Dissection (Solo)

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on September 2nd, 2012, 12:52 am

1st Day of Autumn, 512 AV

Last night, Tock and her friend Bones had gone out hunting. They had come back with a live wolf for Tock to study, along with two dead ones for her to dissect. For now, the live wolf was in a wooden cage she’d built, which was sitting in the new shed she’d constructed on the side of her house. The dead wolves were sitting on the floor of the shed, waiting to be sliced open.

She opened the door to the new shed, and was greeted by the growling and snapping of the wolf. It didn’t seem to like the cramped cage. At only six feet wide, there was barely enough room for it to pace back and forth, glaring at her with its golden eyes. Surely it would attack her if she let it get free.

“Aww, quit’cher whinin’,” she told it, stepping into the shed and kneeling down to examine the two fresh kills. They were stiff, their fur matted with dried blood from when Bones had struck them down. She needed to get to work on them right away, today, before too much decay started to set in.

She heard the growling start up again, and glanced up at the wolf. “Ya ‘ungry?” she asked it. She returned to the house, and came back with some water and a few pieces of fish. She slipped the fish through the cage bars, snatching her fingers back before the wolf could try to bite them off. Then she poured some water into the dish she’d set inside the cage. With the wolf fed, she locked the shed back up and started making up a list of what she needed to get done today.

She headed inside and looked around her cluttered home. She was completely out of space. There wasn’t enough room in here to set up a decent workbench for dissection. Not on top of the furniture, the stone statue, the Animation circles, and all of her babies. Sighing, she planted her fists on her hips, looked around, and declared to her children, “We needs a bigger place!”

She headed outside and looked around. Her quaint little cottage was near the edge of the city, since a house on the outskirts was the only thing that had been available for her to buy when she got here. There was a fair amount of undeveloped land not far from her home. She looked it over, plotting out designs in her head, then gave a firm nod. She felt something nudge her ankle, and looked down to see Naily had followed her outside. She smiled at him and gestured to the location of her future labs and workshop. “Whaddya think, baby?” she asked him. “Mommy’s done gonna make us somethin’ bigger...”

Naily leaned back to peer up at her with his little glass eyes, then spun his wheel, the motion the closest mimickry he could perform of a puppy scratching behind his ear. Tock grinned, taking the motion as an affirmative one.

She made her baby go back inside, and headed back down to Stampy Guy’s office. She couldn’t remember his name, but he had handled her paperwork the last time she had needed something done.

She walked right up to the desk, planted her hands on her hips, and declared quite loudly, “I wanna buys me some land!”

***

A short time later, Tock left the Lord of Council's Office, less a couple hundred mizas from her purse, but holding a freshly written and officially stamped deed. She made another stop on the way home, swinging by the general store for some much needed supplies. She got a nice new sharp knife for dissecting the wolves, a case of embalming materials, and a notebook to record all of her upcoming studies in. Then she swung by the Zeltivan Glassworks for a case of glass jars. She also told the kid on duty, she thought his name was Fogle, “Make sure ya done tell the Glassman, what as ‘is sis went an’ gots herself some proper land, aye? If’n ‘e wants a place ta stay an’ git outta ‘at shyte’ole apartment, I’s make ‘im a room...” She was sure she’d see Monty soon enough, but she hoped the kid would remember to relay the message.

She also stopped by the library, picking up a few books on wolves, anatomy, dissection, embalming, and organ preservation. Everything she thought she might need to supplement her lack of knowledge. Then with her land and supplies purchased, she headed home to get started. Deed in hand, she looked the area over, carefully reading the specifics that denoted exactly where her new property extended to. She sucked on her teeth as she crouched at the edge, thinking things over. A little over a hundred feet down one cobblestone road, the length of which marked the front edge of the property. A little over a hundred feet back from the road, marking out a square plot one-quarter acre in size. Enough room for dozens of houses... or one really amazing and awesome magic workshop.

She grinned wide. This was going to be a fun season.

