Chapter Seven: Dreaming
“I should’ve ripped you into scrap when I had the chance. Since you wanna be useful so bad,” in the dream, Ania says this again, the first departure from reality was: in the dream Ania was not wearing her helmet. Ethel could feel the heat of its breath as it growled this in her ear. In the dream, it wasn’t quite anger that had driven them to tangled blows, but some unnameable impassioned hunger. In the dream Ethel was wearing one of her usual thin white canvas dresses which, as they are designed to do, ripped with ease under Ania’s vicious clawing.
In the dream, Ethel fights just as hard, and bites just as hard, but Ania is unshakeable, unyielding and ferocious. It’s fingernails roughly force under the collar bone divots in Ethel’s polymer plating skin and roughly tears the flesh of her chest away. Ethel could not stifle the quavering whimper that sounded as Ania roughly pushed its hand through her muscle tissue, under Ethel’s rib cage, digging into her innards. Deeper and deeper as if she was searching for something. Deeper, and deeper and-
Ethel awoke feeling dehydrated, ashamed, and all together too hot in her own skin. She sits up with a start, having after the events of the previous day decided it was time for one of her rare sleeps, she found herself sat upright in Ania cot. Ania was, (thank the coven) in the other room, and the door was shut. Ethel sits up properly, putting feet to floor and running her fingers roughly over her face. Gross. Gross, gross, gross. She hates sleeping and she HATES dreaming.
That one was particularly inexcusable. She hadn’t had such an… obnoxiously unbecoming dream since well… her stupid childhood crush on Lilith. There had once been a time when she was young, looking up to Lilith she had felt she hadn’t truly understood beauty until she had gotten to know Lilith. Nowadays all she felt when thinking of Lilith was grief. That’s besides the point. The point is: fairies weren’t supposed to feel… that … sort of thing. Whatever THAT sort of thing even IS, she KNOWS fairies aren’t supposed to think like that.
She huffs botheredly and tells herself it was just her mind obsessing over the unresolved tension from their fight and heads to the shower to water herself. She hopes Ania is having a better morning than she is.
Ania has not slept in 36 hours, and is currently scrubbing the floor for the second time that night-turned-morning. The events of yesterday was not the first time blood had been spilled at the lamplight, but it was one that made her feel particularly unclean. She had put a closed sign up, and was planning on opening the next day, but for now, she needed to remove everything that reminded her of colin's face.
His teeth was in a bag in her pocket, and she would absentmindedly fidget with them whenever her hands were free, which was not often, as she didnt like feeling them. It had created a bit of an orobouros, constantly reminding herself of what had happened, then working harder to forget.
Hearing the shower turn on shook her out of a particularly dark train of thought involving losing her source of income and having to crawl to the demons, mask in hand, for a shot at staying alive.
“Ethel? Are you washing?” she knew that just because the girl was under water didnt necessarily mean she was bathing, that Ethel also would stand under it, “drinking”. Fairies were weird, is what ania was learning, even more so that what she had imagined before actually meeting one.
Ethel made a slight ‘eep’ noise when Ania called out to them. They should have been listening out for it, but their mind was preoccupied with attempting to drown out any lingering unease from their stupid dream.
“Just watering myself…” she called back dryly. They turned the valve and shook some of the excess moisture from their hair before turning around approaching the door, as the events of the previous day came back to them in full their already uneasy mood became downright anxious. They’d rather not be alone currently.
They pull open the door and join Ania out in the bar, “...How are you feeling?” They brave first.
Ania pulls herself off the floor, her metal joints whirring angrily, aching with the effort of being on her knees for hours. She looks haggard, wearing just her mask, her eyes ringed with dark circles and it honestly looked like if she sat down again, shed fall asleep.
She grunts in response, taking the sponge and soap solution and heaving it onto the counter.
“Place is almost clean, still waiting till tomorrow to open, how about you?” she rings the sponge out, the soap solution runs black, but she makes no move to clear it out.
“Saw you were sleepin. Thought fairies didnt *do* that?”
