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

[Alistair deGrey]

Hunting a muse is harder than hunting a giant octopus. Not only are most people convinced they don't exist, but those that do take up the hunt often grow insane from the thrill. I have been lucky.


No, idea are not silly at all. Not yours, not anybody's. deGrey stared intently at her as if extracting more and more ideas from her. Inspiration was something Alistair was always searching for. It was to him as water was to a desert dweller. He thirsted for it, he needed it to live.

"When somebody works as I do, new ideas, even ones that others may call "silly" are what one looks for." deGrey enjoyed the muse like quality Ha'na had just revealed, hoped dearly that it would bloom. "So please, always give me any idea that cross your mind, I thrive off of it." A beam spread across deGrey's face as he imagined the plethora of ideas that might eventually stream forth from Ha'na, some less appropriate for public than others.

"I can only guess, that during certain... err, situations you've been in, you have not always been free to voice exactly what you think. But I want, no need, all of those lovely ideas bouncing around your head." Hopefully she would understand. deGrey was still feeling the waves of euphoria Ha'na brought on, but now a serious bent could be heard in his tone.

The sun had not stopped for the two, and neither had society. An elderly man barged through the portal to deGrey's shop, a sour look creasing his already wrinkled facade. He was thin and carried what appeared to be the mangled remains of a cane. His expression changed rapidly when he saw the two younger people, hands clasped. First a look of panic, had he forgotten the location? the trials of memory had never before plagued him, this was worrisome. But then his eyes adjusted, scrutinizing the man before him, and a raucous laugh erupted from his old bones. "deGrey! I didn' recognize ye with a woman on yer arm!"

Alistair blushed deeply, realizing this was the first time anybody he knew had ever seen Ha'na. "Evening Mr.Ballard, is that..." deGrey's eyes shifted to the silhouetted remains that lay in the old man's hand. "Yep! Broke me cane again. Nottin' do about it though, youn' bastards always get it comin'" Alistair blinked a few times as the old man hobbled up before the counter. "Didn' want to come all the way, but the wife made'n me go to the 'Zaar anyway."

The inventor was still staring warily at the man before him, who had just admitted to beating people with one of his inventions. The keen old man had been waiting for that reaction though, and unleashed another surprisingly hearty laugh, " now there'n deGrey, you didn' think I actually hit 'em." He clapped a hand onto deGrey's shoulder a few times. "Ye'll learn 'en ye get a sense of humor. But now I got'n two questions for yeh. When kin I get anothe' cane? An' who is she?" Mr.Ballard jerked his thumb in Ha'na's direction and a whistle escaped his lips.

[Hana]

He had no idea what he’d just done. Ha’na was full of ideas. She spent all day working in solitude trying to keep her mind off of her past as it sat right in front of her. No one was around to hear them, so they tended to float off in her brain like any other thought. But if he needed them, or even just wanted them, he would have them. She would begin to mentally record them to recount to him.

She smiled softly at him, about to say something in response when the door opened. It was then that she did a trick she was actually quite good at – That of stepping back into the shadows in an attempt to take the attention off herself. Sometimes it worked better than others. In Ahnatep, it had been a talent she was genius at. Here, it seemed, it did not work so well.

She lingered, politely listening to the talk going on around her. Something about her ruffled a little at the poor inventor being teased so. When it finally got to the question of who she was, she glanced up at the man. A sweet smile was offered, and before Alistair could respond, she quipped gently, “The future Missus deGrey, sir.”

Her hand finally freed itself of his, and it moved to sweep under his chin and to his cheek. She leaned in to kiss the other adoringly, whispering in his ear, “I’m going to find you something to eat.”

And with that she was off towards the back. Sadly he’d told her where his living quarters were. She slipped through the door with a glance over her shoulder. There was a flicker of something a little rambunctious in her smile as she disappeared.

This served two purposes for her. Most importantly, she realized they’d both been too excited with the discovery of each other to realize that they most likely needed to eat. Secondly, she would be able to get over the itching, rather improper, curiosity to see where he lived. Not worked, but lived.

