Intertwining Roots (Montaine)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Had she been aware of Monty's internal monologue, Tock would have considered him right foolish. His personal preferences, after all, shouldn't have anything to do with whether he could have children. Tock was a virgin, but she still had babies. She made children, and they were far better than any that a girl could push out from between her legs. Cleaner, too. She also didn't give a damn about conversational ambiguity. She would speak her mind, and anyone who gave her brother a hard time would meet the very unambiguous end of her fists. Of course, that didn't stop her from blushing a bit when he said he'd had 'plenty,' and at a far younger age than the virgin sitting next to him. He was only a year or so older than her, and that would have put him around fifteen at the time of the encounter he described. While Tock had known plenty of girls doing it at a younger age than that (some of them professionally), when she was that age she hadn't been remotely thinking about such things. Her life then had been a mixture of working in her Granddad's shop, and playing the slave to her Da's drunken demands. At the end of his story, Tock nodded firmly and said, "Yer right. I'ma go pounce 'at boy next time I sees 'im..." She appreciated Satevis's respect and gentlemanly ways, but a girl had needs after all. She got up and threw her arms around Monty, planting a sisterly kiss on his cheek. "I'll sees ya tomorra. Bring'n some parts fer yer neighbors steps, aye? 'Ey's gonna break a neck if'n I dun mumble murfle..." she trailed off drunkenly as she stumbled to the door. She headed home with the intent of changing into her pretty new dress and going to throw herself at her boyfriend, though the alcohol got the better of her and she wound up passing out with her shoes still on. * * * The next few days, Tock stopped by Monty's Da's neighborhood whenever she had time after work and school. She spent several hours there each afternoon, mending stairs, fixing loose floor boards, tightening loose hinges, and fixing up the homes of the people that couldn't afford to get the work done. At the end of each day, she had a new list of requests from other neighbors, and a new list of small parts to hand off to Monty, since he had insisted on funding the repairs. Hinges, boxes of nails, and other small parts that, while not expensive, weren't a priority for people who had to worry about affording their next meal. Finally, in the sixteenth of summer, Tock found herself neck deep in the middle of a more urgent project for one of Tiffan's neighbors. She had already had an interesting day. After working all morning and early afternoon on preparing a pair of iron-silk alchemical scarves for Animation, house repairs were a bit boring. Of course, she didn't yet know that Monty would have an interesting story to tell about his encounter the night before. "Aaaaaand... Chop!" she called out, and her baby Choppy started swinging his axe. An big old tree had fallen on someone's house, smashing through the wall right into their bedroom. From the giggling and chuckling of the couple, Tock had a pretty good guess as to what activity had been interrupted by the sudden collapse. She had Choppy cutting through the tree now while she took measurements of the wall. Out of a sense of irony, she had decided that the very tree that had caused the coitus interruptus would be cut into boards to replace the wall. She was jotting down numbers for the sizes of the boards she needed while her baby cut through the tree, and Cutty waited nearby to aid her in slicing the wood up into boards.

[Montaine]

Montaine was in a good mood, a very good mood. In fact he was in a better mood than he had been in for a very long time and had been so all day. The only potential dampener on his spirits was also the sole reason why he wasn’t positively skipping through town. It seemed unlikely as a cause, but he had never quite recovered his breathing from the previous evening, his lungs maintaining a persistent rasp and a sharp pain in his chest. He had to pause to catch his breath three times along his journey to Kova Street as he hadn’t had to do since he was a child. One winter he had been confined to his bed for the majority and spent the next two recovering with a cane. In his optimistic, post-coital mood he dismissed the possibility of his respiratory issues being anything more than a harmless temporary twinge and continued on his way. His father’s house was in sight and the road itself was looking startlingly cleaner. The weeds and grass that had previously poke through cracks in the cobblestones had largely disappeared and what scraggly spots of vegetation yet remained were being fastidiously ripped from their roots by a band of scruffy looking children. While the adults and older boys and girls had to work the smaller of the sons and daughters of Kova Street and beggar town had found a new interest in Tock’s repairs and in the previous unexplored idea of making things better. A few of the gang circled Monty as he approached the gadgeteer’s latest project and he struggled to shake them off, his breath once again causing him issues, ‘Tock!’ he shouted, then coughed but his smile resolutely refused to budge from his face, ‘How goes it?’ It was strange, only a few days ago he had been espousing the joys of physical intimacy yet stressing heavily the undoubted excellence of engaging in such activities with one for whom you possessed true feelings and there he was beaming the day after his first meeting with his recently newly established sexual partner. The hypocrisy was not lost on him, but he found it difficult to find the will to care. It had just been such a long time since he had had so much fun, of that sort at least. Spending time drinking with Tock was all well and good but he could never provide him with that sort of entertainment. He leant on the wall in a vain attempt to catch his faltering breath, ‘Big job, where’re the Coopers stayin’ while you’re sortin’ out their room?’

