the heart of things. On the one hand it made her easy to talk to, which was why she had been the only one to ever learn some of his secrets, and on the other it turned conversations into painful inquisitions. Talos's face bunched up like he was about to cry. "Dammit, how do you always do this to me!" He reached down to retrieve the screwdriver.
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Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 6:44 pm
"Hey," said Jace, starting to feel something close to mild distress, and annoyed that she felt it. Usually she just pointed and laughed. "Come on, retard, don't be like that. Who needs school anyway? The caf here is a** in a can."
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Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 9:00 pm
Relief flooded Talos's mind. He remembered that aspect of Jace, too: the ability to put him at ease in a instant. "Is it? I guess it's a good thing I'm only here temporarily!" For a split second, he almost laughed, but the awful truth of what he had just said was too depressing. He blurted as the thought struck him, "Do things break down here a lot?"
He knew better, given the technology at play here, but he could still hope.
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Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 9:03 pm
"Totally," said the redhead, exaggerating wildly. "The hot drinks machine is down every day and you can never get a hot drink ever. I think the caf people just swing a goddamn hammer at it so they don't have to use it. And the toaster always toasts things way too brown. It's carcinogenic and s**t! And the thing that squirts ketchup always squirts too much ketchup around. This place is a weird-a** mess, right, Tal?"
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