She still didn’t snoop, save to set about looking for food. While she wasn’t the best cook in the world, she did have enough skill to settle above that of survival eating.

The men could attend to their business. She could attend to hers. She hoped that deGrey wouldn’t join her until she was done cobbling something together to show him that she could.

[Alistair deGrey]

WHAT?!

deGrey had been expecting Ha'na to answer with a phrase like, "Ha'na, sir.", or "Just a visitor". But never in ten thousand epochs would the previously lonesome inventor have anticipated the answer she had just given. But Alistair had heard correctly, her gentle voice populating the shadowed display room. Alistair's eyes had widened to saucer plates when Ha'na kissed his cheek. Mr.Ballard, smirking gleefully at the sight, had thrown a wink. Then Ha'na said it, The future Missus deGrey, sir. An invisible hand splashed crimson paint on deGrey's features as Ha'na moved to the back.

Mr.Ballard was quiet for a moment, watching Ha'na leave. His lips quivered as he turned back to Alistair, and then exploded in a fit of laughter so intense he actually began to slap his knees. All the while deGrey's face became beet red. "Petch deGrey, I didn' know ye was such'n lady kille'." The elderly customer wiped his eyes, Wow'n son, you be sure'n get into her dr-"
"Mr.Ballard, I b-believe inquired about a... A cane."
"Oh yeah, we kin speak abou' yer wife so-"
"Right this way Mr.B-Ballard."

Alistair walked around the counter quickly, leading the hobbling man to a rack that at one point held canes. Now, however, there was only one left. The inventor took a cane off the rack and handed it to the expectant old man, who still grinned. "Ye'think ye coul' teach me a fe-" Alistair cleared his throat,
"That will be thirty five gold Mizas, Ballard."
"Righ', righ'" The man pulled out a heavy purse and dropped the sum into deGrey's hands.

The old man spoke to Alistair for a few more minutes, about life, about beating children with his cane, about not really beating children with his cane but telling deGrey he did because deGrey had no humor, and about why he purchased Alistair's canes. So's I kin stab'n petch'n basta'ds. Now he limped to the door, his new cane thumping on the ground. deGrey sighed, Ballard turned for one last quip before he left, "Oh n' abou' Missus deGrey's..." He paused for a few seconds, Alistair tensed "Eh, don' let'r go deGrey. Ever." Mr.Ballard hung his head and left the store with his cane announcing each step.

Alistair felt, strange, to say the least. He stood for a few seconds in the ill lit room, wondering what exactly had transpired. Missus deGrey. The phrase interjected itself into the conversation with Mr.Ballard. Then there was his last comment, Alistair had never seen the comedic old man be serious in two seasons. A shiver ran down Alistair's spine, and he began a slow walk to find Ha'na. What an, interesting moment.

In the living quarters of Alistair deGrey, Ha'na would find a bed, comfortable but not overly fashionable. Across from it would be a fireplace the Inventor kept lit during most hours of the day, including this one. The flickering firelight bathed the room in lovely shadows that played across one's face.

In the corner by the door could be found two barrels of dry goods. Dried meat, flour, grains, rice, etc... On top of one barrel, which was almost empty, a basket of fresher fruits and vegetables Alistair enjoyed could be found.

Also by the door could be found several materials the inventor would use to build with. Planks of wood, iron ingots, etc..

One corner was populated by a desk and chair. Against the wall sat a small array of glassware, which looked as if it belonged in a laboratory, and a lantern. Also on the desk sat a small stack of papers. Many were titled things such as "Three day Clock", Gyroscope, or Automata 001. However, the one on top was different. On it was a design of a peculiar contraption that looked something like a headless bird. Various triangles and angle measurements were on there was well. The paper was labeled, "How to Fly."

Alistair's footsteps were heard, it had been seven minutes.

