The Leowolves seemed to have decided that the tension was somewhat defused, though numerous ones were still prowling around, as if they thought trouble would attract more trouble. Not sure what else to do, Vimmy and Venny sat with them, and once night had fully come and the temperature was starting to drop, along with the first traces of fresh snowfall, they headed inside into their own rooms.
Celeste was downstairs, doing some kind of paperwork. Christopher was nowhere to be seen, probably down in the depths beneath the house. Patty, likewise, was completely AWOL, likely in her room, based on the closed door. Left with nothing else they could think to do, the two girls headed to their own room.
It took them some time to wind down, both of them talking a little until they’d fallen to silence; Vimmy had busied herself with a wooden puzzle she’d picked up on their journey back home from the Aazar shopping, while Venny had lain down and read. Sooner or later they’d turned out the lights and gone to bed, thinking tomorrow would be a new day and a fresh start.
Except sleep hadn't come. Even after cycling through manually powering down their metal parts, tossing and turning for awhile, they’d eventually given it up as a bad job. Venny wasn’t at all surprised that when she sat back up and got out of bed Vimmy had followed suit, both knowing the other likewise couldn’t drift off.
They’d stayed in their room since they hadn’t wanted to wake anyone else up too, trying to divert themselves while waiting to get tired enough they could snatch some sleep, but neither could quite manage it. Going through whatever motions they could find quietly, they had fallen to once again communicating through silence and body language. Venny glanced at a sketchpad and Vimmy handed it to her while she tinkered with one of her drones, a hatch on it’s underside open. Nothing was wrong with it, but it was keeping her occupied.
Vimmy heard it first. A faint echoing ring. Not a bell esque sound, it didn’t have a perfect reverb, like a bell did when its clapper was swung back and forth. But it was definitely metallic.
Whang. Whang. Whang.
…it came to Venny first, once she could make it out. It sounded like someone hitting something metal with a hammer. Actually…
It sounded like blacksmith work.
…the Ravensky ‘estate’ didn’t just consist of the house and the many buried chambers beneath it. There were a few secondary buildings; one was for storage and backups for the defenses, another was a stable of sorts that the Leowolves could shelter in if the weather became truly appalling (it hadn’t happened YET, and had mainly been used for sleepouts with the animals when the kids were growing up), and the third was…
A workshop. That the girls had been shown, but at the time had been closed up. Not being used. But they knew where it was. And with their special eyes, they were able to, once they found the right window, to look out and see the light dimly out in the forest, flickering both from use and the sheets of snow coming down. Someone had trekked over there and was using it.
The fact that zero alarms had gone off made it fairly clear that it was almost certainly someone in the family. That, or the leowolves were even more talented than believed and could do metallurgy. Still, to reach the main house, over the wind, indicated that someone was REALLY hammering at the metal.
Vimmy and Venny put their heads together and used some of the mental training they’d been getting. If the noise was purely from the work, they PROBABLY would have been given SOME kind of alert. And it probably wouldn’t be done at two in the morning. That suggested some form of exaggerated effort that wasn’t bothered being concealed. Neither Christopher or Celeste seemed to be of the current mindset where they’d be acting like that. Julia was not around. That left, by basic observation and deduction, Patty. Off in the blacksmith shop, hammering away, in the middle of the night, with a decently heavy snowstorm blowing down.
“...What’s she doing, do you think?” Vimmy asked, squinting at the light from the structure through the trees.
“Probably a mix of work and taking out some frustrations. I’d guess, anyway.” Venny replied, standing next to her and likewise staring at the workshop. After they’d quietly talked it through they’d gotten quiet again before Vimmy had spoken up; The both of them had liked Patty from the first, but even after becoming a part of the family, they weren’t quite sure about whether they should’ve talked to her or left her alone in the aftermath of what had just happened. They’d thought to let her come to them, if she wanted, but it was awfully cold outside… If Patty hadn’t felt she needed to be out there, she wouldn’t have been.
