[Mechanical Marvels] A Kiln for Company (Ha'na please)

[Alistair deGrey]

Its something of a comfort to find somebody waiting for you. Even if it only occurs once, that one time remains carved in your memory. The experience water, and your mind a pleasantly scarred canyon.

Five minutes later...

Ha'na had not budged from her spot. Alistair raised his eyebrows in surprise as he came through the workshop door to find her where he left her. "You have not moved, Ha'na. I apologise for not making it clear, I do not mind you doing as you wish. It bothers me to see you uncomfortable." Even deGrey would not have enjoyed sitting idly at the workshop table for such a period of time. A worried smile crept across his face, an attempt at reassurance.

Alistair deGrey noticed the writing on his parchment, but disregarded it for now. "The quartermaster told me it would be five days or a week. They have seventy cubic feet right now, but need to wait for a shipment from the quarry." A chair made a harsh rubbing noise as the inventor dragged it a few inches closer and sat beside Ha'na.

deGrey's eyes examined the impeccably written message before him, recorded in her own foreign language. Circles were circumscribed around the charcoal writing by Alistair's finger, "What does this say, Ha'na. Enlighten me." Another thrilling revelation after the next. Never would deGrey confess it, but his thoughts were thoroughly muddled by attraction and novelty.

[Hana]

Her eyes lifted up to deGrey’s entrance. The expression on her face quickly lit up again. She kept from telling him that a few minutes weren’t unpleasant. She’d sat for hours before. Days even. It was worse standing completely still. At least here she had a chair. She shook her head slightly, trying to push away whatever part of her past she didn’t care to revisit.

“It’s fine. This is far from uncomfortable. I didn’t wish to snoop about.”

She nodded again to the fact that it would take more time to get the stone. The amount of time it took no longer mattered to her. Yes, she was excited about it. Thrilled even. She’d learned at least a little bit of patience, though by day four she was bound to get rather puffed up about the project once again.

Her attention turned to the paper and the writing. She watched his finger move, feeling a little knot form in her throat. Her mouth opened to say something, but her eyes dropped to the ground. Rather certain she’d just made a fool out of herself without thinking, she tucked her hands away nervously as she tended to do when she felt too exposed.

“It means I hope,” she said in a near whisper.

[Alistair deGrey]

Seconds do not know how to stop. Neither do minutes. Hours have long ago forgotten what stillness means. Days always move. Weeks fly by. Years cannot recall the meaning of immobility. Centuries know nothing but motion.
But somehow, eternity just stopped.

Rarely had deGrey wanted to squeeze somebody so badly. Take them in his arms and never let go, allow them safety and refuge. Alistair tentatively looked at Ha'na, fairly quivering. "It... It sounds unfinished."

The simple statement deGrey had spoken, requested a sentence. Would Ha'na thrust him over the cliff, to be swallowed by an oblivion of cold steel? Or would she perhaps rip from him his metallic heart, and reforge it of flesh and life?

Knots and butterflies had been fairly incinerated at this point. deGrey's insides burned, simultaneously exhilarated and superlatively nervous. The answer he anticipated, no hoped for, was almost beyond his conceptualization. Alistair tottered on the edge of a cliff, grasping his iron heart. What next? Ha'na's words, quiet and humble, commanded earthquakes and tempests in Alistair's head.

Alistair did not know, so he waited. Counting breaths, counting seconds, counting. The sparkles in her eye, the beats of her heart, the slow rise and fall of her chest.

deGrey was scared.

[Hana]

She lifted her eyes up to him. She was tired of being so locked up and restricted within herself. The thought of being otherwise was even more terrifying.

“So much… I hope for so much, so suddenly…” She took her gaze off of him in hopes of gaining some sort of courage. She would take his hand and jump off the cliff with him if only she knew he was feeling the same. Her mouth opened, grasping blindly for words. Very softly she said, “I haven’t… Hoped for so very long…”

A scarred hand lifted up to rub at her cheek as she tried to gather the courage to say anything else. She glanced at him, giving an apologetic smile.

“If I had written it all down, I would have been forced to draw over your plans. But I hope… I hope at some point I can make you as happy as you’ve made me today. That I can care for you as you’ve cared for me. I hope, perhaps, you’ll grow fond of me… That you won’t come to hate me.”

For once the blush on her cheeks was apparent as her skin turned much pinker than it had been before. She was quick to look away, down at the ground.

[Alistair deGrey]

My clocks don't work anymore.

deGrey's tongue faltered, his lips felt like clay. For several seconds he was not sure what to say, what he could say. He just stared and allowed his arms to go limp. The gears in his mind, faltering before Ha'na for so very long, finally groaned to a halt. A cloying euphoria filled the room, dizzying in its power.

It was always so awkward. Hitting these moments, reversion to business, then they would always come back. But now, after all such shy teasing and tentativeness, Alistair felt it coming to a close. Would this open the book? Or would they continue to grasp at stray pages?

But the current ran through Alistair, and he was rushing forth, giving only cursory inspection to the unseemly questions that persisted. For the second time today, Alistair threw his arms around Ha'na, jolted by the electricity that surged through him.