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

OOCAre you getting screen errors when trying to type a post? I don't know if it's just my computer, but something about all the centered text we did on the songs is making it impossible to type a post in the reply screen... Thank God for the quick reply box! Tock had some paper in her third hand, writing with her left, recording the numbers on the sizes she'd need for the wood. When Monty approached, Handy waved at him, which caused a big smudge across the pages since he forgot to put them down first and ended up waving the papers at the Glassman. Tock sighed in frustration and held her wrist up in front of her face, "Baby, whatcha doin'? 'At's bad!" The hand drooped, his fingers hanging dejectedly, and Tock sighed again, kissing the back of the wooden hand. "S'okay, baby. Mommy still loves you. Jus' 'old the papers good, 'kay?" Handy waved his fingers up and down in a nod, then returned to the task. When Monty approached and leaned against the wall, Tock was so focused on her work at first that she didn't notice the grin on his face. "Won't take long," she told him. "Damage ain't so bad. An' 'ow should I know where 'ey's sleepin'? I's the repair lady, not the landlady!" She glanced up at Monty and noticed the grin, her eyes narrowing as she focused on it for a moment. Then she was distracted by the sound of the tree hitting the ground behind her. Choppy just kept on chopping; unlike Handy, Choppy didn't have the intelligence to know how to make his own decisions (even if Handy's decisions weren't always the brightest ones). The axe would keep chop-chop-chopping away forever if she didn't stop him. "Stop!" she called out, and he froze. "Retract," she ordered, and he cocked the axe back into the readied position, pulling it out of the wood. "Back... back... stop," she commanded, and he backed up slowly then froze, awaiting his next orders. Tock moved around and grabbed the end of the tree that was lodged in the wall. Now that it was chopped off the main trunk, the remaining section was easier to move. It was still too heavy to fully lift, but she was able to use leverage to tilt it over and get it out of the wall. With a few more verbal commands, she reoriented Choppy on a new place and got him chopping again, taking off the upper section of the tree where the branches branched out. Then she lifted Cutty into place (not trusting him with walking commands as long as he was still malfunctioning). She lined him up by hand instead of verbal orders, and once he was in place told him, "Cut... cut... CUT CUT CUT!" He ignored the first few commands until he finally started. She fought against the burning sensation in her eyes, and just gently patted his handle. He'd be better soon... Shaking her head to dismiss the thoughts passing through her mind, Tock turned her attention back to Monty. "So, wotcher, mate?" she asked him, too focused on her work and her worries to fully pick up on his good mood just yet.

[Montaine]

