Luck Be A Lady (Montaine)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

59th Day of Summer, 512 AV Late afternoon/early evening (Continued from The Meaning of it All.) (Placeholder for thread continuation)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock waited downstairs while Monty was changing in his apartment. She was horribly uncomfortable. It probably had something to do with the fact that she was wearing a dress. She was horribly uncomfortable, nervous, and irritated. And when she was in a bad mood like this, she built stuff. Except she COULDN'T build stuff, because she'd had to leave all of her tools at home. She felt naked without them. And she would have RATHER been naked, because at least then she could get her hands dirty and find some kind of project to work on. But no, she was wearing a dress, and it was silky and fancy and had cost her what would have been (before her promotion) a full week's pay. Which meant she COULDN'T get it dirty or ripped or greasy or covered in sawdust and she just wanted to scream. "PETCHING DAG NUB 'ORSE LICKIN' BLOODY NO GOOD LAZY VAGIK RIDIN' A BROOMSTICK!!!" "You watch your language!" Tock stopped in mid-step, looking around. She hadn't quite gotten all the cursing out of her system, so if some whiny old lady was going to start getting on her case for her language, she'd be glad to treat the old hag to another sample of it. She caught sight of the irritating old woman that she recognized as Monty's neighbor. Missus No-tea or Narty or... Nolty? Something like that. Tock raised a fist at her and was about to unload another choice selection of swears at her when the old lady barked, "That's just no way for a young lady to talk! Imagine what your parents would say! What's your name? I've half a mind to go have a talk with your folks!" Tock blinked. She stared at the woman. Did she not recognize her? Tock looked down at herself, realizing she couldn't even recognize her own self, let alone expect anyone else to. Aside from the dress, there was the makeup, the hair, and the complete lack of tools, grease, filth, and magical contraptions crawling all over her. Well, Handy was strapped to her thigh under the skirt. But he was behaving so no one would know he was there. She stared at the woman a moment longer, then realized she could have some fun with this. Put on the posh talk, act like a 'lady,' and maybe put the old woman in her place. Plus, it could be good practice for being all 'ladylike' tonight. She thought long and hard about what was the 'appropriate' thing to say. Finally, with great concentration, she said, "Good ev-en-ing..." The old lady frowned at her, and Tock paused, clearing her throat. "Ahh... thank ya fer... I mean..." She paused. She couldn't repeat the 'welcoming me to your home' line if the woman hadn't welcomed her. She stared for a long moment, while the old hag's eyes narrowed. "Ahh... uhh... good night?" Why hadn't Monty taught her more poshy phrases? "What are you yammering about?" Missus Nolty asked. "And why are you lurking on my step!? Go on, shoo!" Tock just stared, blinking a few times. This was not going as she had hoped. She wanted to curse the woman out, but she was supposed to be practicing. "Ahh..." she stammered, her fingers plucking nervously at the skirts of her expensive new dress. "I's waitin'... ing fer Monty... err..." What had Yvette called him? Oh, right, poshies liked their 'missus' and 'mister.' "Fer Mistuh Redsun..." "The queer boy upstairs?" Missus Nolty asked, looking Tock up and down, from her skirts to her cleavage. "What for? He doesn't 'entertain' young ladies, fine or otherwise..."

[Montaine]

Montaine shut his apartment door behind him and casually walked down the stairs that rose along the north face of his building. He managed to catch the tail end of the garrulous gadgeteer’s exchange with his charming downstairs neighbour, and was pleasantly surprised to hear her practising her pronunciations. Though she was a little rough around the edges with regard to her manner, and her speech, and her stance, and her whole personality really, the glassworker had to admit that in the soft glow emanating from the workshop across the street, Tock really did look like a proper stand-up lady. He wasn’t looking so bad himself, in his new gear. He was thankful for the cooler evening air dressed, as he was, in four layers under the dreadfully fashionable insistence of Yvette Mercer, and most of them were tight enough to choke. His white undershirt, black overshirt, and green waistcoat hugged him to such an extent that he almost feared to breathe. His beloved jacket did him no harm, of course. It wasn’t an accessory of the upper classes, after all, but a keepsake from the lower ones. ‘Missus Nolty! Good evening my dear woman,’ Monty said loudly, with a broad smile, as he descended the final few steps, ‘I hope I didn’t keep you up last night?’ The haggard, old hag made a disgruntled grumble as she shook her head in haughty disapproval. Monty, knowing full well what the movement meant yet always on the lookout for opportunities to irritate the elderly braud, took this as an answer to his question and beamed at her. ‘Oh good! I am glad,’ he said, before turning to his friend and holding out his arm, ‘Ms Tock, shall we?’ The old woman squeaked in barely contained outrage before gathering up her capacious petticoats and barrelling into her flat as fast as her decrepit bones and creaking joints would take her, muttering all the way about misbegotten youth and craven immorality and ankle flaunting and all the other little things that got on her nerves, and proved that society was going down the pan. Monty could still hear her griping and groaning after she had shut her door and waved to her when she poked her aquiline nose through her shutters to watch them until they left. Monty was tempted to stand there waving at her until she gave up, see just how long she would be willing to keep up her stubbornness, but dinner would be over in a half dozen bells and he really didn’t have the time to waste. ‘Goodbye Missus Nolty!’ he called, instead, and together the foulmouthed foreigner and the boy from beggar town started to make their way to dinner with some of Zeltiva’s finest.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock immediately memorized the phrase 'my dear woman' when Monty used it, filing it in her mind with the translated definition of 'smelly old stuck up hag.' She made a mental note that whenever she meant the latter phrase, she would substitute the former. She watched in mute surprise as Monty then seemed to somehow shut the woman up and drive her off... without yelling or cursing or anything! She looked at him with a confused frown, wondering how she could learn to so that. When he approached she slipped her arm into his and grumbled, "Does we 'as ta... has ta has the 'Ms,' Glassman?" The only way he could make that worse was if he started calling her 'Ms Zipporah.' It was a bit of a walk, with Tock growing more and mote irritable the entire time. She didn't like the heeled boots, and kept stumbling in them, not to mention numerous times tripping over her bulky skirts. "Dunno 'ow... how most girls what deals wit...thhh thhhese thhings..." she muttered after the third time she had to clutch Monty's arm to keep from falling. Now she understood why a girl had to hang on a man's arm all night... all this impractical clothing made it impossible to hold herself upright. When they finally reached the house, a tall, white affair with a rather lush garden, Tock's feet were aching and all she wanted to do was take off the uncomfortable shoes and sit down. Not being one to knock, especially when she was invited, she stepped right up to the door to open it and let herself in.