Ledger Receipts :

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on September 2nd, 2012, 1:02 am

The backyard of Tock’s home jutted up right against the boundary of the new land, kind of in the middle. The entire line of houses on her block bordered her new land, which meant most of her neighbors were about to be in her way. Few of them had fences around the tiny yards that surrounded their homes, and since the land beyond had been sitting empty, some of her neighbors’ stuff had spilled over into it. Standing right on the property line and looking down the block, she could see one man had a small wagon parked on what was now her side of the property line. Another had a small outdoor picnic table overlapping the boundary. Another had a cat sitting on her side of the line, lounging about and licking itself.

She crossed her arms, glaring down the line. Well, she’d gotten enough noise complaints from her neighbors in the past two seasons... now they were about to get some complaints from her. AND she needed to put up a fence... or maybe a nice tall stone wall.

But she didn’t have time to deal with that right now. The clock was ticking on her wolf corpses. They’d been dead for hours already, and she needed to get to work on them while they were still fresh. Her neighbors could wait, for now.

She headed back to the house and started dragging some stuff outside. “C’mon,” she told her babies. “All o’ ya. We gots work ta do.” She led her children outside and around to the back of the house, past the pond (which she noticed needed a bit of refilling, though that was a job for another day). She carried her table out with her, needing something to work on while her babies worked on building her a proper workshop and some new work benches and examination tables.

She set the table down just past the pond, and unhooked the bottom flaps of the tent that was set up over the back yard. After a few minutes’ work, she reset the flaps and rigged them on a couple of long sticks from her dwindling wood supplies. The tent would have to be enough coverage for her to do some work out here for now, keeping the sun (or if she was unlucky, rain) off her while she worked.

She set Bitey on the table for now, to keep him out of the way. She’d only brought him outside to keep her company, and so he wouldn’t get lonely if left inside while the rest of the kids got to work. She carried Cutty out and set him by the table, leaving him standing there silent for now. She was almost ready to repair him, and make him feel better. Soon...

Diggy she directed to the edge of the new property. She grabbed a thick stick and started dragging it across the ground, marking out a section she wanted dug out. She marked out a rectangle twenty feet wide by forty feet long. Once she had the area marked she patted her knee to summon Diggy over. The shovel rolled quickly up to her on his large wagon wheels. “Diggy, sweetie,” she told him, “Mommy ‘as a special job er ya, aye? See the rectangle?” She pointed it out, walking him along the line she’d pointed out so he could trace it with his glass eyes. “See it baby?” He nodded, waving his spade up and down. “Dig out the rectangle, ten feet...” He spun in place for a moment, looking the area over, then scooped up the first shovelful of dirt. She led him to the side, outside the area, at a far enough spot that the dirt would be out of the way for awhile. “Pile the dirt ‘ere, baby,” she told him.

He dumped the dirt where she indicated, then immediately rolled back to the marked area, and started digging out some more. It would take him awhile to dig out that big of an area, but he could work independently, without any need for rest. A lone man would take at least a week of solid work on such a large hole, but a lone man would get tired, need to rest, need to stop for lunch. Diggy would work nonstop, until she told him otherwise, he finished the job, or he encountered some kind of obstacle. Without needing to rest, he could dig out the foundation in just a day or two. That would be the basement of the first room of her new labs.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on September 2nd, 2012, 1:07 am

Next she needed some more wood to build a nice work bench. She summoned Choppy to her side, and led him down the property line. On such a big lot, there were several trees scattered about. Since she owned the property, she now owned the trees, and she wasn’t about to let all that good wood go to waste.

She got Choppy into position, not noticing that one of her neighbors was staring at her through her rear window. It was Jenn, who was VERY pregnant. She also didn’t much care for Tock, being one of the most common complainers about the late night sawing and hammering, and other stupid things that Tock didn’t think should be a big deal (as if there were any reason to complain if the mechanical spider had wandered into the woman’s yard from time to time!)

As soon as Choppy started chopping into the tree, Jenn shouted through the window, “Oh my God, WHAT are you doing?”