Ethel wordlessly takes the bucket and begins replacing the solution. Even if they hadn’t seen Ania mix it the night before, they could tell the exact make up just by holding the bucket, (minus all the grime inside from use) and could replicate the exact portions of each little cleaning chemical used to make the stuff. Though, they got the impression Ania just eyeballed it.
As they were pouring the soaps and the chemical bottles into the now freshly watered bucket they responded, “We sleep. Just not nearly as often as Sylphs or Gremlins,” they pause for a moment, trying to recall a detail from their changeling schooling. It was a little piece of history they hadn’t had to consider for a while, “They tried to make it so we didn’t have to sleep. Couldn’t work… It’s too important to the memory process.” They shrug. “It’s unfortunate. Wastes time that could be spent working but, I guess somethings can’t be helped.”
Ethel recalled the way their sisters would always tease them for resting so much less than the rest of their cloister. Eventually… the teasing became outright worry from those sisters they were closest with. She always thought they just didn’t understand her passion, her dedication. Now it seemed they were right. Now here they were practically having to beg Ania to let them help most the time.
“Speaking of sleep… why don’t you go get some rest? I could finish up cleaning out here…”
“What, you think i cant handle it?” the bite with which she responds is unexpected, even for her, and she groans, shaking her head.
“Fuck, i didnt mean it to come out that way.” she leans over the counter and sets the sponge on a drying rack. Ania was tired, sure, but suffering was part of her DNA, and besides, didnt she owe it to her patrons, to colin? Rest felt like giving up, to say nothing of the nightmares that were sure to come the second she laid her head down.
Ania sighs, leaning against the counter.
“I dunno. Theres a lot i gotta do still. It aint your job to run this place.”
Ethel stares into the now (mostly) clean bucket of cleaning solution. She doesn’t really react when Ania blows up, but she smiles wearily when it apologizes. They feel strangely… strung out? But, if the fight seemed to be weighing so … heavily… on Ethel’s subconscious they supposed they might as well hash this out here and now.
They take a deep breath in, and then out. Then they take another just to be safe, before looking up to meet Ania’s gaze, “Ania. How do you think your tools would feel if one day you just left them on the self, and stopped using them altogether?” This was, a frame of reference they had been conceptualizing since after the fight cooled off. They were honestly pretty proud of themself for coming up with it, it doesn’t take a genius to notice that Ania tended to treat it’s tools like people, which was something Ethel could appreciate as a tool which was a person.
That…was not was Ania was expecting her to say. Like, at all. She thinks for a moment, and then responds a bit confusedly.
“Well, i wouldnt do that.”
“Maybe you disappeared. Entertain the hypothetical for me.”
She sighs, rolling her eyes. “Sure, maybe. I guess…” shes chewing her words, trying to work up the nerve to be a little bit stupid.
“I guess theyd probably be sad. Maybe confused?”
Ethel nods, smiling with a smile she in this moment considered to be especially patient, “Bored, even maybe? Purposeless.”
Ethel points to themself, “That’s me, Ania. I’m a tool on the shelf, gathering rust in your storage room. I need things to do, other than sitting around waiting for my wings to grow back, or I will genuinely go insane.”
Ethel sighs, dramatically, “Like. I’m GOOD at working, Ania. REALLY GOOD. And… I’m not saying you AREN'T. But I was created to HELP people, to do this kind of work. It would… mean a lot to me. If you let me help.”
Ethel’s microbes had started to wander as they spoke, a starry sky in their eyes looking everywhere but at Ania. A few stray microbes congeal and focus back on the other participant in the conversation as they ask, “...Does that make sense?”
Ania is listening, really, but she is still caught up on one little detail.
“But… my tools…” she splays her hands out a bit helplessly, unsure of how to explain how she feels.
“I under..stand. That you need to keep yourself…busy. But,if they get hurt, or lost, i…ive had ‘em for a long time, i-i cant just replace ‘em.” she looks at ethel with a cross between puppy dog eyes and the distant look of someone who is exhausted.
“Im sorry, i….i dont know.”