[Hana]

Ha’na hadn’t touched his papers or any other belongings save things to make food with. Whatever little wild streak she’d just had seemed to have faded away.

She’d removed her veil completely, folded it neatly, and tucked it away to get later. Her hair was much longer than it appeared when covered. It reached the bottom of her back even when tied up with the red and gold ribbons she braided within it.

She’d unbuttoned her sleeves and rolled them up until they were cuffed along her shoulders. She was much stronger than she appeared to be underneath the fabric. It came from digging up and working with clay. She’d simply made herself at home, her only intent to make a meal.

Since she’d not had time to cook all day, a simple one would have to suffice. She’d found fruit to cut up, which was what she was working on. On his hearth a pot of meat and vegetables were already warming up. The girl worked fast.

At the sound of him coming, she didn’t turn. Instead she focused on her work at hand. In her mind she had bread she was making for him to have. It wouldn’t get done, but ideally she’d have been able to do it.

Silently she was afraid she was in trouble. The problem was that she was just so happy… She almost forget she had a bit of a teasing streak in her.

[Alistair deGrey]

Its bizarre. The idea of coming home to see somebody, gloriously clad in clay covered arms. Bizarre, but not entirely unwelcome. I have lived in solitude for a long while, and perhaps company would not be unwanted. Or may perhaps it was a false pass.

deGrey entered the room tentatively. He smelled the meat and vegetables cooking in a pot, and the sweet scent of fruit juices quietly inserting itself. The room usually smelled of a wood fire, not food. Whats more, never had he entered to find a beautiful woman before him.

Ha'na's hair, Alistair noticed, was much longer than he had thought earlier, as had been hinted at by the veil. Now her illustrious hair hung down to the end of her back, several crimson and gold ribbons tied in. She was magnificent.

The bed did not shift much when Alistair sat on it. It lacked the luxurious spring in high end beds, but was quite a few notches above the floor. deGrey sat and watched the fire intently, the black pot hanging from the hooks.

"So... You did not actually have to prepare me food, Ha'na. Its lovely of you to do so though." It did not resonate well with deGrey, allowing somebody into his abode and then allowing them to do work? Of course, the inventor, who never had much of an etiquette compass anyway, was unsure and just allowed it to happen. Perhaps it was her custom? Regardless, now the fruit had been cut and the stew was cooking. Alistair was unsure of what he would do.

He had been trying to ignore it, but the question still violently gnawed on the back of Alistair's mind, like a parasite he must be rid of. His steel eyes moved to stare at Ha'na as he had at the fire, examining her wonderful persona for several seconds. "Was what you said earlier about... Just to... Or did you mean it?" deGrey's mind was reeling with the very concept. It was dizzying, confusing, and flavored with a hint of Joy. The taste it left in his mouth was not entirely bad.

[Hana]

“No, I needn’t have…” She replied sweetly enough as she put bits of fruit onto a plate for him. “But I wanted to make you something to eat. I don’t know when you last ate, but I do know it has been quite some time since I have not seen you do it.”

She turned then, moving towards the bed with the plate. It was balanced on her palms. Very slowly she knelt down onto the floor and held it up to him in offering. It would have seemed a complete act of a servant, but what saved these motions was the fact that her eyes lifted up and remained on him. The truth was that she was rather afraid to sit down on the bed next to him.

She smiled. The eye contact didn’t last long. When she started to speak again, they dropped down to the plate in hand as she carefully shifted her legs so she could fully sit.

“I…” Her shoulder bounced in a tiny shrug, though the plate did not wobble. This little act she was giving was far too practiced; it came too naturally. It was a little hint that she’d spent time serving. “Perhaps both.”

She ran a fingertip over the stone floor. For a moment she wondered what it would feel like to have her bare feet on it – If it would feel like tile or something different.

There was a certain innocence about her -Something in her fully exhausted but still there. She’d traveled all over the known world, seen so much, done so many things… And yet it was clear that a great part of her was simply untouched by it.

