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Post by Bee on Sept 28, 2009 16:18:51 GMT -5
 The rear rudder had snapped in the landing, which had left Zeki terribly disappointed. It was the longest time he had been able to get one of his machines to glide--over most of Corvistowne, it had been a breathtaking flight--and it marked, he felt, a true turning point in his craft. He had figured out his balance problem. This was a machine that could turn and straighten when he wanted it to. Now all that was left to do, he felt, was graft this kind of structure onto something with an engine. It was a big next step. But first he needed to repair the rudder. He needed to take this one on a great many more test flights before he moved on. There might be some terrible error that could present itself later, and he didn't want that grafted onto a machine that he hoped to build with considerably more power. Zeki had broken a lot of bones over the last few years. He didn't want to turn minor bodily harm into fatal bodily harm. Death was usually a pretty insurmountable obstacle when it came to the development of new technology. He had most of what he needed for the repair, save a bit of wire. He headed out, to his favorite supply shop. |
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Post by carcinoGeneticist on Sept 28, 2009 16:40:37 GMT -5
What was Sorcha's problem? It wasn't that Virtute didn't like going with her on her crazy adventures into town, no, not in the slightest. Sometimes, when the kitten could get over the terrible fear that she was going to get lost (or kidnapped, or raped, or stepped on, or short-changed), she even managed to have a good time. She'd been having a good time today, in fact, right up until the point when the glow-butt had vanished into a crowd and utterly vanished. How hard could it be to find someone who glowed like a lightbulb? Pretty damn difficult, it turned out. Sorcha had just... vanished. Entirely. Leaving Virtute alone in the middle of Corvistowne. A nice area of the place, granted, but all the same... She couldn't deal with it. She knew if she just sat down by a store and waited, it'd be easier for Sorcha to track her down. Why had she left in the first place? This was the worst... The kitten sniffled pathetically. Then a few tears rolled down her cheeks. She wasn't even aware of the tauric raccoon that was walking past, too absorbed in her own terror and upset. |
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Post by Bee on Sept 28, 2009 16:56:21 GMT -5
He was quite single-mindedly in pursuit of his goal until he passed a little brown fluffball. He stopped dead in his tracks, partially because the sight of a Boggie was so very strange, but mostly because the girl was crying, and Zeki hated to see people that sad. She was all alone, too, and looked terrified.
Maybe she had escaped from some mad Corvie. That made him sadder. He appreciated the march of science as much as anyone, but he didn't approve of human rights violations to attain it. She didn't look like she had been the victim of any experiments, but sometimes you couldn't tell.
He approached her cautiously, not wanting to startle her. He wished he had something cute to give her to cheer her up. The only thing he had handy was...his coin purse and his lucky greaserag. That was depressing.
"Are you okay?" he asked, quietly.
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Post by carcinoGeneticist on Sept 28, 2009 17:13:07 GMT -5
It was easy to get all wrapped up in your own issues, and Virtute had a terrible habit of letting her issues spiral out of control. It wasn't a conscious thing on her part, just something that kind of... Happened. One minute, she was thinking about being alone, and the next, she was thinking about all the terrible things that could happen to a 13-year-old girl who was left alone.
Treasa was left alone, and they'd found her body under a dumpster. Was that what was going to end up happening to her, too? That thought made the girl sob even harder, curling around herself.
She certainly wasn't expecting someone to talk to her, and she let out an almost alarmed sounding mewl, turning wide orange eyes on the person who'd addressed her. He was unmistakably Corvie, which worried some part of her... But he didn't much look like the sort to dismember a person and leave what was left in a dank alleyway. In fact, he actually looked rather nice. He had kind eyes, if nothing else. Virtute's lower lip quivered.
"I'm lost," she whimpered, sniffling rather pathetically. She pawed at her eyes in an attempt to clear her tears - they weren't becoming of a child of nobility, she scolded herself. "My aunt... she wandered off without me, and now I can't find her."
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Post by Bee on Sept 28, 2009 17:31:01 GMT -5
Zeki scrambled about for the rag, and fumbled with it for a bit before he found a patch of it that wasn't actually coated in grime. He offered it to her if she needed to blow her nose or something. Crying usually made you kind of snotty. Unfortunate side effect.
"Sorry, it's kind of gross," he said, apologetically; Zeki didn't mind getting covered in grease, but he didn't want to subject anyone else to it.
He felt awfully for her--he knew what it felt like to get left behind. His rudder could wait for a while, he decided. Lone travelers in Corvistowne didn't...stay alone for very long. If she hadn't gotten snatched up for experiments already, she soon would be. Ah, moral bankruptcy; it was probably the most common inherited trait in Corvistowne. "I can help you look for her, if you want. Where did you last see her?"
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Post by carcinoGeneticist on Sept 28, 2009 18:07:49 GMT -5
For all that it was a dirty, ragged thing, when Zeki extended the rag, Virtute found herself blushing. It was less the thing itself, she realized, and more the intent behind it. It was kind of him to do this, to offer to help out a total stranger such as herself. When she finally reached out to take the rag from him, there was a shy little smile on her face, her ears panning back as she wiped at her face daintily. It was just tears, and the thing was fairly gross anyway, but...