Tock ground her teeth, closing her eyes for a moment. She’d murdered an innocent family last week... she did NOT think she could deal with murdering a pregnant woman today...

When she ignored her neighbor, the woman came outside and stalked up to her, though she kept a FAR distance from the axe that was currently cutting into the tree. “Tock!” she shouted. “TOCK! I’m tired of this! I’ve had enough! You’re always building things in the middle of the night, I have to deal with... gah!” she jumped back when she saw Naily had rolled up to her heels, though Tock knew he was just being friendly. “With THESE!” she shouted, gesturing down at the wheeled hammer, who peered up at her innocently. “And... and... and now, you’re cutting down my tree!”

Tock ignored most of the woman’s rant, and simply said, “S’my tree...”

“What?” Jenn asked, peering at her like she was crazy (though Jenn ALWAYS looked at her like she was crazy).

Tock ignored the question, turning and heading back to her house. Choppy could hear any commands she shouted from there, and would need some time to work on the tree anyway. Jenn followed her, keeping a safe distance, all the while continuing to nag Tock. “Tock that is MY tree!” she protested. “I sit under it when I’m reading! You can’t just chop it down!”

“Can too,” Tock said grumpily. She did NOT want to deal with this. She was trying to keep her mind on her work. Work was the only thing distracting her from dark memories of what she’d done outside the city just a week ago. She needed to keep her mind busy. Not subject herself to more murderous thoughts, such as considering how long it would take Diggy to dig a nice grave...

“NO,” Jenn shouted, “you can’t!” Tock opened the shed, not bothering to argue with Jenn anymore. She heaved one of the dead wolves out and dragged it over to the table, kicking the shed door shut with her heel as she walked away.

Jenn took one look at the wolf corpse, and turned to vomit into Tock’s pond.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on September 2nd, 2012, 1:09 am

“Oy, yer makin’ a mess all in my pond!” Tock shouted, shaking a fist at the pregnant woman. “Go on, git! Git outta ‘ere! First ya interrupt MY work while I’s cuttin’ down MY tree, an’ now yous pukin’ in MY pond! GIT!”

She dumped the wolf on the table, ignoring the smell of blood and death. She then grabbed Eyes from her pile of tools, holding him up to her face. The Automaton strapped its leather belt around her forehead and buckled himself in place, immediately lowering the frames of her spectacles into place, and shifting the little multi-jointed wooden arms that held the sighting lenses. Anticipating work, Handy also crawled out of the tool box, where he’d been busy playing with a pair of pliers. He tugged on Tock’s pant leg, and she leaned down and offered him her wrist. He strapped himself to it, the wooden hand eagerly flexing his fingers in preparation for work, as Tock looked the wolf over and considered how best to begin this.

Yet for some reason, Jenn hadn’t left yet. When she finished vomiting, she stood up, wiped off her mouth, and said, “I’m getting the Guard! I’m going to have you arrested!”

Tock snorted and shook her head, turning to glare at the woman. Eyes adjusted her spectacles according to her gaze, lowering both sighting lenses over her eyes for extra magnification, making Tock’s eyes look bulbous and wide. “Ain’t illegal fer ta cut down a tree on my own propery, bitch,” she said, flashing the new land deed at her neighbor. She idly realized she could have maybe prevented this argument by showing the deed sooner, but she just hadn’t thought about it. The dumb woman should have just taken her word for it when she said it was HER tree!

Jenn stared at the paper, frowning. She tried to reach out for it, but Tock snatched it back. “Dun touch it!” Tock said. “Ain’t want yer filthy fingers smudgin’ the ink...”

Jenn looked up at her and said, “I... I don’t understand...”

Tock rolled her eyes and stepped over to the back line of her yard. She pointed down it, along the back lines of every yard on the block. “Everythin’ ta the right o’ ‘is is mine now,” she declared. She HATED it when she had to spell things out for stupid people. “’At tree? S’ta the right o’ the line...” Jenn looked down the line, then glanced at the paper again, reading the description of exactly where the newly purchased land extended to. The tree most definitely stood in Tock’s new land, though the branches extended over Jenn’s property.