They watched quietly for a little while longer before Vimmy gathered herself up and started toward their door, Venny not moving until she asked “What are you doing?” Even though she already knew.
“I’m gonna go check on her and see if she wants a hand with whatever it is.” Vimmy said. Venny shook her head. “I don’t think she’s out there right now because she wants company.”
“Well, then after she tells me to go away I’ll go away. But she’s- She’s our sister too, we should at least try and see if we can help, or even just talk to her. You wouldn’t ignore it if it were me out there, right?” Vimmy pressed, raising her eyebrows.
Venny sighed after a second or so, walking over to her. “...No, I wouldn’t. I’d be thinking and doing the exact same thing.”
“Let’s just try and be as sneaky as possible, I really don’t want to make more trouble for her by waking everyone up.” Vimmy said, Venny nodding and putting a finger to her mouth in a shushing gesture. Opening their door by degrees, the pair very quietly crept out and down the stairs, Venny reminding herself to watch her tail when they passed the repaired chunk she’d knocked out of the wall. It didn’t take that long, but felt like it did since they were tense.
Being out in blowing snow at night remained not exactly a fun task, but at least the journey was short. Smoke was pumping from the chimneys that extended from the ‘workshop’, and the hammering had cut off just before they had exited the main house, but had resumed when they were almost at the door.
The door…did not open.
Not locked. Stuck. Venny had to put her shoulder into it to get it open, a semi wet sucking/cracking sound indicating that some moisture had gotten in and frozen, semi-locking the door in place. A flurry of snowflakes was blown inside and instantly melted from the far higher temperatures: it was akin to being in a sauna. Actually, no: saunas were meant to be comfortable, while this was a step beyond ‘comfortable’.
“Shut the darn door, were you two born in a barn?”
At first, the two girls swore that Patty was wearing what appeared to be a diving wetsuit. But, from the way it rippled when she swung her arm down, smashing the hammer onto the glowing green mass of…something that was glowing green, despite the fire being the normal reds and whites, her clothing wasn’t…solid enough. Like she was wearing some kind of…oil outfit. That stuck to her and moved a bit. Like a very, very crude Ardent. Apparently it was special, because she wasn’t wearing shoes: the outfit was one piece and covered her feet.
“THIS STUFF IS TRICKY! DOOR! CLOSE!”
Patty kept hammering at the green…whatever it was, as the two dragon girls frantically tried to get the door closed flush. Which was…a bit of unexpected trouble. SOMETHING had been warped, and the two girls had to struggle to close the door without breaking it. But they managed, eventually.
When they finally thought it was settled, they turned around to see that Patty was…drinking from a flask of some sort. She held up her other hand, with one finger up. Just wait.
She swallowed. Coughed a few times.
“D’isgros” She managed to say. “This is gross.”, most likely. Then she leaned forward and with a loud burping gurgle, semi-vomited over the green…material, a giant hissing mass of steam erupting from the action as whatever she had drank immediately came back up. Having put down the hammer, she had what appeared to be a glorified, heavy duty spatula, that she used to hook one end of the material and fold it over onto itself, more hissing steam erupting from the action, as she quickly grabbed up the hammer again and began smashing away at it.
“Girls, pump the…blowy thing. Need to heat this up to pure liquid.”
Well, that was simple enough. Just go to the bellows and apply effort to it. The heat in the chamber rose even more, Patty hammering away at the mass before she took the partially solid lump and held it inside the blazing forge, the green material (it certainly ACTED like some kind of metal) melting into a sludge that dripped down into a small brick mold. Patty indicated when they could stop, and once they did, she used tongs to remove the mold and the green material inside it.
“This is gonna smell terrible. Hold your noses.” Into a water trough the mold went, with a hiss of cooldown that almost sounded like a scream. Withdrawing the mold, Patricia gestured with her hand, using basic stream telekinesis to pop the green brick out. It shimmered in the dull light. And yes, it DID smell terrible, a thick plant-like scent mixed with bile and bad breath, though at least it wasn’t a lingering smell.
