[Infirmary] Knight and Nurse (Andre)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

It took quite a bit longer to tie the laces than if Tock had simply done it herself, and she wasn't sure Handy really had it down yet. The motions were rather complex, so she guided him with her own right hand, palm against the back of Handy's hand, so that her fingers were aligned with his. "Do what Mommy does," she whispered to him, guiding his little wooden fingers step by step through the process. She'd have to have him practice this more regularly, if she wanted him to master the movements. She probably should have programmed it into him when she created him, but of all the hand motions she'd taught him, this one hadn't occurred to her at the time. When the boots were laced, she stood back up to find Andre kissing her again. Her face turned a light shade of pink; she wasn't much used to this kind of attention. She hadn't received anything of the sort since Satevis, and he hadn't been nearly this forward with his affections. Quite the opposite, in fact, considering she had failed to lure him into bed after several attempts. "I needs ta git some stuff 'fore we done goes," she told Andre, as Handy started tugging on the offered rope. He didn't seem to understand what he was supposed to do with it, and instead started whipping it lightly back and forth, treating it like a toy. Tock looked down at him with a sigh and a shake of her head, then said with a small smile, "'E ain't knows what 'knot' means yet..." He'd likely end up reducing the rope to a tangled mess before long, but as long as he seemed to be having fun, Tock would leave him be. "Ain't nothin' what fer ta shows ya when it's 'is late," Tock told Andre, glancing out the window into the night. The sun had already been coming down before she came down here, and it had finished setting while she was spending time with him. "So's as I guess we jus' pick up my things, an' I takes ya 'ome..." she shrugged, not having thought it out beyond that. In fact, she hadn't even come down here today with the intent of taking him home. She'd come here for autopsy books and information. She didn't know what she was going to do with this man. Except for more kissing. Definitely more kissing.

[Andresciel]

The Knight nods to her, as he focuses, reaching out with his djed around his pack. He groaned as he focused the djed into something more...suitable, sealing the top of his backpack with a shield, shimmering blue-silver in appearance before he turned to her. "Well as long as he is happy, He can have as much rope as he wants." He stated, as he smiles to Tock, the strain of shielding on his face before he looked down at her. "Well lets gather your stuff and be on our way. I do enjoy night walks. Though, I think this time at least, you will have to forgive me about not kissing you goodnight on your doorstep." The Mage-Knight whispered, watching her with interest. As if he could read her thoughts, he leaned in, pressing his lips to her own, enjoying the softness of her lips, the sweet taste before he broke the kiss and walked towards the exit with strong strides. The pain seemed to have been erased, after that one kiss.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

She frowned at the obvious strain, muttering to herself, "Shoulda brought the magic crutches..." She was distracted thinking about what she needed to do when she got home, and he caught her off guard with another kiss. But as he moved in, she had a stray thought, wondering what his aura would look like when he was kissing her. Her scientific curiosity was too strong to deny, and she watched him for a moment after the kiss, focusing her Djed in order to capture his aura. She stared into his eyes for a long moment's concentration as the aura began to reveal itself once more. Yet by the time the aura became clear, the shimmering colors in it weren't focused on any one thing. So like any good scientist, she needed to run a controlled test. She watched the colors of his aura for a long moment, making note of everything she saw. Then she grabbed his shirt and pulled him in close, planting a brief but firm kiss on him. She pulled back, studying him again. There was a burst of red, but after a moment it seemed to fade to a shimmer in the background. "Hmm," she hummed softly, making mental note of it. Then she pulled him in for a deeper, longer kiss. She kept her eyes open doing it, so she could study the red streaks that burst through his aura when her tongue pushed its way past his lips. She held the kiss for a long moment, finally pulling back with her teeth dragging his lower lip along. Then she looked into his eyes again, studying the aura to see how long it took for the colors to shift back.

[Andresciel]

If Andre was surprised by the first kiss, the second knocked him flat. As she pulled back, he could feel a stirring inside him, even as he growled, "Now now. At least wait until you get me home before you go doing that." He noticed it then, the shimmering in her eyes, that he had seen before when she was studying his wound. "So gonna tell me what you see or do I gotta guess?" He asked, watching her for a moment before looping his arm around her waist and leading her out onto the streets. He didn't know his way around, but she would, and of course, he had spoken to the nurses about her books. "And maybe I'll give ya the gift I got earlier from the nurses."

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

"Hmm?" Tock replied, having forgotten for a moment that they were still in the infirmary. When she had a project, when she was studying something, she tended to tune everything else out. All of her attention had been on his aura in that moment, and she was considering studying it under other circumstances. And she convinced herself that he was just a test subject, nothing more. Regardless of what the fluttering in her chest tried to tell her. "I ain't seen nothin'," she lied, letting him lead the way but steering them into one of the doctor's offices along the way. She wasn't normally one to lie about her magic, but in this case, she didn't want to risk contaminating the results of the study. If the subject knew the nature of the experiment, it might influence the results. Meanwhile, she needed to get what she originally came here for. She spent some time talking to the doctor, first making sure Andre was actually approved for release from the infirmary, and then asking a few questions about anatomy and dissection. Unfortunately, since she was studying wolves, not people (having no plans, for the moment at least, to dissect Andre when she got him home), the doctor could only help her so much. After a lengthy chat, she left to take Andre home, borrowing a couple of books on autopsies from the doctor. She promised to return them the next time she came down for a puppet show (though thinking about puppets made her think about Mikey, and send her hurtling back down the road to depression). As she started leading the way home, she grew quiet, suddenly lost in thoughts of the way Mikey had died, and the puppet she had at home that still contained a broken little piece of his soul.