Ethels smile grows, to something while still weary, looking distinctly more fond. “Well… let’s just start with letting me finish cleaning up out here for you, huh?”
She gently picks the sponge up from the drying rack, “We can worry about the tunnels… some other time. Just… go get some rest, alright? I can take it from here.”
This may be something she’ll regret later, but right now she is too tired to argue. She grunts, nodding a bit sadly. “Uh, yeah. Im gonna…” she points to the stockroom door, and heads to the cot without finishing the sentence. She is knocked out before she can take her boots off.
Most of her dreams start out with long dank hallways, pipes and steam and clanking are just the background, the set dressing. In this one, like many others, she is running, trying to find her mech. She doesnt know what she is running from, but if she can just get to her mech, everything will be alright.
The walls twist and distort, the light getting further and further away as she is forced to climb up, still running. Her legs hurt, and slowly they break into pieces, falling down in great chunks, as she tries to pull herself up anyway.
Finally, she is out of energy, stamina, ability. She falls, and lands on the roof of the Lamplight Bar, crashing through the ceiling into a twisted .EXE file of her beloved home.
Blood drips down the walls, and there is a single guest waiting at the counter. They are tall, and imposing, and have great horns fashioned out of headlights glowing atop their head.
Ania gets behind the counter to take their order. They tell her they would like 2 whiskey-on-the-rocks, and one vodka sprite. The drinks are in Ania’s hand, but as she slides them down the counter the mask of the stranger melts away, and in its place is ethel, in a simple cloth dress. The glasses crash to the ground and they are red, but ania doesnt have time to notice because Ethel’s eyes are so beautiful, and her skin is softer than anything ania has imagined, and Ania can hear something whispering next to her to take the softness, let the kindness in, she wants it so bad. Ania, being in a dream, has no choice but to comply, and she leans over the counter, face inches from ethel, eyes closed, oh god, closer, closer…..
“Why’d you let me die for you, Barkeep?”
Her lips crash onto colins bloody toothless mouth, and she awakes screaming.
Ethel had finished the cleaning a while ago. Truth be told there wasn’t much left to do, and they suspect had they not intervened Ania would have just kept cleaning the same things over and over again until the sponges had run red with her blood instead of… well… Colins blood. Ethel wants to think that maybe he’s still alive. Ethel doesn’t want to think about death at the moment. Where do Gremlins even go when they die? Fairies go to the earth… Ania talks about the smog in a way that borders the zealous, maybe gremlins become one with it?
The moral of the story was Ethel had spent most of her cleaning time finding strange spots colins blood had somehow managed to stain itself. Their hope being if they’re the one to get rid of the last of the blood it needn’t come to haunt Ania later. Once that is done she spends alot of time trying to… buff out the… dents… left in by the violence rendered on the bars counter. Trying their best to smooth it out so its harder to spot.
Point being, they had finished up cleaning in time to be able to go to the back and engage in their guilty habit of watching Ania sleep. Listen. For fairies… resting is a SOCIAL activity. It’s WEIRD for her… not getting to sleep with her sisters, cuddle with them, and watch their microbes twitch during REM sleep. This… she has learned helps ease some of that loss just a bit. The only reason it’s a GUILTY habit is she knows Ania would die from some combination of embarrassment and defensiveness, and then promptly kill Ethel as well.
All this to say, Ethel is present when Ania suddenly wakes up screaming. Instinct takes over, and Ethel rushes to her side, stopping just short of placing her hands on Ania’s shoulder to ground her, she instead just sets them on the cot near it.
“Hey. You’re okay, you’re okay. It was just a bad dream, I promise!” She starts muttering the empty nothings, same as she would had one of her sisters woken up screaming (peculiarly not uncommon for fairies. Go figure.)
Ania’s first instinct apon waking up was to thrash wildly at whatever was trying to hurt her. She bolted upright, tears streaming down her face, her outstretched palm smacking right into ethel. She continues screaming until her brain wakes up the rest of the way, tapering off into nothing.
A short list of Ania’s thought, in order:
Capital F Fuck. Did ethel hear that? Ethel is right in front of you. She totally heard that. Are you crying? Oh smog you need to run, or hide, or something. Oh my god im going to be killed. Was that dream…..
