[Infirmary] Little Monsters (Hadrian)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Before she knew what was going on, the man had run off. Tock wanted to follow him, but unfortunately she didn't have the option of just rushing off without warning. She needed to clean up after the show, whether she liked it or not. She lingered long enough to bow to the audience, tilting her hands over the puppets' heads to get them to bow as well. Despite how much she couldn't stand kids, it felt good to see them happy, instead of lying in bed, sad and forlorn. The parents and nurses started helping the kids back to their rooms. Some of them had to be carried, since they had some injury or another that made it hard for them to walk. Quite a few had needed to he held in their parents' laps in order to be able to watch the show. But now that the excitement was over, they needed their rest. There were, of course, more children than there were parents and nurses to help them. Some had parents who were off working. Some were surely orphans. Either way, there were more little monsters than there were people to take care of them. So even after she cleaned up and had her puppets tucked away in her pack, she felt a twinge of guilt at seeing them all. It reminded her of when she'd been sick. She'd spent a whole season lying useless in bed, stuck in the fever dreams of a coma. If no one had been there to care for her, she'd have died. And her own Da had been too much of a selfish, useless drunk to care for her. She'd been tended to by the rare kindness of strangers. "Goddamnit..." she muttered, trying to fight against the guilt. She had more important things to do... A child's cough drew her attention. She sighed in defeat, and stepped over to scoop the kid up in her arms. "C'mon, kiddo," she said as she cradled him in her arms. "Let's getcha tucked in, aye? Gotta gitcha better, if'n yer gonna change the world one day." "Change the world?" the kid asked in confusion. "Aye," she said, carrying him down the hall towards his room. "I done were sick real bad once, too. But I done gots better, an' now I gots magic an' smarts an' all 'at stuff..." The kid thought about that for a moment, then asked, "Does that mean when I get better, I can learn to be a wizard, too?" He started another coughing fit. As she was settling him into his bed, she saw the nurse, who was helping the kid's roommate into the other bed, cast the little wizard a worried look. She met the woman's eyes, and saw strain and doubt there. The kid's coughing was pretty bad. Tock fought back tears and forced a smile. "Aye," she told the kid in a strained voice, "ya sure betcha are..." OOCTock is going to be helping the sick kids for a bit longer. Do you want to come find her, or have her come find you later? If you were planning to leave the infirmary, she can come searching for you later to ask about the light show.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian hadn't made it very far before he was quite sure that nobody was following. After idling for a minute, he began to retrace his steps. Peering from around a door left ajar, he saw that things had been tidied up, the children mostly put to bed. Smiling at the opportunity, he walked stealthily in and made his way over to examine the puppets more closely, their auras laid bare, the Lormar symbol on his left hand shining faintly as he scanned them for contributions left by their makers or those who had used them. He crouched happily behind the puppet stage, attempting to gather enough information both magically and through good, old-fashioned observation that he might be able to reverse engineer the animation process, though if they were mapping sentient souls for templates, he was going to be out of his league and out of his depth. "Hmm," he murmured to himself.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock got stuck helping the kids a bit longer than she had planned. She really didn't like the tightness in her chest that she got every time she looked at them. That feeling made it hard for her to leave without lending more of a hand. It was the same feeling that had prompted her to build the puppet stage to begin with. The deep pit within her whenever she saw the tired, frightened eyes. The forlornness that came from young minds that were too inexperienced to fully understand death, but perceptive enough to know it was coming. Some of the kids were just suffering from minor injuries or illnesses, but even those bore the burden of the sorrows they were living through. But others... Others Tock looked at, and she knew they were on their way off this mortal coil. Some were so ill they couldn't even be carried from bed to attend the puppet show. The little wizard she'd helped earlier wasn't far short of becoming one of those. She stuck around for awhile longer, helping deliver the kids their dinner, tucking them in bed, and generally trying to make them more comfortable. It was all she could do; she didn't know the first thing about healing or medicine. She just knew every one of the sick kids in bed reminded her of the spring that Granddad had died. As she was helping carry some of the dinner trays, the little wizard drew her attention again. "Tock?" he asked. "Aye, whazzer, mate?" she replied, stepping in and setting the tray in his lap. She wondered what was wrong with him, and why the city's healers couldn't just fix him. Maybe some things were beyond even magic. "Will you teach me to make puppets?" he asked her. She felt like a vice had been clamped down over her chest. "Aye, sure thing," she promised. "Ya jus' gotta work on gettin' better first, aye? Can't make 'em when yer not feelin' good, aye? I done tried 'at once, an' my baby I made, 'e got sick too." She didn't realize how negative her words sounded until she saw the defeated look in the kid's eyes. She forced herself to keep a calm face, and rustled his hair. "Don'tcha worry none, mate. I'll teach yas real soon, aye?" "Mikey," he told her. "Huh?" she asked. "My name's Mikey, not mate," he said. Tock chuckled and told him, "Oy, 'mate's' whatcha done calls someone ya like, aye? Cause yer my pal." "Oh," he said, sitting up a little straighter. "Okay then. Thanks... 'mate'." Tock snorted and shook her head. "Nah, nah, nah," she said, waving her hands at him. "Girls ain't 'mate'. Girls is 'Sook'." "Sook?" he asked, frowning. She nodded and grinned. "Aye, Sook. 'At's whatcha done calls a girl whatcha likes, aye?" "Okay, 'Sook'," he said, forcing a weak smile. "See ya soon, mate," she told him. She turned to leave, and as soon as she was out of sight in the hall, she braced herself against the wall and choked back a sob. ... A short time later, she was about ready to go home, when she realized something. She only had two of her puppets in her backpack. She had only used two in the show, but the third one, Tanroa, hadn't been used. She should have still been in the backpack, but she wasn't there with her brother and sister. Tock felt a moment of panic, then realized Tanroa must have still been at the stage. She remembered taking her out when she was setting up for the show, but then she had been left behind the stage, unused, since she hadn't had a part in this performance. She hurried back to the stage, and saw that guy was there, poking around. She frowned when she saw him, wondering what he was up to. Now that he was paying attention to it, he would likely notice a distinct connection between Tock's aura and the aura of the puppet he was studying. Tock's own soul had been used as the template for the puppet, and she had a strong connection to it, just like all of her babies. Tock hurried over and scooped the puppet up, clutching it to her chest as if it were a real live baby. "Can I 'elps ya, Guv?" she asked him. She didn't like it when people messed around with her babies.