The glassworker frowned at the malfunctioning machine. The animated axe wasn’t quite as emotive as the garrulous gadgeteer’s other creations, it didn’t possess the skittish charm of Bitey, or the affectionate actions of Naily, but he had seen the looks that formed on her features when she looked at the thing and her despair for its wellbeing was enough to inspire it in him as well. He knew nothing about the inner workings of her creations and frankly didn’t care to know. It was all complex Djed stuff. His father had tried to give him some basic education on the topic when he was a boy but he simply didn’t have the wherewithal to remain interested in such complex and abstract ideas. ‘I’m good, pretty good, yeah,’ he decided against bringing up the topic of her golem, it seemed senseless to rouse the emotions entailed and rather more preferable to instead distract his friend with idle chatter, ‘Had a pretty good day, slept better’n I have since winter,’ he grinned and stretched his arms above his head, ‘Pretty big commission yesterday too, great big vase, huge it were,’ he said measuring it out with his hands, ‘Had to toss the racks from the annealer to fit it in, should fetch a fair amount. This fella asked for it special, some merchant’s son, Calbert thinks we might get a regular thing goin’ with the bloke’s father,’ Monty scratched behinds his ear and looked at his shoes as he mumbled the next part, ‘I mighta slept with him too,’ He had to stop himself from sniggering. He certainly was no stranger to such things, as he had made clear to Tock only a few nights prior, yet it had been such a long time since his last encounter of such an intimate nature he couldn’t help but ride the giddiness as though he were fifteen again and dancing round the workshop after first spending a night with Sammy Fisher. All of his problems, the decrepit state of his home street, the poor affair of little Cutty, his worsening health, all of it was forgotten in a flash as his mind wandered back to lying beside the merchant’s son. ‘I ain’t no whore, mind, it were purely innocent stuff,’ he felt the necessity to add, for fear she might think the commission and the sex were linked. Not that he was entirely convinced that they weren’t, and that Calbert hadn’t orchestrated the whole thing with the possibility of regular commission in mind, but that certainly hadn’t been his plan. How could he have resisted, after all? The man’d had tattoos. He could never resist a man with tattoos.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

While Choppy and Cutty were working on the tree and cutting the boards she'd need, Tock herself got to work on the wall. She used a crowbar to pry off the remaining broken pieces of wood, in order to clear the way for the fresh lumber. She had Handy hold each piece of wood while she used her left hand to pry, bracing her foot against the wall for leverage. As each board came out, she tossed them over to Naily so he could pry the nails out. It was like having a full crew working with her instead of just one woman doing the job. When it came time to stop Cutty and get the saw moved to a new position, she had to shout at him repeatedly to get him to finally listen. Between the difficulty controlling the saw, having to redirect Choppy the axe with another set of verbal commands, and the fact that Handy insisted on trying to straighten her hair when she held him near her face, using her own fingers to scratch an itch, she was quite distracted and only half listening to Monty's story about some huge piece of glass. "I mighta slept with him too..." She dropped her crowbar on her foot at the unexpected words, then screamed and started hopping on the other foot, cursing up a storm. "Dagnub bloody petchin' no good piece o' termite ridden shyte!" she screamed and cursed, reaching down to rub her sore foot. Naily's head bobbed up and down as he watched her hopping, unable to understand the behavior but his eyes still drawn to the movement. Handy was more intelligent, and understood the cursing and the anger, but still limited in his ability to understand and know what was the right thing to do; he reacted to the cursing by giving Monty the finger, since that's what his Mommy usually did. Plopping down to sit on the ground, Tock gaped at Monty. Naily rolled over and nuzzled her foot, and she distractedly petted him as she turned to gaze up at Monty, unsure what to say. Her mind churned, speechless for a long moment as the shock wore off. Finally, she asked, "'Ow was 'e?"

[Montaine]

Montaine was torn. He was torn between two highly conflicting emotions and really found it difficult to decide which to concentrate his efforts on. Naturally he was concerned for his friend’s wellbeing, and the safety of her foot, but on the other hand her startled reaction was hilarious and he had to stifle a chuckle. He took the opportunity, as she nursed her injured foot, to consider the question. He had been good, certainly, he most assuredly knew his way around the area with the experienced hands of frequent participant, practiced, knowledgeable, attractive. ‘Pretty good,’ his brows furrowed as he looked at her foot, ‘You alrigh’? Looked like that hurt,’ he attempted to move towards her, but instead felt a sharp pain in his chest that sent him reeling back to the wall with a shout, ‘Agh, sorry,’ he slapped his chest a few times with his fist, hoping to lessen the feeling, ‘Must’ve done meself a mischief last night,’ he smirked at her. He would have to pay the fair doctor a visit up at the university soon and get himself checked out. It wasn’t altogether uncommon for him to have the occasional bad day, or for it stretch into a bad few days. It was a little odd that it was happening during the summertime as the warmer weather tended to do him good and the heightened availability of food staved off the effects of hunger that had so frequently led to bad turns in the past. But once again his mood won out and he pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind, ‘If’n he’s properly goin’ to put us on a long runnin’ thing then I’ll probably be seein’ him again soon enough. He ain’t nothin’ special, but it’s nice, you know? Havin’ someone what likes you. He’s got a real thing for burns ‘n’ that too, ‘n’ worker types I think. He stayed all through the makin’ of his vase, an’ enjoyed it a little, well, more than most,’ he chuckled and pushed away from the wall experimentally. His chest still hurt, but not nearly as bad as it had. ‘What about you? Had any luck getting’ that man o’ yours in the sack?’

