Work Text:
Footsteps. Metal on metal, unveiled from beneath the mess of noise outside as the door closes behind a new arrival.
Aespis turns her head to catch the sound evenly, not bothering to pause her work; the scrap of tin she has trapped under her foot will hardly give her any need to listen to it. She would much rather track this one. Far more interesting metal there.
Not the knight. That one’s steps are precise, nearly marching-perfect, their arrival usually heralded by the distant clang of them landing a jump. This is a different stride, hinting at unsteadiness, with an occasional step out of sync.
More unsteady now.
She’s not spent enough time near clockwork-creatures of this size to know how their inner workings should sound, but the snap-click that makes itself known every few steps seems out of place.
They stop. Shifting in place, a faint sound of metal under strain, as they speak. “I would reques-s-s-st assis-s-stance-help, if one here has any aptitude in the mechanical arts.”
Unlikely; to her knowledge, the others in this room are no craftsbugs, only a few others who chose this half-buried bell as a respite from the construction clamor. Who may or may not be especially pleased with her introduction of hammer-noise to the room, relatively quiet though her project may be.
As she expects, the response they meet is a minor chorous of “not my craft” and “I do not, sorry” and other such turn-aways. The only exception is a confident “how difficult a task could you have found, then? I’ll take a swing at it,” from a bug who sounds as though their head is in yet another of the bells this kingdom is so filled with.
None of that is promising.
When – what has she heard them called? – the maker doesn’t immediately spring at that less-than-tempting offer, Aespis shifts, twisting around to face them properly. “I will claim no particular experience in clockwork specifically, but some small amount in equipment more akin to the pulleys and lifts at work outside. You have something caught within those gears?”
She has their attention, she thinks. “Correct.”
Aware that she is perhaps not giving the most inviting impression, sitting on the floor with her foot on her work to pin it rather than having it in any sort of proper vise, she turns to put the hammer and metal-punch back in their carrying pouch for some slight indication of competence. “I can make an effort to remove it. If nothing else, I should be able to avoid breaking anything further, unless something in there is terribly delicate.”
A moment’s pause. Multiple sets of eyes on her, most of which she disregards beyond a prickle of annoyance.
When no one springs out of a wall cabinet to announce themself a more competent option, there’s another series of faint clicks, the maker shifting in place. “Acc-ceptable. If you…”
Another pause, another shift. As if hesitant. “If you would come with me? Not far; the next bell only.”
Hm. Privacy, then? Or secrecy, as one might show with the workings of a trick weapon?
She’s still not entirely certain what this is, after all. A conscious mind somewhere, surely, a few overheard conversations have been enough to convince her of that, but whether that mind is contained inside the metal shell is still not clear to her. The hum of life to them is faint enough to be, maybe, some odd spellwork-construct with a radio inside, with the mind housed elsewhere.
Regardless, they’ve asked for her help, and the way they shift twice more as she gathers her work suggests some form of discomfort clearly enough. As does their willingness to accept I probably won’t break anything as good enough to go poking about in their insides.
Work put away, she hauls herself to her feet by a grip on her lance, stepping a little closer. Close enough to get them inside her radius of touch-awareness. “Lead on.”
(She pointedly disregards the bell-muffled “-seriously? Her?” that follows.)
They lead on. Outside, unfortunately, back into the wall of noise that results from trying to rebuild a town out of that damned bell-metal, then into a second bell. One either exceptionally thick-walled, or buried further than the prior, judging by the near-silence that descends as the door closes.
One also much smaller than the prior. Not a fact she particularly appreciates, the limited space to retreat, much as it also means they have little way to avoid her should it come to that. She would rather not face an entirely unfamiliar manner of creature without any way to escape.
They are, beyond that, already closer than she likes; they’d stepped just inside the door and stopped, rather than moving away to give her space, and seem disinclined to budge. “Enough muffling, here, to reduce the possibilty-r-risk of unanticipated distractions. Is this workspace s-s-satisfactory to you?”