“...yeah, good stuff.” Patty put the brick down next to two other, cruder shaped bricks. It was easier to get some kind of aesthetics with more than one person, it seemed. “I thought I’d forgotten how to do this, but guess not.”
Vimmy had drifted from the bellows while Venny had remained, the younger dragon not quite approaching the bricks but getting close enough to crane up and look them over. She glanced from the material to Patty and then back, still not quite sure what she was wearing but moving on for the more immediate thing. “What is it?”
“Bubblebutt.”
“...WHAT?” Vimmy and Venny said, almost at the same time.
“...Bubblebutt?”
“This is called Bubblebutt?” Vimmy said.
“It’s a mix of steel, wax, a certain kind of sap, and a few…special ingredients. You can get them a few ways, but the best at hand is…well, you saw. Drink the sap and then UN-drink it. It’s mainly used for hammers and stuff. Like, weapon hammers. Mauls. You give them a coating of this, or make the end of it out of it, and the impact creates a sort of bubble of force between the weapon and what it hits which ‘pops’ for extra impact. People like to use it for battering rams, so, bubblebutt metal. Why…?”
They looked between each other, Vimmy questioning but Venny shaking her head. “Uh… You know what, nothing. It, let’s just say it means something else where we’re from. Best way to put it.”
“I’ve never seen a metal you work by drinking part of it, but there’s a lot around Weav I’ve never seen. I guess that’s fair enough.” Vimmy allowed, shrugging. “It looks like you’re doing fine, but we heard you working from the house. Do you want some help? We’re better at following directions than we are at closing doors.” She tried to joke.
“No. I got this. This is…scutwork. The real trick is working the bubblebutt…”
Vimmy had to suppress a mad giggle. Patty apparently noticed.
“...The impact metal from this state. Basically, once you heat it up again, you have to apply it right, because once it cools a second time, it’s set. You try and reheat it, you’ll just ruin it. And it’s not like we need any of this. But I do. Need. This. The making, not the bubble-metal.” Patricia sighed, and the girls were struck at how different she sounded from her mother. Celeste sighed with the voice of a woman who was basically breathing through a mouthful of allegorical scar tissue. Patty’s sound was more ‘I really wish this would go away, but it won’t, it doesn’t, and I hate it.’ “But I don’t think we have enough sap left to make any more of the bubble metal. Might as well work on some trinmnium. Need to fold it like 1200 times to get it just right. Maybe knock off some of that.”
Patty yanked open a trap door, vanishing down into the depths below.
It was quiet for a minute, save for a few faint sounds of movement below, before a box filled with black lumps of what looked like slag was shoved up.
It sat on the edge of the trapdoor, Patty not following it up.
“Vimmy, Venny, you two were criminals and stuff…you know what I mean.” Her voice came from below. “You got forced into it. But I bet you met a bunch of criminals too, while you were there.”
Well, yeah.
“...why did they become criminals? Like, why were they…doing what THEY did?”
“...Well… Some people, a real, real small number- I’m talking a handful- were bad from the start. They were criminals in the same way mud settles on the bottom of water. By and large, it’s a process. They needed something, and whatever it was, they found it under the organization we served. If it was money, or something like a family, or just structure, whatever. Mostly little things built up into bigger and bigger things until they were in so deep that nothing was off the table anymore.” Venny said, having to glance away since she was describing herself. “Why? A bunch of small reasons that turn into big reasons over time. Eventually, I think most of them looked around and rationalized that it was better to be a dog on a chain than a stray starving in the street.”
“It’s not right, but it makes a little sense from the outside looking in. Most of the ones around my level, it was those rationalizations all the way down. “I need this, and no one’s going to stop me from taking it.” That sort of thing. You ever heard of the idea behind broken windows in an area leading to more crime, and worse crimes over time? It’s like that but in reverse. Maybe that small handful I mentioned dove in headfirst, but most of the ones I knew, it was a matter of sinking into that world by degrees. Until they started drowning in it and never noticed.”
