Welcome to Gaia! ::

Luciana sat behind the counter with her loupe on, working on cleaning a rather stubborn pocket watch that she swore was older than her father. The thing had been brought in with enough dirt and grim in it that she’d originally thought it had been something pilfered from a grave. But when they offered the original paperwork with it for reference to repair it, she got to hear the story of how it had been used by someone who worked in the mines.

Hours, it had taken so many hours to get all the pieces taken apart and cleaned. The wear from it was to be expected but otherwise, it’d faired better than most things had. Holding up one of the parts to the light over her workspace, she examined it as the sound of the bell above the door barely registered. It took her a moment to peer over and notice the small kid wandering into her shop. “Добро пожаловать~” Coughing for a moment, she shook her head. “Welcome to my shop, are you here to pick up a repair for a family member?”

They looked too young, in her opinion, to be here to buy something and she didn’t think it worth her time to waste it socializing. But if they were here for a more affluent family member she needed to keep her tone a bit warmer than she might otherwise speak.

So not a customer, but a loiterer instead. Moving her current project aside so it wouldn’t get bumped around, she sighed and looked at them. They didn’t look too poor, and there were hints of affluence so maybe she’d see about his issue. It sounded like something interesting at least, something that wasn’t just the standard clueless questions she got from customers.

The mention of computers had her scowling slightly, she didn’t like how people wanted to rely on things like that when gears and timers could be set up without chips and coding. Maybe it was a hangup from her family’s work but she felt justified in her dislike of the easy way out. Moving her loupe away from her eye, she looked over the blueprint on the screen. It wasn’t just something simple at least, something to fill the time as she figured things out.

“Gears can be timers in their own right, just as a clock chimes at a certain time for a certain amount of chimes, you can have it mechanically turn a switch on and off or complete a connection for another source to pull from.” Pulling something from inside the counter, she set it next to the laptop and showed them it.

It was a music box of sort with a timepiece on the front half. “When the time hits six in the evening, it will play a different melody than the other times. Something I worked on a while back. Things with clocks built in are already able to enact a motion on a time of sorts. The question is on what time or duration things happen.” But if it was going to be part of a larger piece, like a grandfather clock or cuckoo clock, which was the closest thing she knew to what they were trying to make, then there was a lot of wiggle room because you could hide things in the extra space provided.

The castle and ideas that seemed to go with it were interesting, something that would take time on top of what had been put in so far. But as they talked about things, it seemed more like an apprenticeship that they were asking for. While she liked the idea of having someone to boss around or teach, the fact she wouldn’t be getting paid soured things.

They seemed young, but there was promise with what they’d done. Leaning up, she fiddled with the tie that held her hair back. Some strands had fallen loose while she worked so she took a moment to redo her ponytail as she thought. “An apprenticeship, is that what you’re asking for?”

Icy eyes scrutinized the boy across the counter as they looked over her music box. She could tell that gears were moving in their head, trying to puzzle things out, which was a good sign. While passion projects were nice, she knew that money was what mattered in the end, and family status. It made her bitter, just thinking about how everything had been going so well on all fronts before that stupid Frenchman ran off.

Tapping her fingers on the counter, she sighed and shook her head for a moment. “I need to look into a few of my papers first.” Thinking over the miles of paperwork for her visa and work permit, she wasn’t sure if it explicitly had said anything about taking on an apprentice but she’d have to call her lawyer to double-check.

“It does help, I hate repeating myself and dealing with people who are incompetent.” Grumbling for a moment, she looked over at the pocket watch she’d been working on. “Time works and to be honest I need someone to explain this city to me. This whole country is so different from where I came from. And both are different from where I grew up.” Shuffling some things around, she looked at them again.

“Luciana Kukolnik, of the Petersburg Kukolniks.” Though Versailles would have been the more recent place they’d all settled. But the thought of that place and what happened soured her mood so she pushed the thought aside as she reached over to take the music box back from them gently.

“I work down in the shop from nine to five weekdays but I live upstairs so we can work something out.” Looking over the music box, she trailed her fingers over the parts that had been worked on by her grandfather.

“I know nothing of how school works in this country but there is always a place for those who work with machinery. Gears are in more things than people think of so there is always a place for someone with the skills. Though… how old are you? I’m certain there are pesky laws about what young kids can and cannot work around.” She was always bad at figuring out people’s ages, it never really mattered much to her. Asking now was more to make sure she wouldn’t get into any trouble and their name would be needed for paperwork. Otherwise, she wouldn’t really care to ask for either.

Icy eyes softened for a moment and she sighed. “Don’t tell anyone you’re working for me at first. I don’t need trouble from the government. Unofficially at first, just a kid visiting my shop and loitering I guess.” Not that she’d shoo him out if she could get information about this crazy city.

“That would work, this city is a mess and the roads make no sense. It’s like the designer just threw string at the wall with glue and then put it to the pavement.” Shaking her head she settled back down as they explained things. Waving a hand at the mention of crafting gears, she knew that was something frowned upon for kids to work with in most cases. Machinery was one of those things even back home she knew wasn’t allowed to be handled by people so young.

“I can handle machining parts but you can watch. The last thing either of us needs is for you to get your hand caught in it. I can use it but to get it fixed…. I’d have to get someone over here from back home.” There weren’t any blurbs of English on any of her tools and machines so she doubted she could get someone to maintain things that didn’t speak French or Russian.

Arching her brow up curiously at the mention of them being Bilingual she leaned forward and looked closer at them. “What language? ты говоришь по-русски? Or? Parlez-vous français?” Her french was a bit harsh, closer to her Russian but that’s how she always was even if she’d lived there more than in Russia.

That was an odd thing to say even if she didn’t really hold people highly herself but she knew most people had at least one or two people to listen to them. But if it was true and nobody paid them any mind…. that could work out in her favor if she had him go spy on René’s shop. It wouldn’t be as suspicious if it was a kid instead of her.

“That’s not good for metal, not clean enough, and the particles…” Shaking her head she knew there were small flecks of metal deep in her skin but not that anyone would know weren’t just freckles or something against her skin. It was just part of the process and she’d rather get nicks and scratches than catch a sleeve in something.

Norwegian, that was something new. It wasn’t a language she’d been exposed to much in either place she’d lived. To be honest she couldn’t be sure of what it sounded like if you asked her to pick it out.

“Good, that will work for now until I look into other things. Right now I need to get back to working on this pocket watch, you can stay and watch if you like just don’t touch anything. It took me weeks to get all the coal and much out of this thing and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work because some oil from fingers gets on it.” Which was why she had cotton gloves on, the ones that didn’t let little fuzzies loose or strings that would get into things. It kept oil off things while still letting her have enough of a grip on both her tools and the watch.

Tipping the loupe back down over her eye and readjusting the bright light, she moved the work tray over with the watch and its parts. It was already half reassembled so she just needed to get a few more parts behind the face done before she placed that back on and worked on the hands and got everything wound back up and tested.

Nodding to herself she smiled a bit. “First lesson because English is still not my favorite language, хороший, it means good.” Because this would be good for her in many ways.