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock ignored any concern about her foot, seeing as it was nothing compared to the break she'd had a few weeks ago. A little ache was nothing by comparison. She was more concerned with Monty, who seemed to be having worse fits than usual. Assuming if was from yesterday's overexertion, she told him, "Next time, make 'im does all the work, aye?" She thought about what Monty was saying as he described his new beau. It put a frown on her face. "Sounds like a posh prick what wants ta get 'is jollies rollin' in the muck what wit' the common folk," she said. She pointed her saw at Monty and added, "If'n 'e done 'urts ya, I's gonna cut 'is pecker right off an' bloody feed it ta 'im! Ya done were mine first, aye?" In her view, Monty was 'hers' first because she'd claimed him as a brother. Anyone that wanted to mess with her family had to go through her first. She got distracted again by another shouting match with Cutty. He ended up digging his blade a bit into the dirt before she could get through to him and get him to stop. Once he was finished, she lifted him gently and carried him to the side, lovingly cleaning the dirt from his blade and whispering soothing comforts in his ear. Technically he didn't understand them, but she believed it was making him feel better. She got to work smoothing out the edges of the freshly cut boards, and lining them up one by one along the wall. She stacked some of the extra wood across the base of the wall, making a little makeshift ramp for Naily to roll up. As she set the boards into place, she started each nail with her normal hammer until it was set in place, then Naily rolled up and hammered it in. As they progressed she added more pieces under the miniature scaffolding, raising the height so that Naily could reach up higher. She was considering upgrading him with arms, so that he could hold the nails in place himself, thus cutting down on how much she had to do. But she had never modified one of her Automatons post-creation before, aid didn't want to start experimenting until she fixed Cutty. The last thing her heart needed right now was to have another of her babies get sick because she didn't know what she was doing. Before long, thanks to the efficiency of having her babies helping with the workload, the wall was repaired with the new boards. She spent a little time going over everything by hand, making sure nothing was loose, and sanding down the edges. Then while she was at it, she went down the length of the wall, checking for loose or rotted boards. She found some others here and there that needed either a quick repair by nailing down a loose spot, or a total replacement if the board was rotted through. Some were only minor patches; measuring a small section of old or damaged wood, prying those pieces out, and measuring and cutting a replacement to fit that particular spot. As the sun was starting to set, she walked down the wall, knocking here and there, and nodding in satisfaction. "Good as new, aye mate?" she said with a grin. Handy on her wrist gave a thumbs up. OOCI'm glossing over any details of Tock's sex life for now since Satevis is still on hiatus, and thus I don't know what progress might be made in the relationship up until this date.

[Montaine]

‘Aye’ Monty nodded. He had done what he could to help out. He had tried to, at the very least. However, shortly after doing any form of work more laborious than handing over tools his heart would start up again with a stabbing pain and his breathing would labour and he would be forced to sit himself down and catch his breath again. He had tried to do so subtly. The last thing he wanted was for people to start worrying unnecessarily. He was thankful his father was still working up at the stables; the old man would have a fit if he saw the boy’s condition. Montaine could not stand to have people fretting over his health. It was bad enough that he had suffer through whatever issues or ailments were affecting him on any given day let alone knowing that he was causing other people strife worrying over it. He knew that his father loved him and cared for him and didn’t want him to be so sick but his illness was permanent and unchanging and no amount of agonising and anxiety would help. He hated the pain he caused his father over something so stupid as his health. But he had found, over the years, that whilst he could not make his lungs work any better, whilst he couldn’t cure his sickness, he could certainly stop his father’s worrying most of the time by keeping up the pretence of health. It didn’t help his acting, however, when he was dizzy and weak and felt one faulty step away from fainting. So he had just sat to one side as the gadgeteer worked and tried not to speak too much for fear that he might give some hint of his condition away in the sound of his voice. The day had started so promisingly, so happily. He had passed the time by escaping into his memories of the night before and fervently hoping he would improve as the evening wore on. Eventually he had mustered the courage to make a tentative attempt to fetch a drink in the hopes that rehydration would aid in his recovery and by the time Tock finished up her work he was feeling much as he had done that morning. Not perfect, but good enough. ‘We goin’ down to the Head tonight?’ he asked, pulling himself up from his seat. Alcohol probably didn’t help his health but it at least hid his symptoms, if only for the night. Dizziness, queasiness and a propensity for collapsing were all standard fare when you were pissed, so he could feel indistinguishable from the regular drunkards for a time. He could feel normal for a time.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