“But...” Jenn looked down the line, pouting. “But I love that tree...”

Tock snorted and said, “Well I’s gonna loves the new workbench she’s gonna be...”

Jenn scowled at her and shook her head. “You’re a monster,” she whispered, then turned and stalked off.

Tock glared at her back, fingering the knife on her belt. She knew she was a monster. The memories of the Svefra family, the looks on their faces as she’d taken their lives, told her exactly what she was. It still made her sick to her stomach, thinking about it. But Jenn didn’t know about any of that... SHE thought Tock was a monster just because she was cutting down a petching tree!

Some crazy bitches got way too attached to their goddamn trees...

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on September 2nd, 2012, 1:10 am

With Diggy working on digging the foundation for the new lab (and Tock pausing here and there when he needed his Mommy to clear away a rock or root that was too tough for her baby to handle), and with Choppy working on taking down the tree (with Tock calling out verbal commands to him when his position needed adjusting), Tock set about starting the dissection of the first wolf. She was immediately glad to be doing this outdoors, considering how much it would have stank up her house. She still had some privacy granted by the tent, and the backyard wasn't much visible from the street anyway. So hopefully, Jenn's little bitch-fest would be the last complaint she had to deal with today.

She laid out the books she'd brought from the Uni, and set to her task. With Eyes adjusting his lenses to magnify what she was studying, she leaned in and began prodding at the wolf, taking notes and making sketches in her book. She started with the things she could see without cutting: the fangs, the paws, the eyes, and the ears. She began making detailed sketches (occasionally having Handy help out by holding the wolf's eyelid open, or holding a stiff paw up and keeping it steady for her while she sketched it from each side).

She took measurements of the body parts, using calipers from her gadgeteering tools to measure the width of each eye, and the length and width of each and every tang, recording the numbers down to the smallest measurement possible.

Once she had the basic measurements taken, she looked the wolf over, thinking how the best way to proceed was. She had never done anything like this before.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on September 2nd, 2012, 1:17 am

With the external measurements completed, she set to work on removing the eyes first. This wouldn’t be the first time she had removed an eye, but she was going for something more like a surgical precision this time. She worked as carefully as she could, pulling back the eyelids and having Handy hold them open with a small pair of tongs. Then she slipped her knife into the socket and worked it around until she was able to cut the eye free, keeping it as whole as possible.

She measured every dimension of the eyes, including the pupils and irises. While a normal Automaton needed nothing more than basic glass eyes, such pieces didn’t grant them any extraordinary vision. They couldn’t, for example, see in the dark, or possess the extra depth perception a hunter like this would no doubt have. She had already learned a bit about focus and magnification when she started studying telescopes. Her hope was to find a way to devise an advanced glass eye that could adjust itself the way a real one did. Though she feared such a thing might be somewhat beyond her.

With the measurements taken, she placed both eyes in one of her glass jars, then filled it with water. Following the instructions from the books she had taken from the library, she added the ingredients from the preservation salts she had bought, then sealed the lid on tight. The mixture would keep the eyes from rotting as quickly as normal, so she could continue to study them over time.

After that, she spent some time scraping out any flesh and gunk that remained in the eye sockets, dumping it all in a waste bucket for disposal. Most of the raw flesh was meaningless to her studies. She only needed information on the parts she would be duplicating with mechanics. Other things, such as the brain, would be completely useless to her. The Golem’s mind would be programmed in with magic, and thus there was no need to include a physical construct for the brain. Which, she realized, meant there would be some empty space in the head. She made a note to herself to figure out something to install there. Maybe she could give the wolf an upgrade of some kind, replacing the useless brain with something more interesting.

When this was done, she went back to check on Choppy, repositioning him once more so that he could finish cutting through the tree, until it came down with a loud crash. She saw Jenn glaring at her through her window, and actually thought the stupid girl was crying, though she didn’t look close enough to see.