“...A lot of other operatives I knew were suckers. I know how that sounds to say, but they never thought about things like consequences or how killing and stealing affected other people. They couldn’t, after awhile.” Vimmy supplied, clasping her hands together. “Being self centered was like a shield for them, that way they’d never get hit by what they’re doing but be able to justify it like Venny said. Sure, maybe they were ordered to take someone out and burn down their house afterward, but so what? They weren’t related, it didn’t affect them. I do agree it’s a process, but… The road to hell isn’t just paved with good intentions, delusion is part of the bricks.”
“I’d agree with that. It’s a mix of giving reasons that only make sense in the moment and sinking into it all, the WHY is pretty varied most of the time. Mostly no one starts out as murdering scum, but after people had done so much and been a part of so many things, they’d get to the point where heading into an abyss was just another step instead of something unthinkable.” Venny said, briefly thinking of some of the people she’d worked with. They hadn’t all been monsters, but by the time she’d known them none of them had been good for much else anymore.
Patty, while they had spoken, had come out from beneath the workshop, carrying a new hammer and putting pieces of the ‘trinmnium’ in the forge to be smelted. Unfortunately, through no fault of their own, the look on her face indicated they hadn’t been able to provide her with any answers.
“...I know my mom and dad did bad things. I know that…sometimes they did them because they liked them. But…the stories, the records...you heard them. Like, I mean…even if he’s leaving out stories where he did bad stuff because he liked it, I…doesn’t it weigh more of the times he didn’t do that? And, like…they got forced into it too. I only have like…a few vague ideas, what happened when they were my age, younger than me, but…bad people came into their lives and broke everything, and they decided that they were not going to let that happen any more, and they were also mad and did bad things back because of how mad they were, but that was just part of it, while the bad people who broke everything did it because…they were just so bad and…I mean, Julia was just like them and yet as soon as the Kobbers finally got rid of that curse on her soul she just…backed away from being like that, and I get pickups on how they made all their ‘mistakes’ with my older siblings and Hope and I got the ‘best’ parenting and…”
Patty stopped talking slash rambling, beginning to hammer and fold the new metal, which was now a burning yellow-white, no longer resembling slag.
“...What did Mom tell you?”
Patty hammered away at the metal as they recounted what Celeste had spoken of.
“...I’m sort of aware that Oriam has problems. Lots of snakepit behavior, my dad would say. Being on top is as much staying on a moving carpet that also wouldn’t mind if you fell down. Did you hear the stories of why Bernard, my cousin, is basically in jail now? The whole incident with poachers and who they were and what happened and…” Only a very vague idea. “That wasn’t the only barrel of rotten fruit in Oriam. I kind of knew that, but…
“...Desiree pissed me off, but I get where she’s coming from. She doesn’t know things, she thinks things…and she cares about Blade. Her anger comes from the idea of him being hurt more. How can I be mad at that? Besides, you know, what I feel, because that’s what feelings do. But daddy and I were going home, and…
“Daddy doesn’t like using the big roads. He likes the more hidden, smaller ones. Less chance of trouble, and less risk of cold rat damage.”
What?
“Oh. I couldn’t say ‘collateral’ when I was a kid. So I called it cold rat damage. I never talk about it with anyone outside the family so I forget…so, we were taking a back road out of Oriam, to our air transport. The back way had a bridge. And on that bridge were a bunch of young people. Part of the upper…parts of Oriam. A bunch of mes. Except they were nothing like me. And they were being led around by Greenmore Ravidras. I don’t expect you to know that name, I didn’t. But he’s part of a family in among the snake pit of Oriam. The third son of one of those families, I think. So, access to lots of power and no responsibility, especially since unlike my parents, a lot of parents don’t try real hard to make sure you understand that everything you have, you should appreciate and ‘get’. Greenmore and his gang of friends, they were acting as a makeshift toll service. You want to cross this bridge? Pay the toll. There is no darn toll. They didn’t need money, they all came from it. Normally daddy would have just given them a look and they’d have all run away, but I was still ticked off about Desiree so I asked to handle it.