Her face turns red.
“Oh smog, how long was i…..” She tries to pull herself up all casuallike, but her hipjoints squeal in protest and she is forced to sit back down and endure what should be classified as torture: the aftermath of a nightmare when you share space with another person. At least until she can take off her legs and oil them.
“Did i,,, are you ok?” Maybe its the guilt attached to the ethel portion of the nightmare, or maybe she is just Like That, but she is more concerned, for some reason, with the idea of accidentally scaring/hurting Ethel.
Ethel doesn’t react to the accidental slapping beyond a sort of half blink. Ethel takes one of her hands from the cot and uses it to carefully push a strand of their hair from their face. Ethel looks back to Ania with a gentle expression not dissimilar from the one she held during their last conversation.
“Not too long. Just a few hours or so…” Ethel had many gifts, but successfully keeping track of time had never been a particularly strong one. Ethel’s expression of concern deepened at seeing Ania attempt to sit up and seemingly find itself unable to overcome the task. Something to do with those legs of its. Like most technology in the Tower, the legs designs were… suboptimal, but making any attempts towards alleviating that would certainly be met with rebuff from Ania. Ethel would rather conserve their “try to get ania to let them fix their prosthetics” energy for the terrible beast of iron Ania was currently using in place of lungs.
They did their best to school the look of concern, knowing how it might be received. They weren’t much good at it. Though they can’t help a sort of bemused smile at the question, “I’m alright. …you had a nightmare?” They say it like a question they already know the answer to. Typically people do not wake up screaming after a pleasant rest.
Ania nods absentmindedly, brain not yet caught up with being awake. “Few hours isnt bad…” theres a few seconds of silence before slapping her thighs definitively (though still not getting up.) it seems she is looking to move past the embarrassing ordeal as smoothly as possible.
“Alright, well uh, would you mind handing me handing me my wrench, screwdriver, and that can of oil on the toolbench over there?” a bit of an olive branch, letting Ethel handle the tools at least. “I need to do maintenance on my legs before we open in…” she thinks for a moment, not looking at any timepieces. “Three hours? Three and a half?”
She is thinking about asking Ethel to leave the room, but doesnt know how to do that in a way that doesnt set off ethel’s “ania is a prude alarm”.
Ethel nodded, with a ‘hm’ at the instruction to retrieve Ania’s tools. Another head nod and accompanying ‘hm’ when Ania asks the time. Though, Ethel is not in reality confirming Ania’s estimation of the elapsed time, and instead simply agreeing that three and a half hours from now seems like a perfectly pleasant time to open the bar. Though… truth be told they are a touch surprised Ania was intending to be open today.
They plainly recognize the request as the Olive Branch it is, or at the very least they are preened at the explicit instruction to touch some of Ania’s tools. They go to the bench which once and never was a shelf with that swift yet purposeful way Ethel always seemed to carry themself when they had a job to do, returning just as swiftly handing Ania the specified tools with the same careful precision a nurse might hand a surgeon their requested scalpel.
Then they return to the bench taking the can of oil and returning once more. Ethel did not pick up on Ania’s hesitance to perform self-maintenance with Ethel present, and in fact instead was staring at Ania’s prosthetic legs with such an intensely interested expression that would make ANYONE blush, not just prudish gremlins.
Ania is nothing if not stubborn, and if Ethel will not take the (not very clear) hint, she will plow forward. If she is being honest with herself, (which she most certainly will not) she is kind of…curious. She sets the tools on the ground beside the cot, within arms reach, and unfastens her pants. There is nothing to see under there, unless hopelessly obsolete tech does something for you, in which case she is packing.
In an effort to pretend this is anything less than mortifying, she rambles.
“I dont know what fairy tech is made of, but this right here-” she taps the part of her hip where flesh meets metal, “- is probably the most similar to what you have.” she neatly folds her pants and sets them beside her, a whole heap of nuts and washers falling out in the process, which she will not pick up. Her legs are silver and blue, unusual in the sea of black and brown and grey that dominates the towers color palette, though it matches ania’s hair quite nicely.