When Tock noticed how Monty's bad breathing was still persisting even after a rest, she became more concerned. Like Monty, she didn't believe in letting her troubles get in the way of life, nor did she like other people worrying over her or thinking she was weak. Unlike Monty, she didn't believe in pretense, or pretending like nothing was wrong. If she didn't want someone worrying needlessly over her, she'd tell them to either quit whining and lend a hand, or else mind their own damn business and leave her the hell alone. She also didn't believe in accepting weakness and limitation. Unlike Monty, who had accepted his ailment as an unavoidable aspect of life, Tock believed that anything was possible. She also believed she had the power to do anything she set her mind to, and tackle any problem. When she'd broken her foot, she had made a pair of magic crutches to carry her around. When she had broken her hand, she had built a replacement, and if her hand were ever permanently damaged, she wouldn't hesitate to cut it off and attach Handy permanently to her wrist. So when faced with her brother's continued breathing problems, she asked, "Want I should build ya some new lungs, Glassman?" How hard could it be? She imagined she could rig some out of a couple of fireplace bellows, maybe cut a hole through his neck to attach them. Of course, she'd need a doctor's help to make sure he didn't bleed to death in the process... She started using a strip of leather to measure his chest and neck, muttering numbers to herself. She distractedly answered, "Aye, I's always up fer poisonin' myself wit' 'at green sludge." She held her ear against his chest to listen to his breathing, wondering how many cubic centimeters of air he could inhale in a single breath. "Wanna stop by my 'ouse 'fore we go?" she asked. "I done wanna 'as ya blow inta a leather bag..."

[Montaine]

The glassworker gently batted his friend away, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine! Petch it, an’ you ain’t puttin’ no new lungs in me, y’hear? These’ll do me jus’ fine.’ Monty eyed up the gadgeteer as she began to insistently take his measurements. Were it anyone else he might have taken the proposition for a joke. After all, she couldn’t seriously be contemplating slicing him open and cutting out parts of his body, could she? Were it any other person he would have known, but Tock, as he had so frequently observed, was not like any other person. And though he knew she was just trying to be kind, caring in her own way, he still frowned, disturbed by the prospect of her suggestion. So many people were fearful of wizards, magicians, mages, whatever you wanted to call them, so many people were terrified or hateful or despising of Djed and the scholars who studied it. Montaine liked to think of himself has forward thinking, accepting, but there were still elements of the practices that made him shudder. His father had been raised on the great Cyphrusian plains and had as such had a childhood exposed to the art and science of Djed, far more so than Monty. The glassworker had grown accustomed to the gadgeteer’s golems, he could see their quirks and foibles. It was understandable why some might be fearful of them in their ignorance and yet he could not accept that it was mere ignorance on his part that caused such revulsion at the concept of replacing an integral part of his body with one of Tock’s animated creations. ‘I been like this all me life, ain’t killed me yet an’ to be honest I’ve kinda grown attached to me ol’ lungs, the little shykers,’ Monty smiled, ‘Let’s jus’ get down to the pub, aye? You done a petchin’ great job wit’ the Coopers’ place, figure you could do wit’ a drink. S’ppose we’ll have to stop by yours to drop off the kids anyhow, but you ain’t getting’ me blowin’ anything ‘cept glass an’-’ he paused and gave her a conspiratorial, sidelong look, ‘Well, I ain’t goin’ to blow into no bag so’s you can set about measurin’ up me lungs, anyhow,’

OOCFeel free to do a scene change.