S’jus’ a stupid ol’ tree, Tock thought, shaking her head. She ignored the pregnant girl, repositioning Choppy to start cutting off the tree’s branches, and carrying Cutty over so she could get him to work on slicing the tree up into boards. She vowed that today would be the last day she had to carry him into position. She nearly had her studies complete, and would soon be able to figure out how to fix his problems. Then, like her other babies, he would be able to work freely and independently, and he’d make his Mommy proud.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on September 2nd, 2012, 1:31 am

Once her babies were set on their tasks once more, Mommy was able to return to her dissection. It felt wonderful for her to have such a helpful family like this. Watching them at work made her heart swell. She was getting far more done here than she ever could have alone. This was the beauty of her magic, of the type of babies she chose to make. While someone else might choose to Animate warriors, toys, or mere companions, she made workers. This was the start of her magic city. It would begin with her children helping her build a workshop. There, she would make more children, who would then one day help her build her own city.

She decided the pelt needed to come off next. The fur itself she would be saving, for use in future experiments. After seeing the silk steel Rayage had made for the scarves she had Animated, she had an idea about making steel fur for her Golem’s pelt. Getting the mixture right would be complicated, though, so she would need scrap pieces to work with during testing. The two dead wolves (plus the live one, that would later be killed and dissected as well) would give her enough pieces of pelt for an extensive series of experiments.

Of course, she’d only skinned something once before. She wasn’t quite sure the best way to go about it. So she flipped through the books she’d brought, reviewing descriptions of skinning and tanning practices, along with anatomical diagrams drawn by scholars with much more experience studying animal physiology. Once she had an idea where to start, she took her new knife and started cutting.

She flipped the wolf onto its back, clamping its legs down in a spread pose that exposed the whole underside. Her book said to start at the center of the throat, so she did as it said, slowly cutting in a straight line down the center, through the chest and belly, all the way down to the tail. She kept Eyes focused on her task, the Automaton adjusting his lenses automatically as her gaze shifted, helping her stay focused on a precise path.

Next she worked on the legs, starting each cut in the center of the paw pads and working her way down the underside of the leg until she reached the central cut. She worked slowly, trying to concentrate on the task itself, and doing her best not to think about how much this reminded her of chopping up the Svefra family. Tock normally didn’t have a weak stomach; the act of slicing up a wolf wouldn’t have bothered her one bit. But the memories it brought surging forth made her sick to her stomach. She had to take frequent breaks from the smell of blood and the feel of dead flesh under her fingers, worried that her vomit would soon join Jenn’s in the pond.

She ended up skipping lunch entirely.

The hardest part was skinning the head. She read over the details in the book three times to make sure she knew what to do, then carefully peeled the flesh back from under the wolf’s chin, slipping the knife into the underside when she needed to sever the flesh that connected the mouth, nose, and eye sockets. She took extra care when severing the cartilage that held the ears in place, wanting to make sure she could study their shape further without worrying about damaging them in the process.

When she was finally able to pull the carcass free from its hide, she slumped it over her chair for now, knowing she would need to get the new workbench assembled before she could continue with it. The hide needed to be kept stretched out, and it was currently taking up the whole table, so there wasn’t room for the body there as well.

Before moving on to the new workbench, though, the hide needed to be salted. Once again she paused and thoroughly reviewed the books before proceeding, never having done this before. Then, following their directions, she scraped the blood, gunk, and other materials from the inside of the skin, before applying the preservation salts. They had to be rubbed in by hand, thoroughly applying them to every inch of the leathery flesh. Once that was done it was just a matter of leaving the salted skin out to dry. She pulled the table into the sunlight past the tent, leaving it to dry while she moved on to assembling the work bench she needed to continue the dissection.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on September 2nd, 2012, 1:44 am

Assembling the workbench was a quick and straightforward process. Tock had made such things enough times, and the design was so simple, that she had no need for blueprints. She just did it in her head.