“The rest is just a regular prosthetic, mostly self sufficient except for cleaning and what not. “ she reaches under both her thighs, clicks something, and with a hiss they separate from her hip. The joints are somewhat rusted, and probably very clunky looking to ethel, but ania looks sort-of-proud as she sets the left one down and sits the other in her nonexistent lap, grabbing the screwdriver and the oil.
“Made these myself, actually. Just a scaling up of the first version, but it was my first project all my own, so…”
Ethel watched the entire process with nothing short of awe. She would give anything to be allowed to touch… She can’t get a good understanding without use of her finger sensors. Where the flesh meets the prosthetic hip is of particular interest, she would run her fingers gently over the flesh - probe the crevice … she could get a better understanding then… of what was UNDER the surface as well as inside it… insides were always something of a fascination for her. She’d graze them ever so lightly over the colored welts and bruises left by the weight of the legs. Bruises were especially fascinating to her… they always faded so quickly on Fairies. One touch and she’d be able to ‘see’ each burst little leaking blood into the interstitial tissue. Feel every tiny chemical signal sent by Ania’s body as it slowly repairs itse- She huffs. A simple sound to derail her train of thought.
She was getting very off track. By Ethel's estimation Ania was displaying a great deal of trust in Ethel by allowing her to watch this process and they’d do well to not make it weird, themself. She wants to know the alloy in question. She hadn’t seen the material used anywhere else on the tower. But there was really no possible way to ask Ania if they could touch her pelvis, so that was right out they supposed.
Ethel watched Ania set the other leg to the side proudly, and begin work on the other. Ethel gestured, very carefully towards the currently unoccupied leg and asked very gently, “May I touch your leg?”
There was no doubt in Ania’s mind that this had the possibility of turning very weird, very fast, so to keep everything tidy, as it were, she chose to think of her legs as machinery and nothing more. This was work, no different than repairing a broken vent or something in the bar.
She thought for a minute, but couldnt find a reason to say no other than her own fear, and she was honestly a bit too tired to give a damn at the moment, so she nodded. “Just…be careful.”
Simple spring powered pistons were what made movement easier, hidden in her ankles and calves, and almost every part except for what connected her leg to her hip was analog. The hips were the complicated bits, consisting of a pelvis system holding what was essentially a small diesel powered battery, and large metal balls that she had written programs for to move independently depending on different movements in the rest of her body, letting her kneel, crouch, bend over with quite a bit more ease than the average prosthetic. The same kind of metal ball let her knee rotate, and was one of things she was now wetting with oil. She was muttering to herself as she worked, noticing a bit of strain on a few places, a screw she needs to replace.
“The best part,” she grins wrly, acknowledging the irony, “is theres veins and nerves in the metal part of my hips, still.” She taps the side of her pelvis, taking a break from fiddling with a loose covering. “Its not something i understand very well, but from what the kid who put it in said, the metal is kind of a proto-version of what your skin is, i think? Basically i can feel it, kind of.” more of phantom sensations for anything but the most excruciating pain, and only really useful for knowing when shes pushing the machine too far, but its…..something.
“Always,” Ethel responds easily to the request for carefulness. Ethel gently took the prosthetic leg in her grasp, running her fingers slowly from the thigh down to the knee, cupping the knee for a moment, before running her hands down the front of the lower leg. Looking, to anyone unaware of the mechanics of her touch(such as Ania), as if she was randomly groping and feeling up the prosthetic leg.
“Mmm. Spring-Pistons…” she comments plainly, despite having no visible way to have ascertained that. “These are… reliant on some rudimentary processor aren’t they?” Ethel mutters, mostly to herself, and resumes feeling up the prosthetic. After more gentle probing of the prosthetic they look up with a slightly stary look in their already star-resembling eyes, “You’re beautiful,” they say, which is already way too much, “The craftsmanship is… remarkable.” Their brow furrows as they look back down towards the leg, “The only real shame is the materials,” and the reliance on diesel as a power source but Ethel would cross that bridge another time, “Heavy metals. If only there were lighter alloys down here… Aluminum would have been perfect.”