Perhaps some god was conspiring to turn Alistair deGrey’s life completely upside down or simply drive him mad, because the Benshira in front of him said quietly, “I may not be… Pure. I may not be the most desirable woman, but… I would make a good wife.”

She came from a world of arranged marriages. Sometimes a couple would not meet until such a situation had in fact been planned. She was under the assumption that everyone worked under these rules.

There were far worse fates, she thought. Her eldest sister, the poor girl born with nine fingers instead of ten, had been married to a very large man that in fact turned out to be sterile. The brother right before her in the line of her family had married a woman and shortly after she moved into their tent, the cattle she had in her dowry all died from some unknown illness. Her neighbor, her cousin, knew of a woman who married a man that beat her. But despite all of these stories, she also knew of even more arrangements that had worked. She, in turn, didn’t question the structure – One of the very foundation stones of her culture.

She had seen him work in situations that clearly made him uncomfortable. He did not lash out in anger. He seemed genuine about her need not to tend to him, though she did a very good job of ignoring that all the same. Clearly he thought quite highly of her, wanting to know what she thought… What she did and how she went about it. He found her pleasing.

She, in turn, felt him to be quite endearing. He was kind. He was generous and clearly ingenious. He owned his own business, and she had seen that he had customers. And, well, most importantly she was quite smitten with him. Being in the same room with him simply made her skin nearly burn.

So while her logic was most likely foreign, it wasn’t exactly half-cocked. The problem was that she thought everyone in fact thought like her. She looked out into the room, surveying it. She was trying to find a broom hidden somewhere in the place.

It seemed she’d forgotten about the time.

[Alistair deGrey]

I had never said those words to Magnolia, and I have known Ha'na for less than a day. What breed of harlot am I? I tell myself that I shall regret this decision, but my heart, relishing this freedom, sends its refusal. It feels right.

deGrey clutched the plate in his hands, bringing it slowly to his lap. His eyes and head fell to look at the meal she had prepared for him. Freshly cut fruit, a little out of season but still good, lay on the edges of the plate. In the center of the depression was the stew. it looked delicious, but Alistair just stared at its novelty. Yes he had cut fruit, but he had never made stew before.

The inventor keenly felt Ha'na's presence at his feet, like a servant. Despite her sapphire eyes boring into him, Alistair deGrey still received a biting servant feeling. So carefully he slid himself off the bed to sit on the floor next to Ha'na. "It is more comfortable down here anyway." He smiled weakly for Ha'na.

Try as he might pretend as if she hadn't informed him of her consideration of marriage, he could not ignore the looming possibilities she had nonchalantly thrown before him. It was as simple as the plate she had presented. Maybe they would marry, maybe they would not. The oxymoron plagued Alistair.

Alistair deGrey was walking the skyline right now. Precariously balanced on a tightrope stretched between Ha'na's hands. One misstep and he would fall to the clay below. To be swallowed by her earth, her reality. But it was what he wanted. Was it what he wanted? Falling was always a cause to be fearful. The ground swayed beneath deGrey as he continued to ponder the question. What was the question? That was the question.

But deGrey could balance, if he wanted to. What was it he wanted again? The inventor could carefully stay put, strung safely between Ha'na's hands. But she would grow tired eventually, yearn for more than a life of holding high wires. What was it Ha'na wanted? It seemed cruel at first that she wanted Alistair to fall. The sun was setting, but deGrey was blinded by the blue, binary suns Ha'na lit the sky with, he could not see the red glow anymore, and neither was he sure he wanted to. At this point, deGrey was not entirely sure of anything but Ha'na. Ha'na was there, and she held the wire.

Ha'na liked him, but the wire didn't. It bucked and swayed under his feet, unloving of deGrey's feet. So Alistair did not stay with the wire, instead he jumped. He soared to the earth, arms outstretched like an eagle.