[Hadrian]

In the time he had taken to study the puppet, he had picked up enough that he thought he might be able to do a better job on his next animation, and when the woman returned, taking it from him, he recognized immediately that it was her work. Not only was it her work, but it was patterned after her own soul. "You are Tanroa, are you?" he asked, but it was an attempt at humor. The fact that she was using sentient templates bespoke her skill, which outstripped his own. Too bright eyes were fixed on her face. "Sorry about earlier. I'm not good with children." This was misleading. They seemed to like him well enough, but they made him uncomfortable. This might be an important distinction, but not one upon which he was willing to dwell with an all but complete stranger. Well, not a stranger. He had her aura now. "Those are good work," he noted, nodding to the puppet in her hands, implying the others.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Completely missing the joke, Tock said, "Nah, she's Tanroa. I's Tock. An' ya did jus' fine, Guv. The lil biters ain't got 'igh standards, aye?" Tock was horrible with children. At least, she thought of herself as such. Though in actual practice they seemed to like her far more than she liked them. She wasn't sure why. As far as she knew, she wasn't doing anything to encourage them to like her. Except for the occasional puppet show. "'Course 'ey are," she said to the compliment, "I made 'em." She said this as if it would have been insulting if he didn't expect her work to be good. Tock was never one for modesty. "'Course, 'ese's pretty basic, compared to what I's doin' now. Were in a rush, couldn't develop 'em more. I's workin' on some way more advanced stuff now. Smarter. Fully Automated movement. Interconnected parts. The 'ole shebang." Of course what she didn't say was that there were problems, too. Cutty was still sick, and while she had successfully diagnosed the illness, she didn't know how to fix him yet. It plagued her daily. She wanted to make her baby better, but she didn't know how. She wondered if this were how the parents of the sick children here felt. Helpless, lost in knowing that their babies were ill and they couldn't do anything about it. Though Tock had no sympathy for them. She was at least trying, learning everything she could about how to make her baby better. She would help him no matter what it took. Why didn't the parents of these sick children just learn to be doctors? If they really cared about their kids, that's what they'd do. But no, they were just like her own worthless Da, who had left her to die. She'd never have pulled through the coma if not for the aid of strangers. The parents of these kids didn't deserve their children if they weren't willing to help heal them. Someone should take these kids away from their worthless parents, and save them.

[Hadrian]

He nodded, supposing she was right. The children seemed to enjoy the confluence of their skills and the story that ensued. He kept nodding when she spoke of her work, and he assumed that she engineered the puppets as well as animating them. In either case or in both, he was quite intrigued. He tried to play it off, of course. Most magiciennes were loathe to share their lore, and he certainly understood and respected that. But she was flaunting it here for the children, so he assumed there might be a chance. "I would be interested to see your newer works," he admitted carefully. "If you would not mind terribly. "I..." and here an admission, worth more than gold, "have animated a thing or two, toys for children, really. I'm not very good. But I will be making more toys soon, probably, presents for the children in the orphanage. Your help or even just advice would be quite helpful."

