[OPEN] You could be happy and I won't know.

[disgracedvoid]

Characters: Darkleer and YOU
Setting: floor 15 - workshop, floor 31 - staircase end.
Format: Starting with action, but I'll match you.
Summary: Just another day being Darkleer and hating life. Also building things and staring at nothing in particular.
Warnings: Darkleer being Darkleer. Potential violence if you piss him off.

floor 15

[Today you will find Darkleer not working on constructing little trinkets to roll around your ankles, but actually making arrows. Making arrows that he can use, at that. So he will be hammering away, looking disgruntled and focused in his work. He's not actually angry or anything, it's just that disgruntled is basically his neutral expression. Though he was a little irritated to hear the workshop and adjacent floors were unavailable due to an unfortunate accident a few days ago.

Honestly, humans.

He seems to know exactly what he's doing, though. So maybe if you need help making things, you could ask. He might even agree to help.]

floor 31

[When you reach this floor, you'll find Darkleer sitting at the edge of the platform, staring at nothing in particular. Or maybe he fell asleep with his eyes open. Either way, he's just sitting near where the ramp begins, apparently lost in his thoughts.

Or asleep with his eyes open.

Sometimes it's hard to tell and that goddamn helmet doesn't help, okay.]

Comments

[disgracedvoid]

[Well. At least it's not stuttering. He considers that progress.]

Pondering a way to place an adequate stabilizing weight in a rotor motor within the scope of available resources, yet without compromising total weight, size or endurance, or the integrity of the design.

[The deadpan, through honest, was mostly an attempt to subtly mock Equius. A wordy way of saying "nothing you'd understand", but saving himself the trouble of answering the obvious "try me!" reply that he so often gets. Most people don't care about engineering anyway. He doesn't particularly expect the yellowblood to be any different.]

I find open spaces often help me think.

[geometry]

...

[He's silent for a little while, looking thoughtful. Pretty much every sign indicates that he's going to give up and admit that Darkleer was right at some point within the next minute, just like every other clueless yellowblood on the planet. But unfortunately, even though Equius is significantly worse than every other clueless yellowblood on the planet in some respects, he does exceed Darkleer's expectations in one arena. Take a wild guess what that is.]

[So, the next thing to come out of his mouth is a passively-worded suggestion with multiple hand movements and, more importantly, the correct answer.]

[Yeah. That happened.]

[disgracedvoid]

[There's a significant pause at that, not yet surprised, because Darkleer is running calculations in his head.

Then it turns into a surprised pause because he reaches the conclusion that Equius is, in fact, correct.

And then something terrible happens: Darkleer's lips twitch into the ghost of a smile.]

That is an excellent idea.

[geometry]

[... Well that was a horrible nerve-wracking experience and he never wants to go through it ever again. Guess who won't be sleeping at all tonight? The answer is Equius.]

Um.

Glad to be of service.

[disgracedvoid]

[Hey, look at the bright side. At least Darkleer doesn't tear people apart limb by limb when he smiles, like your old highblood roomie did. POSITIVITY! Also, terror: Darkleer is standing up, once again reminding Equius that he might be tall, but a growth spur might yet still be in store for him in the future. If he lives that long.]

Indeed. You continue to prove yourself full of surprises, boy.

[geometry]

[Uh, really? He does? Most of his time spent in front of Darkleer so far has proved him full of only one thing, incompetence. But he can't think of a way to state this without insulting the blueblood in some ridiculous nuanced way, and it takes him a while to think of an alternate response:]

...Thank you. [He thinks.]

[disgracedvoid]

[He just makes a sort of thoughtful noise and starts heading for the stairs.]

Come along.

[This is almost an after thought, but it packs enough of an order in it. It's not like Equius had anywhere else to be or anything. Or that any of that matters any to Darkleer. I mean, really what's more important than obeying a highblood? Yeah, Darkleer's kind of an asshole that way, sorry.]

[geometry]

[What is more important than obeying a highblood, though? The combination of Darkleer's blood status, his age, and his imposing demeanor in general means that Equius started to follow him almost automatically. And besides, since it was a decision of sitting and freaking out here or sitting and freaking out on floor sixteen or wherever, then it didn't really make that much of a difference if some blueblood tried to drag him off.]

Coming...

[disgracedvoid]

[So glad he doesn't have to have an irritating conversation with an uppity lowblood. Look at the brightside as far as asshole highbloods go, he's almost an asshole by accident. At least it's not personal or meanspirited, right? That totes makes it okay.

He walks at an almost sedate pace, climbing down the stairs towards the workshop, turning Equius answer in his head. When they arrive, he heads for his usual place in a corner, where his latest project lays gutted along the workbench. It's nothing spectacular, really. Just the barebones of what one day might become a very tiny robot, serpentine in appearance.]

Now, what do you see here?

[geometry]

[What does he see... well, uh, not a lot. It's not that difficult to identify the parts. The outer form of the snake's tail, off in a corner. A few half-pipe tubes that will probably combine together to form segments of the body, along which joints will be placed. But it's very small. There's not much to see as far as usefulness goes. It seems to be just a toy.]

[Equius mentions all of this, except for the last part. Darkleer might randomly whip out a laser-beam mechanism to be placed in the snake's eyes. Who knows.]