“...I know I’m not…that smart. Not like Hope. Or Dawn, who can talk birds down from trees. But…it was just…why were they doing this? I walked up and they tried to make me pay a toll and I basically went, I am all alone and I am not paying a toll, stop this nonsense and go away, if I am doing this you should really understand that I feel I can do it…and they just…they just didn’t understand.
“They didn’t get my view. They didn’t see me as a danger. They saw me as…entertainment. A bunch of stripes of it, some…foul. Just, foul. And they were doing it for…NOTHING! They were…BORED! They had so much and it just made them…bored! And they thought, yeah, this is great, this is how we should act, this is what was best in life. Because they all got around me while I was TRYING to get them to stop it, and then they all tried to mind-zap me.”
---
“A certain specialized form of the Glorious technique. You basically surround someone and, you need to be in considerable sync, basically all of the people mix together their weaker wills and combine them all on a central point. It’s called the pinnacle, or pinnacling.” Christopher said. “It’s not something you can just break out, because the person being centered on has to be standing still for the different mental wills to properly join up and strike as one. So as you might have guessed, it often gets used by scumfucks to make an already scared or unaware victim helpless, and then…
“Those idiot kids, well, I suppose I don’t blame them for following math. You do this 20 times, 13, 14 of those times, you’ll render the person being Pinnacled helpless. 2-3 of those times? They’ll be mentally bludgeoned, reel a bit, be weakened. 2 more of those times? They’ll get pushed but have too much innate strength or will to be affected.
“And with my children? My daughter, Patty?
“Well, she’s the 20th. Water off a duck’s ass is the best way to describe it.”
---
“...And when I realized they were basically trying to knock me out so they could…I didn’t Read deep but their intentions were just so DIRTY and so POINTLESS and it wasn’t NEEDED but they WANTED it and I felt their damn fingers jabbing at my brain and…
“I got angry.”
Had the girls been there, it would have been exactly like the practice they’d seen in the ash waste segment of the Ravensky forest. Right eye igniting, hair turning white on that half, except instead of being a smaller bubble pushing away the crushing force of a larger one, this one completely shattered the opposing ‘bubble’ like it wasn’t there. That had been enough to mind-whammy four of the ten of Greenmore’s group and knock them clean out, and the rest, well…
Even if all of them had been able to ignore it, it wouldn’t have helped them.
“So I made my point without words. It was easy. They were nothing. Less than insects. And even though I was mad, I kept my head. Broke out Tempest, tossed them around, bumped them on the head, like I said, easy…but Greenmore was a LITTLE better than I thought and…
“Well, I’m guessing it was some kind of acid. I don’t know if he did it because he was scared or mad himself, but he tossed it in my face to try and take care of me.
“Didn’t work. My AEGIS is too potent for just some basic acid to do more than hurt. But it DID hurt, and…
“I just knocked him down, got down on him, knees on his shoulders, and I started punching. You want to do all this and hurt my face? Fine, I’ll hurt YOUR face. I was just going to punch him three or four times, bloody his nose, give him a black eye, but…didn’t feel right to stop. So I just kept punching. Couldn’t really hear him, heck, I didn’t really see him. It was just…here is a punch I must execute. Done. I must do it again. Done. Do it again. Done.”
“Then I sort of just pushed my way through the fog and instead of throwing another punch into his face, I threw it into the stone bridge next to his head. Broke down through it several inches. I stopped, I was just looking at how I’d wrecked up his face more than I intended, and then dad finally spoke.”