[Montaine]

‘Woah, woah,’ Monty said, reaching out to place a hand on the shoulder of the garrulous gadgeteer to stop her, ‘Can’t jus’ walk into someone’s house without askin’, ‘specially not a house posh as this one,’ The glassworker had taken a quick survey of the outside of the house and its formidable grounds as they approached the door. This place was certainly high end. They had a garden. Well, they had grass. They had what passed for a garden in the harbour city. The only other place he’d seen so much wasted land within the borders of Zeltiva was at the Foglehorn’s manor house. It was one of the things that so irritated Montaine about the wealthy, the unhindered hedonism. Opulence without purpose. In fact, to be useless was its purpose. He was well aware of the hypocrisy in this view, given that that was what delighted him so much about working with figurines, but in his mind there was a world of difference between wasting a tiny drop of glass and spending a fortune, a fortune, on a square of grass. ‘Place as fancy as this, they’ll think you’re robbing the place,’ he nodded towards a rope, tasselled at the end, hanging from the lip over the doors, ‘We have to pull that, an’ then someone will come to get us. Servant, or butler, or something. I think the rope’s part of a pulley system, which runs through the house to the kitchens or the cellar or wherever it is the servants sit around waitin’ for their bosses to need ‘em to clean their feet or whatever. When we get inside, you’ll probably be able to see the pulley ropes up high on the wall, near the ceiling. That’s what the Herrendales had in theirs,’ Monty grabbed the rope and gave it a sharp, downward yank. He hadn’t been to great number of occasions like this, but the protocol seemed fairly universal. One of the key things was to know your enemy. Who was to be around the table? What did they think of one another? What scandals and gossip and intrigue was abounding. Many of them used such information as leverage against the others in the perpetual political game they played, but even if you were not inclined to such things, as Monty was not, a certain level of foreknowledge was expected, if only to avoid unintentional faux pas. He realised now that in all the to do of getting Tock prepared he had made no preparations himself, but as he turned to ask his companion about just what and who they were expecting to be facing the door opened and a dour-faced man poked his head out. ‘Good evening,’

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock frowned when Monty stopped her, and protested, "But... we's 'vited... err, 'welcomed.' 'Ow's we s'posed fer ta ask fer ta come in what when 'ey already done said we could...?" She didn't like how he kept just making up more and more rules as they went along. How was a person supposed to just know all of this? The words 'pulley system,' however, immediately snagged her attention and made her forget all about etiquette and protocol. "I ain't never built sommat 'at complex jus' fer a door bell," she said, standing up on her tip toes to try and peer up into the alcove that the rope disappeared into. Unable to get a good look, she hiked up her skirts and stepped onto the grass, then planted her boot on an outcropping of stone along the front of the house, fully intending to climb right up, silk skirts be damned, and examine the fascinating bit of architecture for herself. She was reaching up to grab a handhold without a thought for breaking a nail, nor caring about the fine and detailed job Yvette had done in painting her nails in red to match her hair, when the butler came to answer the door. As she pulled herself up the wall she belatedly remembered her line, and said, "Good ev-en-ing, thank ya fer wel-coming me ta yer..." she trailed off, distracted, as she pulled herself high enough to peer into the little alcove. Forgetting the rest of what she was supposed to say, she muttered, "Ya know yer pulley's what gots some rust on the bolt, 'ere?" Dinner was forgotten as she started considering how many pulleys might be hidden in the walls from here to the kitchen, and how to access them all... OOCThe lesson here? Never use the words 'pulley system' when Tock is wearing a dress...