A calm and surreal hand closed on Alistair's head, calming the chaotic, rapidly firing thoughts that had diseased his head. A sigh of relief, the sigh of relinquish. The relinquish of something, but Alistair was not quite sure yet. But he was thinking clearly again, of marriage. A decision had been made in the past thirty seconds, hazy in definition but emanating truth. "I do love you Ha'na. If you would like to... If you... Then perhaps."

[Hana]

When he moved to the ground, she was quick to scoot next to his side. Slipping close, she pressed her cheek against his shoulder, leaning back until her hand was resting behind her and taking on her weight. The sigh she let out was completely content. Her eyes closed. She was rather certain that she could, in fact, spend the rest of her life in that exact spot and be completely happy the entire time.

“You love me,” she repeated in a hushed little whisper. She didn’t seem to question it at all. Really, though, she hadn’t even taken that sort of thing into account. She hadn’t been expecting that for some reason. Her heart beat so rapidly that she could hear it in her ears.

He loved her. It was a bit terrifying, like being on the ocean for the first time. He loved her. It caused her to go quiet as she thought on that, watching his plate carefully to see if he’d eat it or not.

She didn’t seem to press the idea of marriage anymore. Either it would happen or it wouldn’t, just like talking about it would do the same. If he wanted to discuss it, she’d speak on it. Otherwise she’d just… Wait, he’d said he loved her.

She twisted her neck until her lips were brushing against his earlobe; she whispered back at him, “I love you, too, Alistair deGrey…”

Strange, but true.

[Alistair deGrey]

This soup idea did not work out quite so well after all.

The reciprocated emotions wafting about the room sounded of emptied streets and echoing halls. As if a long lost incantation had been uttered and everybody else ceased to exist. Citizens of Syliras, Zeltiva, Ekytol, of the world, vanished as cloud vapor. Only Ha'na and Alistair deGrey survived the calamity, close and content. Ticks, tocks, and a crackling fire shielded their ears from the quiet hiss of evaporating Sylirans.

When eternity eventually ends, the others might return. They might find the inventor's skeleton, entwined with Ha'na's. They would say, rather curiously, What does this mean?", and examine the pair to discover what this emotion was. But that was later.

Right now though, Ha'na's body pressed close to Alistair's, pouring her warmth into him. A pair of lips grazed deGrey's ear, whispering those words back. Alistair shivered, the stew precariously sloshing about its plate.

deGrey did not really want the food, his stomach was already full of complicated knots tied up by the revived butterflies. The concept of marriage still tugged at him. Regardless, he noticed Ha'na eying the plate. Best eat then. Alistair quickly ate the fruit, something he had eaten often enough. After the first portion had been eaten, he eyed the stew. It had been a long time since Alistair last had stew. He straightened his slouching posture so his rear was against the bed's base, not wanting to drip the broth on him.

However, the soup on deGrey's lap decided it did not like this one bit. It sloshed in the shallow dish it rested in. Alistair clasped a hand to it, but a large glop of hot liquid ran over his hand and onto his lap anyway.

Alistair exclaimed. Not loudly though, for while the liquid was hot it was not boiling. It was more from his carelessness than from pain. Without moving, deGrey glanced about the room for something to towel himself off with.

For a little bit, deGrey contemplated just letting the liquid soak in so he would not have to break contact with Ha'na. Regardless, the wet pants were unpleasant. Alistair gingerly set the stew to the side, and began to extricate himself from Ha'na with equal care.

[Hana]

Ha’na let out a little cry of something all too quick and slurred in Shiber, though it sounded more concerned for him than upset. She was quick to get up, taking his plate from him so he could move more freely. With all the movement, she was afraid it might get tipped over.

Other than the cry, she seemed almost a little too composed in this sort of situation. She moved to set the plate out of the way. Then she reached out to grab her faded veil. Once it had been a much brighter color, but over time the dye had fortunately run out of it almost evenly. It was held out to him.

“Here, use this. Are you okay? I’m sorry. Did I bump you?” The questions came out in a quick staccato on her tongue. “I’m sorry.”

Was she shaking again? She was shaking again. She didn’t mean to, but still it happened.