---
“What you’ve decided…maybe one day you might feel it has to be put aside. I don’t think this is the day for it. Or the reason.” Christopher said, repeating what he’d said then. “So she got up…and I’ll admit, I was almost in awe of how she managed to get herself under control. At her age, myself, her mother, we would have kept punching until there was nothing left. The rage would have completely consumed us. She had that same anger, and while it briefly took the reins…she snapped it back. She had enough principle that it came out even when it would ruin ‘the fun’. She was calming down. I handed her a waterskin to wash her hands, she’d made a mess of them…
“And I was looking down at this Ravidras kid, who wanted such disgusting things, thought it was fun, didn’t understand them at all, almost COULDN’T, that he’d made my baby upset…
“I saw myself lifting my foot and bringing it down. Right on his face. Put what was left of it through the bridge into the river below. Or maybe on his chest, stomp a hole right through, so he could FEEL it, feel just a TOUCH of the callousness he’d come to define himself by doing it to others, grinding them under my heel, glaring daggers down at him as the bill he thought he was above came due, with interest…
“It was a moment of weakness. But for that moment, oh, how I wanted it. Like a hit from a drug. But I put it away.
“...but, well…Patty’s not like us. Her Reading is often much more low key, basic. She doesn’t peer deep, because she doesn’t like to see what lies there. If you’re good, it’s an intrusion. If it’s bad, it’s…something most would want to not see. After all, peering so deep so often into people, well…look what that did for her mother and I. Her sister. Her older brother Justice, to a degree. But she’d snapped into alert battle mode, so her senses and her ‘eyes’ were keyed up, and she hadn’t calmed them down before she got a look at what I wanted. No trace of her father there. Or the hero she saw in things I did. Just what made it so she had to be raised in isolation, trained from birth, behind a score of walls and defenses. What both terrified so many rotten sorts…and made them hate. And, well…just how alike he, Ravidras and I, were, at one core, at that moment.”
---
“...I knew it was there. But…never really…saw it, before, like that. It was a mild slap to my face. But the worst part was, once it had all calmed down, once we were back on the way home…I realized two things. The first was…I’ve taught myself to not hurt people. My whole style uses a personal ‘wave’ that puts numbness and weakness in place of pain, even in the place of damage. I’ve worked real hard on it, tried to make it my basic way of being. But after, I realized…I’d turned it off without being aware of it. I didn’t want to be merciful. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted…just what daddy wanted, it seemed. From what I saw.
And I also sort of realized that I was seeing what made Blade leave. What made Justice kind of leave. Why…maybe Desiree was more right than she knew, or that I’d ever wanted. Why NOT adopt some new sisters for me? They can come in fresh. All the mistakes are made. So grateful for a family that they’d accept it. And whatever flaws come along with it. Because a house with a leaky roof is better than no house at all, right? You can plug leaks. Or put buckets under them.
“And even though I know that’s wrong, that it’s all a complicated mess…the damn thing, all the damn things just, will, not, GO AWAY. And I really, really, DON’T WANT IT AROUND.”
Patty finally thrust the molten length of metal into the water trough, having hammered at the material all throughout. She barely seemed winded, despite speaking and exerting herself to a degree.
“...I’ll get over it. I guess. But it just feels so…raw. And…there. Just…there. Don’t want it, but it’s THERE. Just….
“...there.”
The two had drifted while Patty talked into their ground in formation; One on either side, like bookends. They’d watched her and hadn’t interrupted, Vimmy and Venny just taking her in.
“..Aw, Patty. I’m sorry.” Vimmy said quietly.
“...People are complicated. I know that’s a big, blithe thing to say, but it’s true. Maybe some are entirely one thing or the other, but that isn’t the huge majority. Everyone’s made up of hundreds of little thoughts, you know? I’m not saying what happened was right or wrong, not at all- but think about this; One or two of those guys who were there, maybe even just one, they’ll learn from it. You were probably the very first person who didn’t just push back but pushed hard, and… Even if it’s just one, in the years to come it’ll be there. People like that don’t just switch up on a dime, but they fuc- messed around and they found out. As rotten as they sound, one or two of them probably needed the wake up call. It might’ve been the only way they’d have changed for the better.” Venny said, also quiet. She glanced from the metal to the trough and then back.