Mommy measured, Cutty cut the boards (with sporadic trouble getting him to start and stop, but at least nothing prevented him from cutting in a straight line), and once she had the boards lined up properly, Handy held the nails in place while Naily drove them in. The workbench was a no-frills design; there was little point in adding fancy carvings to something she was about to strap a bloody carcass to. Cross beams were nailed in a Z-shape along the underside for support. Straight wooden legs were added with simple diagonal struts for stability and strength. Then, to help hold the specimens in place, she designed a simple set of built-in clamps. At each corner of the table she cut holes through the top to serve as slots for the clamps, then with her babies' help she cut a set of U-shaped pieces that fit into them. Along the vertical lengths of each piece she drilled a series of holes that could be fit with wooden pegs.

When it was done, she was able to fit the U-shaped pieces upside-down in the slots, pressing them down over anything that needed to be held in place, and then sticking a peg through the holes on the underside to keep the clamps held down. Each leg of the wolf (or if she were ever so inclined, the wrists and ankles of a human) could be clamped down under these to hold them in place, stretched out spread-eagle for her to dissect.

She also assembled a simple stool, having Cutty slice out a round disc from the tree trunk for the seat, and using her chisels to slice off the bark and trim the edges down nice and smooth. Then she attached four straight-cut wooden legs, with cross pieces nailed between them at one-third and two-thirds of the way up.

With the crucial furniture assembled, she threw the carcass onto the new table so she could use the remaining daylight for further dissection. But as she worked on the wolf, she verbally directed her babies for another task. Assembling furniture made her belatedly aware that any time she had guests over, she never had enough seating for them. But she didn't want to take the time to assemble something herself right now. The wolf was a higher priority than the comfort of her guests. So she set Handy on the task of assembling the needed pieces. He struggled quite a bit, since a piece of wood big enough to serve as a chair leg was a bit more weight than he could lift. But under her direction, and using just a bit of his own limited problem-solving intelligence, he was able to drag the pieces in place, wrapping his leather tail around a piece of wood and dragging it across the ground with some difficulty. Each time he got the pieces in the right place, Tock paused in her work long enough to align them more precisely and clamp them in place. Then she returned go the dissection and simply directed Handy where to place the nails for Naily to drive in.

While it took quite a bit longer to assemble the chair than it would have if Tock was assisting more directly, it kept her own hands free to continue studying the wolf. She still had to do some parts of the final assembly herself by hand, but by then her babies had separately assembled the back, legs, and seat of the chair, and all she had to do was connect the sections into their final form. By the time the sun set, in addition to her new workbench and stool, she had a simple, straight-backed wooden chair, and her guests could finally stop whining about having no place to sit.

Meanwhile, Tock continued studying the wolf's body. She stuck thin metal gouges through the flesh at several points to mark the depth, so she could record how thick the meat was before she reached bone. She wrapped leather measuring strips around the limbs at multiple points to measure their circumference, as well as measuring down the length of each section of the limbs from joint to joint. A few times she looked down at the blood on her hands, and they started to shake as she remembered the all too recent time when human blood had stained those same fingers. But she forced herself to push those thoughts aside, along with thoughts of poor Mikey. It was pointless to think about it. Useless.

Though more than once during the fading afternoon, her tears stained the bloody carcass before her.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on September 2nd, 2012, 1:55 am

As night approached, Tock fashioned some crude torches from some of the branches of the fallen tree, planting them in the ground near her workbench to fight off the night and replace the failing light. She wouldn't be able to finish tonight, but before sunset she wanted to make some more progress.

She had barely eaten all day, her stomach unable to handle the thought of food. The combination of being up to her elbows in dead wolf, and the constant flashbacks to her murder spree, kept her from thinking about food much. She ended up only eating half a fish for dinner, letting the live wolf have the rest on top of what she'd already fed it for dinner.