[disgracedvoid]

[It is a toy, in essence. He mostly builds things for the heck of building things, usually putting ridiculous restrictions on himself just to see if he can do it, rather than any actual functionality. That's sort of how he ended up with a hive full of buzzing, chirping ankle-biting trinkets that are good for exactly nothing except watching them move about.

Not that he's about to tell Equius that.]

You have a surprising talent for this, for one your age.

[...could that be the fabled... approval?]

[geometry]

[Equius might have gotten into the practice of doing that, if he had the time and resources that Darkleer no doubt did. But when you're a kid with no lusus of any value living in a small apartment on -- yes -- little to no money, there really isn't a lot of room to play around with your expensive hobbies.]

[See, Equius has told himself often that he needed to find cheaper ways to pass the time. He's beginning to be thankful that he never did.]

[He's quiet for a few moments, stomach lurching horribly. Surely Darkleer can't mean that. He can't actually like Equius. That's not how it works. Something else is going to happen soon and turn the adult's opinion of him back into the negative range where it belongs.] ...Well, uh, it's what I do.

[disgracedvoid]

[Hey, it's not like he picked the habit until after he lost all privileges that could have financed his expensive hobbies. He's just had enough time to put it together and building random things keeps him from going feral.

I beg you, imagine for a moment a feral Darkleer and then tell me his ridiculous building hobby is a bad thing if it keeps him sane. Really. Most of what he knows he learned the same way Equius did, so hey, on the upside, if you weren't a yellowblood doomed to die young, you could have ended up like him in a way.

...yeah, there's a depressing thought, damn.]

I believe you never got around telling me what it is that you do.

[Except now he's curious about it. Don't mind him as he takes a seat, fingers working delicately and belying the ridiculous strength behind his hands, as he sets about implementing Equius' solution to his problem. It's okay, though. He's listening.]

[geometry]

[...Okay, maybe that's true. Feral Darkleer is an event that this world can never be truly prepared for. Put simply, it would be frankly horrifying. Keep making stupid little toys, dude, it's cool. You can do whatever. Equius will just sit here and... oh shit. Cook. Yeah, things he's never ever ever going to mention to Darkleer: the cooking. He has enough other things that he does on a regular basis to mask it, right?]

This, mostly. Mechanics. And computer work, coding and whatnot. ...That's really the extent of the useful skills I have.

[Well, and domestic chores. But they're not really useful in this context, so it's totally not lying!]

[disgracedvoid]

No bright future at the heart of a ship?

[Oh, hey. There's that deadpan again. It makes it impossible to tell what his real feelings on helmsmen are.]

[geometry]

...Oh.

[Right.]

[Awkward.]

Uh, no. No psionic abilities. Just this.

[disgracedvoid]

At least the skills won't be going to waste. Or would have, in any case, had you not ended up here.

[Oh well, that's all about that. He still hasn't made up his mind about you, Equius. And he's been thinking it about it, matter of fact, though he's not sure how handle this. A yellowblood with his sign. And more than just his sign, at that. It merits thinking over, but for now...]

You may wear it again, if you want to.

[geometry]

[He nodded. This tower kind of has a thing for derailing people's life plans. Not that Equius had one beyond "don't die until tomorrow", every day, but that's details.]

[Equius looked up, sharply, when Darkleer mentioned the sign again. It wasn't the fact that he could wear his old clothes again; he had gotten very used to being a troll without a sign when the Grand Highblood had been in the Tower. No. It had more to do with what that symbol of relations actually meant -- and Equius was sure that he would never earn the right to wear it again.]

Really?

[Oh god.]

Uh. Thank you.

[disgracedvoid]

It is not a gift.

[His voice turns sharp, and he pauses long enough to look up.]

So it is not something you should thank me for.

[He fixes Equius with a very long look, before turning back to his work.]

It's yours, I expect you to wear it with pride.

[Or else.]

[geometry]

[And beginning at the very first word, Equius is back into deer-in-headlights-terrified mode. It doesn't stop until well after Darkleer has gone back to the snake.]

...I will.

[By god that scared him.]

[disgracedvoid]

Excellent.

[At some point, he'll school you on what is an appropriate expression, Equius, because terrified panic does not count. It's uncouth. Now hang on a moment, he's working on something and he needs to...

...ignore you for a while. Whoops.]

[geometry]

[Ignoring him? That's cool. Equius doesn't mind people ignoring him, seriously -- he'll just stand over Darkleer's shoulder and watch everything he does with barely-disguised admiration. Even though it's a little toy and he could do all of that himself, he probably wouldn't do it as well as Darkleer...]

[disgracedvoid]

[He'll ignore you while working with a meticulous precision, and then shifting halfway, getting lost in thought and seemingly working after a different idea.

...which might be how he ended up with something horselike in the end.

Huh.]

[geometry]

[Well that just happened. Equius noticed pretty quickly that Darkleer seemed to be straying off the path he had predicted, and chalked it up to his own inadequacy; but in that case, why was the blueblood now working so that it would become something completely different? The mind boggles. As it always does with adults.]

...You changed it? Why?

[disgracedvoid]

I wanted to see if the new balance would hold in a different configuration of forces and counterweights. It should, I think.

[Darkleer points a finger where.]

Designs that solve one problem are good, but designs that can adapt themselves to more than one problem are much better. Considering the peculiarities of this place, you can't take anything for granted, when it comes to the basic laws of physics.