“You stopped. Even if you could have kept going, or even if you wanted to, even IF you stopped being ‘kind’, you stopped when you did. It never should have shook out that way in the first place, but it did, and you… You did what you had to do and then you stopped from going too far. That’s gotta be worth something.”
“You’re partly right about us, we did come in fresh.” Vimmy spoke up when she paused. “But I think it wasn’t so much us or you all doing all the work, but meeting in the middle. We wanted a real family, badly, and you all… made the space for us, because we needed you. It just worked out the way it did. We didn’t expect perfection, and neither did any of you out of us. Which is good, because it never would have happened if that was all any of us were looking for. But… We’re our own people, too. We’ll never stand in for or replace your brothers, it’s never going to happen. It would never happen. We’re… Nobody planned for us, or expected us to be here now. We’re here because we love all of you, and because we love you. That means everything to us.”
“Nothing that happened was good, or anything you’d want to happen, but… You’re not your parents, Patty. You’re you. Your own person.” Venny once again took up the reins as though the dragons had planned the order of them talking. “I know it’s got to be a shock to see something like that. To Read the way only you all can, but they’re people. Maybe not people quite like anybody else, but they’re human beings too. We know a little bit of what they’re capable of, but it’s not about that. I think it’s more important about who they choose to be and what they choose to do than the parts of themselves they’ve caged. If people were only judged at their worst, then there’s no hope at all for Vimmy and I.”
“...All the things you love about your dad, all the things that make him your hero, they’re all still true. He’s still the same person, that part of him was there the whole time. You are going to get past this, and over it, and not because you have to. But because you’re going to be able to. There is a difference.”
“This is a complicated mess… We weren’t sure what to do with ourselves. Even with everything we just said, we didn’t want to, you know. Overstep ourselves. But we’re here for you, Patty. You couldn’t chase us off if you tried. Not because we’re grateful- though we are- but because you’re our sister, too. It’s not an obligation, it’s what we wanted and what we chose.” Vimmy swallowed before at least trying to smile. “Even if that Desiree lady had a point, she was still way more wrong than she was right.”
Patty had been listening, staring at the embers of the forge for the last sentences. When the two finally ran out of words, she kept doing it for several more seconds, before she sighed again. More of a release, that sigh, than the sound of a burden unwanted and yet unyielding.
“...you got THAT right.” Patty said. Well, she seemed less tense. “All right dad, you can come out now.”
Silence.
“...I KNOW YOU’RE THERE.”
More silence, save the forge. Patty looked around.
“...well, darn. He isn’t listening in. I am actually surprised. How’s the weather looking out there?”
The only way to check was to get the door open again.
The howling snowfall was a good answer, Venny getting the door closed again as swiftly as possible.
“...well, guess we can fold the trinmnium some more.”
---
“No, I wasn’t there. Going out in that weather? Are you insane?”
—
“...sir, I just realized something.” Venny said.
“And what is that, Venny?”
“Weav was once like the Earth we know. Only a few remember, the rest believe its false history, and you’re basically letting ‘the truth’ die out because well, it really has no point, because you can’t go back.”
“Yes…”
“...so you probably had to stand there and keep a stone face whenever anyone you worked with with that green metal called it ‘Bubblebutt’.”
“...the trials and tribulations of my life come in all stripes.” Christopher said, his tone sour and bemused. “Julia and I, when she was fifteen, cleared out a bird fighting operation. Lots of roosters. It’s something hearing your daughter blithely, repeatedly, talk about how it was good to get rid of the cock ring.”
“..PFFFT-” Venny at least tried to hold in the laughter but was unable to, she and Vimmy giggling between each other. It struck them awfully funny, enough that they had to cover their faces to get themselves to neutral again. Despite that they’d go back to it every few minutes.