“Satisfactory once you cease crowding me,” she returns, hand still firmly on her lance as she sets the bundle under her other arm aside. “Step back and sit down. I’ve no desire to go plucking at anything in there with you still standing.”
She means for them to sit on something. Some of the remaining furniture seems durable enough, cogwork frame or no.
A series of taps and clicks, borderline clattering, announces them promptly sitting on the floor two steps back from her.
…good enough.
Favoring her stiff leg, Aespis folds herself down in front of them, tracking the tip of their head as they look over her shoulder.
Before she can prompt them any further, they interrupt her. “Your work. Writing-r-r-records?”
“Not particularly,” taking the opportunity to arrange herself more comfortably, “unless you consider the suits and numbers on a playing card to be writing. The punch-marks make them readable without needing to see them.”
Not the prettiest solution, not without a great deal more fussing and refinement than she’s inclined to do, but entirely workable. Once the sharp edges are filed off and a backing is applied to hide the marks from the rest of the table.
They eye the bundle for a moment longer, then shift their attention to her again. “You are sightless, then? Or near enough?”
She has two separate layers of material over her eyes, both visible. Was that not enough of a hint. “Entirely so, yes.”
No further comment follows.
Aespis gives them a moment, then two, before speaking. “Which means, if you still want my help, verbal directions will help speed things along. Or I can poke around until I find whatever that is.”
“Your help is yet-still desired,” underlaid by a click-click and a faint squeak of hinges as something in their chest changes shape. “Lower torso; my left, far back. A s-s-spring has broken and lodged deep, and I,” pausing to shift one arm, something in the joints creaking ominously, “l-l-lack the lingering dexterity-reach to grasp it.”
Their chest folds open entirely, exposing a network of moving gears. Releasing the noises of their inner workings, clicks and whirrs and an intermittent faint hiss, properly into the room. A steady sound of churning metal teeth.
…she does not entirely want to touch any of that, truthfully.
The time to hesitate would have been before offering her help. She will not retract that offer over simple unease. Murmuring “please do be still,” she reaches to tap against something relatively stationary, a particularly large gear that tick-ticks slowly back and forth. A starting point. Faintly warm, a little to her surprise, and…
Interesting. Humming with something that sparks crackling and delicate up her arm, bouncing from place to place in tiny bursts of the not-quite-pain she’s come to associate with magic.
As she shifts her touch slightly, sliding out to plant a fingertip on one tooth of the gear and follow it around, there is somehow the subtlest impression of a living creature under her hand. Like catching some soft-shelled thing and feeling how it shifts and curls, save that the motion is in metal rather than flexing muscle.
A thought occurs to her. “Will this cause you pain?”
Silence. A longer silence than she would have liked to hear, punctuated by an instant of the odd sense that whatever she has in her grip is prey. “…unk-k-known. This is not a familiar-known experience. It should not, being a thing of maintenance-repairs, but I could not say.”
Lovely. “Tell me if you need me to stop, then,” she mutters, “and please do stop me before you flinch any significant amount.”
“Understood,” rather softer than before.
This would, she registers, be easier if she could see what she needs to do. Or, if nothing else, where not to touch. As it is, the best she has is following the workings of their frame inward, sliding her clawtips across the faces of gears so as to find where their teeth meet by a means other than getting her fingers caught between, tracing her way along connecting rods and between bundles of silk.
The maker has the sense to give her directions, at least, after a moment. Quiet, “lower, still” and “f-f-further back”, until she has her hand just above what she thinks might be their hip joint.
Another ‘at least’: they do not move. Perhaps they should; the fact that pain is any possibility here all but explicitly confirms this as being their true body, and machine or no she cannot imagine that having a stranger poking about in their innards is a pleasant experience. She would certainly not tolerate this, pain or no- she would scarcely tolerate its like just across her shell, not without some significant need to do otherwise.
To be fair, a spring lodged in an unreachable spot does seem a significant need. And it does appear to be truly unreachable, accessible only through an angle that’s awkward even from her spot in front of them. For them to reach it on their own would be-
The maker shifts just slightly, head tilting oddly to look down at her arm, and goes tense.