She spent the little time she had left cutting out a few of the wolf's internal organs. Most of them were useless to her; she had no need to save the liver, the kidneys, or other parts she didn't even KNOW the use of. She only kept the parts that had a potential mechanical purpose, which she might try to duplicate.

The heart she cut whole from the body, taking measurements of it and sketching it in her notebook. The second corpse's heart she would cut open and examine the insides of, but this one she left whole. While she didn't intend for her Golem to have blood, the heart was still a pump, and learning how it worked might prove to have applications in gadgeteering.

Once she had it measured, and sketched from all sides in the best anatomical detail she could, she placed it in another jar. She filled it with water and added the embalming mixture as she had with the eyes, then screwed the lid on tight and set it aside.

She also similarly measured, sketched, and saved the stomach, the bladder, and the lungs. Lungs especially were an important study; if she wanted to make Monty a new pair of upgraded lungs, she needed to learn just how they operated.

When she ran out of daylight, she carried the jars inside, setting them in a corner for now. She brought all her babies and the chairs inside, cleaning off the blood, dirt, sawdust, and other filth they had accumulated after a long day's work. Diggy had made some good progress on the foundation all day, and while technically she could have let him work overnight, she didn't trust leaving such a young child outdoors at night without Mommy's supervision.

The partially dissected wolf she left safely under the tent out back, covering it with a cloth and salting the edges to try and keep bugs off the workbench. She also blew out the flames of the torches but left the wood smoldering, so the smoke would keep flies away.

Then with everything cleaned up for the day, she headed down to the infirmary to take care of some other business, intending to continue her study first thing in the morning.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on September 2nd, 2012, 2:04 am

2nd Day of Autumn, 512 AV

Tock was up with the sunrise, ready to continue her work. She hadn't slept well, but then, she hadn't been sleeping well for awhile now. She also had to be at work in a few hours, but that was plenty of time to make some progress in her studies before then.

She fed the wolf, set Diggy back to his digging, got Choppy started on taking down another of the trees on her new land, and then dove right back into her dissection.

The corpse was seriously starting to smell. Having studied the organs yesterday, she focused today just on measuring muscles and stripping them from the bones. Mostly she wouldn't be making any direct attempt to duplicate the muscles themselves, since the mechanics she'd be using would involve gears and pistons. But she needed to know where the muscles connected, which ones linked which parts together. Studying how natural muscles worked would give her ideas what sort of mechanical substitutions she would need to make.

She spent the morning hours measuring muscles, sketching them in her notebook, and making notations about the 'system' they created. As she worked, she made notes in her sketches on possible gear configurations to duplicate the muscle connections, paying extra attention to the joints, bending and flexing the lifeless limbs as she leaned close, Eyes' lenses zooming in on the points where bone met muscle.

Later, at work, she was distracted all day. She barely spoke to anyone, assigning her apprentices some practice carvings that would keep them busy most of the day. She was still working on blueprints and concept sketches for Mr. Marshall's office, though her mind kept drifting off her work and onto Mikey.

Once, around lunch time, Jacques came by the drafting office to check on her. He took one look at her and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothin'," she told him. What else could she say? It wasn't as if she could explain to him that she was having trouble fighting off the memories of quadruple homicide and the creation of an unholy monstrosity from the corrupted soul of a dead child.

"If nothing is wrong," he calmly asked, "then why are you crying?"

She hadn't even realized she was. She'd been crying so much the last few days, she no longer noticed the tears. She lowered her head and wiped her eyes, then told Jacques in a weak voice, "Jus' let 'er go, aye? Ain't nothin' fer work, an' I's doin' my job..."

Though he could clearly tell she was suffering, Jacques wasn't one to pry, so long as she wasn't taking her problems out on her coworkers. He seemed to decide that peace and quiet to work on her designs was the best course, so he just gave her a nod and said, "If you need anything, just let me know." She just nodded, keeping her head down to hide the pain in her face. Somehow, his kindness and understanding just made it worse.

As soon as he shut the door, she broke down in uncontrollable sobs.