"You're really sweet," the girl said as she handed it back to him, her tail slowly uncurling from around her front paws to wave slowly. He only surprised her by making yet another offer that had come from completely out of the blue, and her little blush deepened.
Why was a total stranger being so kind to her? Part of her leaned toward skepticism. If he was expecting that he'd get something out of her in return for his help, he'd be sadly very sorry. Sorcha had all the money, after all, and Virtute was a King, so if he tried to kidnap her he could easily fight him off. Really, though, when she looked at him... It didn't look like he was offering to help her or being sweet out of any desire other than simple kindness. That was refreshing, and the kitten began to purr lightly.
Slowly, she stood, her tail continuing to wave behind her as she got a better look at her - as she saw it, anyway - savior. "That would be really nice of you. Thank you. I saw her back by the store that sells all the respirators." Go figure, right? She'd never thought of anybody but Bog-mixes like herself and her aunt would need such a thing, but it turned out that Corvies often worked around rather toxic fumes. "...My name's Virtute, by the way."
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Post by Bee on Sept 28, 2009 18:39:47 GMT -5
Zeki smiled, happy that she seemed to be cheering up, even in the face of abandonment and dirty rags (she was purring; he'd never had anyone purr at him before). She had a cute smile. He decided he liked seeing it. He wondered, fleetingly, if the black of her hair and gently bobbing tail were Corvie or Torquehelm. It was a pretty combination, in any event, soft and nicely muted against the electric hues of the Corvies in the area.
He averted his eyes a moment, face warm. This wasn't the time to be thinking about how cute girls were. He needed to help her find her aunt. He knew where the respirator vendor was (Zeki had even gone there, some time ago, when he had first started fiddling with engines and decided he didn't like carbon monoxide all that much). It was a fine place to start looking.
"I'm Zeki," he said, cheerfully. "I know where that place is. Did your aunt have anything else she wanted to look at, or was she just wandering?" If she'd had a goal, Zeki might know where to look. If not, it was going to be trial and error. He didn't mind either way. He'd like to talk to--Virtute--more.
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Post by carcinoGeneticist on Sept 28, 2009 19:31:47 GMT -5
Zeki? That was an interesting name, but Virtute rather found that she liked it. "It's nice to meet you, Zeki," she said in a soft voice, another shy smile making its way across her face.
Rather abruptly, the girl realized that she didn't mind being away from Sorcha as much as she'd thought she did initially. It was because she wasn't alone anymore, she was sure, but there was something rather comforting about the sweet little Corvie that had paid attention to her sadness. He just made her feel less afraid, somehow. It was probably silly, after all, she really didn't know him. She decided that she wasn't going to focus on that. Right now, he was going to help her find her aunt.
"She was just wandering, I'm sure. She never has anything in mind when she takes me places, she just kinda... wants to go." That was the fun of it. Most of the time, they ended up in the Capital, but sometimes they wandered to one of the outrealms. This was their first trip to Corvistowne together, and really, Virtute should have anticipated that the draw of exploring a new place would be more interesting than babysitting her niece, but still! "But, um.. that really shouldn't make it too hard for us to find her. She has these, uh... Feeler-things. They glow."
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Post by Bee on Sept 29, 2009 14:44:33 GMT -5
Zeki tilted his head to the side curiously. Glowy feelers? Well, he'd heard of stranger things. (Oh so very many stranger things. Who else but the delightful residents of his realm could have the stray thought of "Well, yes, but what if the chicken feet we added to the arse EXPLODED?" It turned out that chicken foot sharpnel was actually kind of painful.) She was right, though; glowy feelers would not at all be difficult to spot.
He started leading the way to the respirators, apologizing a path through the browsing Corvies. So Virtute and her aunt just...wandered all over? He didn't take her for an adventurer (well, apparently the aunt dragged her off, but all the same), but the thought excited him. She must have seen some great places.
He wondered if she would like to see the places she visited from up high.
No getting distracted!
"Where all has she taken you?"
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Post by carcinoGeneticist on Oct 3, 2009 19:01:26 GMT -5
Now that her paranoia was beginning to fade into the background, there were a thousand things Virtute wanted to ask her new companion. Had he grown up in Corvistowne? What was his family like? Why did he have so many legs? The one that interested her the most, however, was in regards to his studies. He was clearly working on something - most people didn't carry around oil and grease stained cloths if they weren't working on some grand project.
But he was asking her questions about her aunt, and the kitten did her best to hide the disappointment. She wanted to find out about him, not tell him how he could get rid of her!
"Oh, mostly the Capital. We used to go there all the time together, but then she got bored of it." Virtute shrugged. It wans't such a big deal, at that point she'd been too skittish to really want to leave her home for long. "Then she went to the Bog with my gramma and older aunt, and since then, she's been all ready to bring me places. She says there's somebody she wants me to meet in the Bog but that she wants to be sure I'm a hardened explorer first. We did the Highlands since they're close to home, and Corvistowne because... Well, I dunno, really."
But I'm glad we did, she thought, not vocalizing that thought. Instead, she smiled. "We'll find her soon so you can get back to your work, though. Uh... What were you working on, anyway?"
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