Outwardly, it’s a small action. Barely noticeable. Inwardly, everything of them clamps down in a series of rattling clacks, a clatter of machine-noise sounding as something tightens viselike around her wrist.
-no-
Aespis shoves her free hand under their chin to force their head up, gripping near enough to their throat to miss any fangs, and snarls up at them. “-don’t look if it’s going to make you do that, fool,” hissed out, forcing herself as still as she can. Oh, she does not want to keep her hand where it is, but she knows better than to wrench away from being trapped, she knows-
The maker gives a startled click, two of their own hands locking onto her arm, their entire frame stiffening further. The material around her wrist draws a fraction tighter, steel-strong, identifiable as bundles of silk only by it flexing oh-so-slightly rather than cracking her shell immediately- then slackens, one tiny increment at a time.
As she pulls her hand free, slowly, they release their grip on her arm. Voice quiet, tone faintly chagrined, as they speak. “Ap-p-pologies. I would appear t-to have grown… unused-susceptible to such s-s-sights. It wsa not my int-t-tent to cause you alarm.”
Curling her claws in against her palm in a vaguely childish reassurance that the two more-numb fingertips are still there, Aespis slowly releases her grip on the maker, restraining an unsettled bristle of her wings. “Don’t do that again. I do not want to lose any more fingers, particularly not to machinery.”
And she has no doubt that something in them has the strength to manage that much.
They tip their head slightly, at an angle like they are indeed not looking down even slightly. “More, y-you said?”
By way of elaboration, she holds up her hand for them to see. Her left hand. With the middle finger almost entirely absent, the forefinger half-gone and tipped in a metal claw to regain a little gripping ability, leaving only the thumb and last finger intact. “More.”
A painful lesson in not putting one’s hands into machinery without being sure to immobilize it first. And in-
-the screech of metal forced into abrupt motion, an instant’s gutting realization of the mistake she’s made- a crushing pain, the sound of her shell cracking under her own voice pitched in a cry she had not known she could make, the reflex to get away-
-a sickening pop-
-in not wrenching with all her strength at a trapped limb, lest she, in trying to escape the thing hurting her, only contribute to removing entirely. The winch-chain had done enough damage that she might have lost that finger regardless, but what her reaction had wrought remained a convincing lesson nevertheless.
She has at least heeded that lesson, if not its “do not put your fragile hands into machinery still able to move, idiot” companion.
The maker seems to consider her for a moment, then fixes their attention on- perhaps her antennae, perhaps the wall behind her. She can’t entirely tell, not without knowing the set of their eyes. Whatever the case, they tuck their arms to their sides once more, still rather quiet. “Are you s-s-still willing-able to assist? Understandable, if not so.”
Is she.
She would rather not. But it rankles at her to leave a task unfinished when she could reasonably still manage it, as well as to leave them unaided for, what- being squeamish?
(How a metal creature can manage squeamishness, she doesn’t know. Presumably the same way they can manage pain.)
Biting back an aggrieved noise, Aespis straightens up enough to meet their eyes- or at least to mimic it. Silly thing, but it seems to help in holding others’ attention. “if you refrain from looking down again, and I will not continue if you cannot do so, will you be able to hold yourself still?”
They do something that produces a series of tiny clicks- flexing all four hands, possibly. “I would est-t-timate so.”
A slight pause.
“…it-t-t may prove easier if I still only those p-portions of myself that are applicable-involved.”
Rrgh.
Fine.
“That works,” she sighs, and immediately presses her left hand under their chin again, shoving their head up; she won’t risk them looking down a second time. If they object, they can find someone else to go poking into their innards. “Know that if you cost me any fingers I will be taking yours in recompense.”
No protest.
A touch reluctantly, she sets her fingertips against that large gear again, then follows her prior path inward and down.
That dangerous tension is all but gone. Traces of it still linger in spots, nowhere particularly notable. Particularly not in the silk that had caught her before; a set of narrow bundles, perhaps as a sort of musculature to accompany the gears and rods, humming with something that sparks up her arm a little more strongly than touching the metal alone.