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock just shrugged at his request and said, "Aye, sure. C'mon." Perhaps it was a lingering effect of his aura manipulation, making him seem welcome. Though at least part of it was her natural desire to brag. She was deeply proud of her creations, and didn't understand that others might see something wrong with them. With all of her puppets tucked away, she slung her backpack onto her shoulder, and headed off, assuming the man would follow. Halfway away from the stage, she belatedly realized she'd also left her paint brushes behind as well, after touching up the paint on the stage earlier. Without a second thought she half turned and pulled Grippy, her reaching tool, from the holster on her belt. From almost ten feet away she aimed him at the wrapped bundle of painting supplies and touched her finger across his handle, extending the arm out to retrieve the bundle, closing the metal claw around it, and pulling it back towards her. The move was so practiced after the months she'd had Grippy that she didn't even break stride, continuing along her way as if this were a perfectly normal thing. "Ya know, 'is ain't kids stuff, aye mate?" she told the man as she led him towards her home. "Ain't what fer toys an' such. Golems an' 'em's serious business, aye? Ain't no games wit' 'is stuff..." As she said this, she was pulling her backpack off again to shove the painter's kit inside, and a wooden hand with a leather tail climbed out, crawling up her arm. She didn't even take notice as the hand perched on her shoulder, wrapping his tail lightly around her neck for balance and gently stroking her hair. As if there weren't an automated moving hand playing with her hair, she asked him, "So, whatcha done made, aye?"

[Hadrian]

His jaw dropped just a little. He figured she was a better engineer than he was, which didn't surprise him. Alistair had been, and there were others. But Alistair had not animated his inventions, nor had Jilitse, the most talented animator he had seen at work (oh, to have watched Zarik Mashaen do more than plot...), care to make tools but rather simulacra. Magecrafted things were the magical tools his mind attempted to fashion, but this was going to lead his thoughts in entirely new directions, he just knew it. "Ahh, no. No magic is kids' stuff. But most of what I have done has ended up in the hands of children. A hopping frog, some flying butterflies. They don't do much of anything, but they amuse children, and the children care for them, so it's not as if I'm abandoning living creature to suffer. "I have a few clockwork men I bought in Alvadas," he admitted, "but I don't want to animate them until I can manage more intelligence than my toys can manage."

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock stopped in mid step and shoved Hadrian's shoulder, quite roughly. "Oy, 'ey IS livin' creatures, aye?" she said with an angry tone. "An' don'tcha done ferget it! Oy, if'n 'ere's one thing I done 'ates, is blokes what ain't got no respect fer people what jus' ain't made outta flesh an' blood like the rest o' ya!" She shook her head at him in disgust. Automatons shouldn't be left to suffer any more than a human should. Sure, they couldn't feel pain, but that didn't mean they weren't people. A short walk later, they reached Tock's home. She opened the door and let him in without hesitation, and it didn't even take any manipulation of his aura to get him allowed inside. This was her home, her sanctuary, and she felt completely safe here. She didn't have anything to fear if he decided to be... ungentlemanly. "Shoo, you!" she said with a smile, waving off Naily, the little hammer on wheels, when he rolled up to the door to greet her. "Go on, git! 'Ere, fix 'at dang 'ole in the floor, wouldja? Done lettin' bugs inside..." Cutty, her Animated saw, was still malfunctioning. For now he stood in the corner, unmoving, since it wasn't safe to have him out and about. The hole in the floor had come from one of his recent malfunctions, when he had kept on cutting after she told him to stop, and had cut all the way down into the floor. Tock hadn't gotten around to fixing the damage yet, and so spent a few moments pulling up the old boards with a crowbar and laying down some new ones. Then she marked a series of spots on the floor with a small piece of coal out of the fireplace, and reached into her backpack for Handy. Handy was her wooden third hand. She set him on the ground, walking on his fingertips, his metal knuckles flexing as he moved around. From his wrist a leather belt waved back and forth like a tail. "'Ere," she told him, dropping a pile of nails on the ground. "'Old 'ose fer Naily, an' dun let 'im smash yer fingers, aye? One nail on each mark." Handy was her most intelligent Golem yet. He couldn't perform any really complex tasks, but she had programmed him with the knowledge of most of the simple tasks she could perform with her own hands. Holding a nail in place was such a task, well within the capabilities of his limited mind. He raised one in place, and Naily rolled over and started pounding it in place. Naily was programmed not to strike someone's fingers or toes (unless Tock commanded him to directly), so Handy would be safe from any accidental strikes. With her babies set to work on the repairs, and not likely to need further assistance from Mommy, Tock turned around and returned her attention to her guest. "Oy, so," she said, "ya done said ya wanna see some more advanced stuff, aye? Lemme look 'round, see what I can done find ya ta show ya..." She left the mobile hand and rolling hammer working on their own driving nails into the floor, and looked around for something advanced enough to show off to Hadrian.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian blinked. "You misunderstand me, I think. I meant I am glad that I am giving these creatures into the care of children who will cherish them." He might have said more, but instead fell silent and thoughtful as he followed her to her home. His eyes went gloriously wide at the animated tools, observing the complexities of their auras as well as the complexity of their behavior and responses to commands. He was careful not to step on anything -- anyone -- and just nodded along with what she said. It seemed they had different ways of going about things entirely. She created to fill specific needs, building one thing atop another. For all his attention to detail and hard work, he created things more for the joy of creation, for the experimentation factor, or so it seemed to him. They probably had some overlap. "Fascinating," he said, and glanced at her from time to time while she searched. These little animated tools were her pets, her friends, and the puppets were at least partially animated, though still required the manipulation of a puppeteer for full range of their abilities, it seemed. He would be taking a great deal of notes tonight.