But this time he did not let go. No, instead he allowed the embrace to linger. "Ha'na, I could never hate you. I have never..." What word was it? He stumbled over himself, realizing that he had almost spouted out "loved". "I have never been quite as fond of somebody."

Had he almost said that?

[Hana]

“Oh, Alistair,” she whispered, wrapping an arm about him as he held her. Her chin went to rest on his shoulder, hot cheek pressing against his neck. She was shaking from head to toe, but it hadn’t been quite noticeable by eye. It was hard to miss through touch. She swallowed, simply attempting to breathe. She was terrified. Absolutely, completely, utterly terrified. Funny how scared a person can get at the face of kindness.

Yet she didn’t push him away. She clung to him as if her very life depended on it, fingers tangling into the fabric of his tunic until she had fistfuls of it in her hands. Her mind told her to run.

Run. Do not stop. Run away and hide. Run to Avanthal if you have to, just get away before something happens.

How had this happened? All she had wanted to do was sell a piece or two of pottery so she could be sure to eat for another day. She’d not wanted this. She’d not asked for it. Yah knew she didn’t think it even possible. How had she… What did she…

It was about the third time she’d tried to even mentally finish a sentence that she understood she was panicking. She’d never panicked before in her life, even when she should have. Now, over something that most would welcome, she felt panic.

“But,” she whispered, somehow managing to retain her use of Common, “you don’t know me… You… You don’t understand the horrible things I’ve done. The things I’ve seen… You don’t… I have nothing. I have no dowry. I have no family. I have nothing, Alistair. I am nothing.”

[Alistair deGrey]

Sometimes you don't need to see the gears inside a machine to know that it works perfectly.

"Shh... Calm." Alistair was completely lost at this point. He had absolutely no clue what to do. Never had such a situation been so quickly thrust upon him. He thought about releasing her, though he did not. For not only did he falter at the thought of breaking such a seal, but he did not want to give her another incorrect impression.

He patted her back slowly, hopefully a reassuring gesture. Keeping his voice low and calm, Alistair spoke to the shivering woman, "It is fine. Everything is alright." deGrey tensed a bit, trying to prevent himself from shaking. "Money is of no import..." Alistair paused for a moment, sifting Ha'na's statements from the boiling chaos and emotional distress. "Your background does not concern me."

Alistair did not know why it would concern him either. He had fallen in... He had grown to like Ha'na because of what she did and who she was, not what she has done and what she has. It was not as if deGrey could judge her for not having family or wealth either, was that not his exact situation not so long ago? No, he felt nothing but concern and adoration for Ha'na.

"It is only after you have... Have nothing, that you can gain everything." Alistair choked on the familiar words, whispered by a frightened mother into a small boy's ears long ago in Zeltiva. The inventor gently rocked Ha'na back and forth.

[Hana]

She took in his words carefully. Some peace was taken simply at the fact that she understood what he was saying. Even if he’d tried to pull away, he wouldn’t have gotten very far from her. He would have had to push. She would have crumpled. It would have been a rather pathetic situation.

After a long moment of rocking she stilled. The shaking dwindled down to a mere tremor. Her hand found his jaw, moving her fingers over his beard and her thumb over his cheek.

When she pulled back look at him, her blue eyes were wet with tears. She’d not asked for this. This scared her, and she was shocked by it. It happened so fast.

“Are you sure?” she whispered.

[Alistair deGrey]

"Are you sure?" In a world where objectivity and clarity are nothing but subjective fantasy, no. But I'm close."

Words were tricky. Often they did not do justice to a situation, but one must settle. Using inadequate phrases like, Yes, I love you,, or Never have I been surer my lovely, or if you are really inept, "Yes Ha'na, I am sure."

Alistair shivered when her hand stroked his face, he had forgotten the sensation. It had been so long since a body's heat had soaked into him, since he had felt a woman's arms wrap around his neck. It was ambrosia.

Ha'na detached herself and gazed at deGrey, cobalt eyes reaching deep into his core, plucking dusty heart strings. The quicksilver emotions that usually ebbed and flowed like tides within the confines of deGrey were gone. No longer did the moon exist, for Ha'na had invariably stolen it. Now he needed her, or else the water would not move at all.

So Alistair deGrey did something he had not done for over two years. He returned Ha'na's gaze, and kissed her.

[Hana]

If deGrey thought that it had been quite a while since he’d kissed someone and had made a bet on it, he would have lost. The young woman he was kissing had not reciprocated this action in six or seven years. She had not allowed anyone to do this sort of thing to her.

It was a strange moment. Her back stiffened as if someone had just thrown cold water onto her. At first she didn’t seem to know what to do. Still she didn’t push him away. She didn’t slap him. In fact, she still had her arm about his neck.

And then something occurred to her. She was being kissed. She had two options in this situation. She could run away, never to be seen again, which is what part of her was saying to do. Or she could kiss back.

What possibly seemed like an eternity turned out to only be a split second as this shot through her mind. After the initial shock wore off, she kissed him back.