There is, for a moment, an urge to wrap her hand around one and pull. Just to see what happens.
Not a good idea, and rude besides. If not outright cruel.
Shrugging that urge away, she fits her hand back into that hidden spot, resolutely ignoring the press of the silk against her wrist, and follows a particularly thick gear back and around to- aha.
Metal, like the rest of them, but lacking that hum. A thin, curved little piece, just barely in reach.
“I believe I have it. Be still,” she murmurs, narrowly avoiding telling them to take a deep breath, and lightly taps just next to the offending spring. “I’m going to pull it out.”
“Understood,” they return, an interesting thrum against where her hand is pressed nearly to their throat.
The spring is metal within metal. It should likely feel as though it fits.
When she gets it between her fingertips, managing a proper grip, it gives the faint impression of being a foreign object. A bone splinter lodged in chitin, similar yet misplaced. An impression that only strengthens as she carefully shifts it back and forth, feeling out how it sits against the mechanisms it’s snagged between, then slowly begins to ease it out.
Something makes another fourfold set of clacks. The faintest shiver runs through their shoulders, just barely felt against her fingertips. But they do not move.
“Easy,” muttered more or less into their chest with how she’s hunched down, “almost… ah.”
With a tiny ping, the end of the little offender pops free, and she draws her hand fully out of their chest in one smooth motion. Sits back, at that, holding the spring up for their inspection as she takes her other hand away from their chin. “There. That it?”
They manage an odd series of rattling noises, a metal-born shiver, and tuck their innards away once more. A satisfying series of clicks, that, ending in their inner workings being muffled properly.
They do not, though, lower their head from how she’d held it.
Odd. Not immediately concerning; she can hear something clicking away inside them, a little louder than before but perfectly steady and deliberate-sounding. Feeling it out, maybe?
With a final series of clicks, they finally lower their head, just a little. “No fragments remain. Y-y-you have my gratitude-thanks-r-r-relief; a prompt, careful removal is vastly preferable to… alternatives,” with the slightest note of something wry.
Aespis makes no attempt to restrain the huff that prompts. “What alternatives.”
No further response, again. And they still have their head up slightly.
…that seems to have stuck more than she had intended.
Vaguely at a loss for what else to do, she hauls herself to her feet, bringing her lance with her to lean on. “You’re welcome. Thank you for not removing any further pieces of me.”
They follow her up, after a moment. Taking a half-step closer to her in the process, perhaps for balance.
In reflexive answer, she flicks her antennae up, curling the tips forward to tap against-
-her shape-impression was correct. They do have a set of antennae, if oddly stiff. Fortunate; this is an awkward gesture to make with someone who’s entirely unable to match it.
They also tense audibly at the tap, giving a faint vocal click.
She would appear to have startled them.
Well. She has no particular response to that. Save to pull her antennae away and back off slightly, retrieving the bundle she’d set aside. “I assume you have no other reason for me to stick my hands in,” gesturing to the general area of their chest, “though I am… potentially still willing to oblige, if somehow you do.”
Any sort of response takes them a moment. “…any further cause-purpose, n-no. Not-t-t-“
Another pause, eyeing her, then a step towards the door. “-y-y-you are welcome to this space. For your c-c-craft-work, in relative quiet.”
Before she can sort out that offer, parse whether it might have some implied meaning- for she has learned several times over that what should be taken at face value in one town can mean a thing entirely different in another- or is meant without implication, they open the door, step outside, and promptly close it behind them.
Giving her, in the moment where it’s open, another burst of the noise outside. Yet more clanging, and the distant sound of an argument had over a not-insignificant distance.
…perhaps she will accept the offer as straightforward, then, and remain-
The door opens. Just enough for the maker to lean around it, offer a quick “-I will return around mid-eve,” and promptly close it again.
Hm.
Well. She continues to have no desire to go anywhere less sound-muffling than this. With any luck, if they return with some request she objects to, or simply want her to leave, the construction outside will have quieted. And if they do neither… she’s had worse company.
Now where’s the damn metal punch gone.