Butterflies in Winter

by **Hadrian** on January 11th, 2012, 11:39 pm

25th Winter, 511 A.V.

As Morwen's time wore on, the goddess absent physically from her city, although she claimed the entire continent, Hadrian spent more time at home working on things while Kendall was tending the Kelvic bear cubs and Ethan was delivering messages to the knights or having sex with whores in Syliras' brothels or perhaps tracking Sondra down for something similar.

Today he was sitting on the floor with his back to the bed rather than at his desk, legs spread to make room for paper, pen and ink, bits of wire and other various and sundry oddments and bits of nothing he had collected in his pockets of late, materiel for creation. Sometimes he wished Alistair had been more stable a personality; he might have learned more from him. Or Julius in Alvadas, from whom he had gotten those clockwork men. They need his attention at some point too.

For now he looked at some pictures of butterflies he had drawn while working his way up the Kabrin Road with Kendall, Ethan, and Sondra. Now he sketched beside them wire-work versions, engineering the most effective construction for an inanimate version of the pretty insects for him to animate with the skill he had learned from Jilitse. To be perfectly honest, animating little, useless, fluttering insects with seven second memory spans was about the best that he could do. His interests spanned the disciplines, but he had only so much time, so many resources, to spend on each one. Now seemed a perfectly good opportunity for this.

The bodies were various, some tightly wound wire to add potential energy for the wings, others more simple, relying upon the magic to power the thing. Some were as true to the actual morphology of the butterfly, others more fanciful.

The one he settled on making, finally, was more of the fanciful variety. He wreathed the drawing in notes to plot out his enchantment, as well as mathematical calculations to be sure that its structure and its enchantment would actually allow for movement and for perpetual motion. Souls and their copies were tricky things, more complex than any man could comprehend entirely, but they could make broad strokes and allow nature to fill in the blanks.

The body was a mere ring of wire, with six twisted wire structures coming off of it to hold wings, which would be made of paper. It would be a delicate Eypharian sort of butterfly, and when he gave it to Kendall, gentle treatment would be required. Now that his engineering schematics were complete, idea, geometry, and other calculations included, he had but to build it and give it life.

by **Hadrian** on April 28th, 2012, 1:10 am

He made the general shapes with his bare hands, but used needle-nosed pliers from his kit to get all of the delicate work done. The thoracic-abdominal structure was a simple ring from which sprung two rectangular structures that would house the wings. If his calculations were correct, the animated creature would be able to bend and flex its structure enough for flight; it would be decorative and little else, but that didn't bother the mostly self-taught young animator. These were experiments, and the only way he would increase his skills.

Though not an exceptionally clever gadget, the frame took him some time. He was ever so careful, not wanting to do too much bending and weaken the wire. It had to be as close to perfect as possible with a minimum of manipulation, and he was, as with all things, exacting. When he was finally satisfied, he set the wire frame down on a big piece of blank parchment and drew a circle around it. He drew a slightly larger circle around that, and then filled the space between with a chain pattern of glyphs that he intended to augment his work. There was his Destination prepared, sigil, circle, and nearly complete shell.

Next he tore up pieces of scrap parchment into the right size and shape to be one of the six wings. These were old and damaged bits, aged, ink-stained, and the like, but they would serve, especially with a life principle and his magic bolstering them. He picked up the frame and fit these in between the wires until the thing was complete. It was beautiful in a strange, artificial sort of way. He smiled and gently set the completed shell back into the destination sigil.

On the same sheet of parchment, he drew a smaller double circle, filling the space between with more runes, these more ancient, something he had found in a book somewhere -- he could remember if he cared to think about it, but his mind moved past such details. A line was drawn between them.

"And now for the virgin sacrifice," he murmured to himself, opening his mind to the auras all around him.

Avanthal was too cold for butterflies, but somehow they did manage to have moths in the closet sometimes. Ah. He reached out with his aura, enveloping a sleeping moth's, calling to it with a hypnotic lullaby, its faint spark of an intellect instantly smitten, and it fluttered out from under the door to the closet and then up through the air to lazily perch upon his fingers.

When he put his hand down in the source sigil, the moth dutifully climbed down, and then fell back into an easy slumber on the pulse of his hypnotic suggestion. So Kendall would have an exotic animated butterfly that actually behaved like a moth, but perhaps he wouldn't notice. He was not, after all, a natural historian.

Hadrian pricked his thumb and pressed the pad of it into a specific run on the source sigil, which began to glow with a dull, red pulse along with his heart, bleeding along the connected lines until both circles were glowing with a lambent energy. Focusing on the aura of the little moth, he began to copy it as Jilitse had taught him, fashioning the new aura above the old as from a template, creating and maintaining this double overlaid until it was ready to move along.

In this manner, he began to understand the structure of function of a moth as never before.

by **Hadrian** on May 10th, 2012, 8:20 pm

He felt a tingle in his wound as the blood sacrifice lit the circles and runes with magical fire, fueled by not only his blood but his djed as well. A moth's mind was not very complex, and so it was relatively easy copying that information into a template for behavior. In no time at all, the blank Soulcore hovered over the inert gadget he had crafted.

A thread of his aura remained coiled through the moth's, keeping it hypnotically sedated. If it flew away, all would be for naught. But the rest of his will was focused on the next step, building a Persona, however simplistic. He only taught it a few things. First loyalty to him and to Kendall, for whom it would be a gift. He showed Kendall's aura, the better for the thing to recognize him. Next self-preservation, that it might shy away from open flame, or from touching anyone other than Kendall or Hadrian, teaching it how to fly and how to land, taking as much as he could from the moth in order to teach it truly as he had yet to learn to fly.

He could sense the Soulcore, the Persona, the patterns of energy via his auristic training, and it all seemed to be going to plan. The little thing would love on Kendall, and on Hadrian, and for good measure he gave it a bit of a liking for Ethan, too, as he might grow jealous, but left the order of affection in that series: Kendall, Hadrian, Ethan.

Last he began to shape its astral body for it, kneading it with his will into the very stuff of its being, a sensory core, and wings. Flight was such an interesting thing, it was no wonder this wasn't the first little perpetual flier he had created. The orphans in Syliras had enjoyed Hopstop and his other little golems, after all. Perhaps this would cheer Kendall up until Spring.

Such simple creations took little more than these few hours to craft the thing and then craft its Life Principle, and now it was complete. He released his hypnotic hold on the moth and it began to flex its wings as it came awake. Much the same way, his little hexabrachian butterfly began to tremble and move in much the same manner, waking up for the first time.

It was a stupid little creature, but it would be blissful doing what it was created to do, and it might help Kendall. After a few minutes, it managed to take wing and fluttered up toward him, recognizing, he supposed, the aura he had taught it. He held up his hand and it lit upon his crooked finger.

"Hello, little one," he said.

END

by **Paragon** on June 25th, 2012, 11:11 pm

Adventurer's Loot

Hadrian's Loot :

Original application of gadgeteering and animation - very enjoyable - if you have ANY questions or concerns about this grading, don't hesitate to PM me.