[Andresciel]

Without a word, he pulled her around a cat that was laying in the street, chuckling as he watched her. She had discussed wolves dissection at length with the doctor, and now seemed to be the time. "Tock. I got something for you. The nurse said since you got me there you might come back so..." He reached past the shield, having tasked it to stop others, and pulled out a strange black book, titled The Anatomy of Lupines, offering it to her. "She said it might help you out. Told me to give it to you since no one else would." He shrugged, not seeming to be embarrassed by the gift that in fact, no nurse had given him. He had asked Ryan for it, since he knew Tock was a scientist of some kind. His sapphire eyes looking away as he watched her. That was when he felt it, instinct as his patron said it, but a feeling he's had since he was little. "Someone close to you died?" His words were soft...aching, and showed something very little had seen. "I can understand the pain Tock. When I was nine both of my parents were killed." He whispered a tear rolling down his cheek. "My grandfather too. And the worst part, I can't remember much about them. A Laugh...a smile. Being tossed into the air by my father."

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock was briefly pulled out of her daze by the book, looking it over with a curious frown. Then she looked up at Andre, confused. "Which nurse?" she asked. "Didn't know what 'ow any o' 'em knew fer I were buildin' a wolf..." Of course, she brought the subject up fairly regularly, and anyone who had ever been to her home had no doubt seen the wolf drawings that just covered every inch of the walls. But still, she was surprised someone had known that this was her particular area of study. She was still pondering the book when he went ahead and bluntly asked her about Mikey's death. Her head snapped towards him, anger in her eyes, along with brimming tears. She grit her teeth and fought the tears off, having no intention of discussing her special, lost little boy with a man she barely knew. "S'nothin'," she said, putting her eyes back on the road and stepping away from his touch, breaking contact and continuing on the walk silently for a moment. Though when he shared his own pain, it was hard for her to maintain the distance. Part of her wanted to hug him and cry on his shoulder and let the pain out. But that wasn't her. So instead she simply scrubbed her sleeve across her eyes to dry her tears, and said, "People die. Alla' time. Ain't what nothin' fer ta does..." She trailed off, her steps slowing and her breath catching in her throat as she fought against a sob. She had tried to fight death, and she had lost. But she didn't want anyone, anyone to know about that...

[Andresciel]

He looks at her, nodding as he watched her move away. He hadn't known that was her choice of study, but still, "I dunno her name..." He muttered, trying to hide it as he looks at her. He sighs softly, shaking his head as he placed his arm around her shoulders, "Death comes for us all. At some point in time. And most of us have tried to fight him..But how can you win against someone who holds all the cards?" His words were soft, almost whispered as he let her lead him towards her house. Still, the time would come when he would avenge his beloved mother and father, and take out the beast that killed them. Time was all it took, and practice. "So, milady. Shall we go to your humble abode so that you may study me some more." He said with a twinkle in his eyes.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock remained unaware of the mild deception, not being nearly perceptive enough about such things to realize Andre was hiding something. Aside from that, she was briefly too lost in her thoughts and her sorrows to pay much attention to anything, missing some of what he said. But she did reply, "I ain't gonna die. Throw my soul in a Golem 'fore I does 'at..." She had attempted to make a Nuit already, and failed. She didn't know what had gone wrong with Mikey. Why the reanimation hadn't worked. She just didn't know enough about Nuits. She needed to consult the couple that she knew. Maybe Anselm or Ignotus could explain to her what she had done wrong. That way next time... She shuddered at the thought. She wasn't yet prepared for a 'next time.' But even with her failure, she wasn't going to give up completely. She knew she could figure it out, given enough time. After all, anything was possible. "I gots work ta do," she muttered softly as she walked with Andre. Her curiosity about his aura and whatever playfulness might have come with it had been temporarily dispelled by her thoughts of death. She needed something else to focus on right now. That was one of the problems with Tock... while she could become obsessively focused on a single project, to the exclusion of everything else, her interests tended to shift drastically with little apparent reason. This morning it had been wolves, this evening it had been auras of arousal, but now her thoughts were drifting to different things. She suddenly realized she still had a lot of work to do on Seven's telescope. "C'mon," she said, turning down another road and heading towards the general store. She had been putting off finishing the telescope for too long. She needed to get wax, clay, and some other materials for making the molds she needed. "Ya know anything 'bout astronomy?" she asked, unaware that the sudden shift in topic would seem to come from nowhere.