The legs, the legs are beautiful, is what ethel meant to say. Some weird fairy thing surely, and Ania *was* proud of them, so she would take it as it was clearly meant and move on. A more interesting point was how exactly did ethel know what the parts were made of?
Ania continues busying herself with the work while talking, switching the screwdriver out for the wrench. She hadnt gotten to use this particular wrench very often and was very pleased at how nicely it played with her. “Uh, so, how did you….is this a fairy thing? Can you see through shit?” she gestures a bit at the leg and ethel, all the while focused on what she was doing.
“Not that your wrong, just…i dunno.”
Ethel can’t help but laugh, at the assertation she might be able to see through metal… well, with her eyes anyways. “Eheh. I wish! That would be incredibly convenient.” She looks back down at the leg, running her fingers over it slower in a more demonstrative capacity, “It’s… my touch I guess? Though, it’s honestly more of a sixth sense altogether.”
They held their hand out to Ania, splayed so that her fingertips were close enough to be observed. Each had a pattern of four little dark dots indented into the tips. “These. The little dots? Are… sensors of a sort. By touch I can sort of… probe into things? Feel how they function, their make-up, that sort of thing. I’ve heard it compared to… a sort of echolocation? If that helps?”
They look back down at the leg, placing the hand on it once more, “The diesel power is the other biggest flaw… another one you can’t account for. I wish you had access to the things we have on the Spheres… I think you could do great work…” Ethel worries she’s being too critical so they run their fingers over the leg again looking for something else to praise.
Ania shrugs. “Sure, in another life.” It doesnt see any sense in worrying about things that would never happen, and as it finishes the repairs on the right leg and sets it aside.
“Here, switch.” she takes the other one and begins working on it much the same as the first, though the left leg needs quite a bit more attention. Ania takes a brief pause to admire ethels hands, just barely squashing the urge to run her own fingers over the strange black dots, her hands hovering over them for a moment before getting focused on the task at hand.
“Is that just a fairy thing, then?” she scrunches up her face in confusion as a thought crosses her mind. “Uh, what *is* different about the fairies and the slyphs.” it’s not like gremlins have such distinct castes, everygremlin is for themself, and DIY is the majority of their culture.
For a moment, Ethel thought Ania was about to go so far as to hold her hand. But, it was not to be, and Ethel tried to not be disappointed. Ania was letting Ethel touch its legs, that was a big step. They ought to not ask for more when they already had gotten more than they expected. It was unbecoming.
Ethel could now confidently reply, “I think Sylphs and Grimlins are more or less the same. Biologically speaking? Like I told you before, Sylphs don’t go through the Metamorphosis. Everything that makes me so… different from you, makes me different than a Sylph. My eyes, my fingers, my skin. Sylphs don’t really get modifications unless they really want them. As children, Sylphs don’t get any modifications. Well, unless they need them medically. So yeah… It’s fairy stuff.”
Ania nods at first, but catches the small jab at gremlins way of using body mods and scowls, briefly glancing at ethel.
“Y’know, we usually only have mods when they’re needed, too. And at the very least, we get a choice in the matter.” she pauses for a second, focused intently on rubbing out a small stain on her lower calf.
“Seems like y’all fairies dont even get that.” it was said very casual-like, but underneath is a current of unease at how fairies were created and why, despite the very little she understands of it.
Ethel sighs, she hadn’t really meant anything like that by it. But then, they can’t pretend they don’t find the idea of children operating on each other as anything but an astonishingly bad idea. She could shoot back with a, ‘at least the person who modified me was a trained adult.’ But she actually, really, truly, doesn’t want to fight anymore. Maybe never ever again if she can help it.
“Sorry,” she says instead, “I know you wouldn’t have your modifications if you didn’t need them…” They leave the choice conversation in the dust where it belongs. They could try and explain it, but it's hard to put into words. It's a sacrifice… their way of life.
They take the chance, however, to circle back to that subject of conversation, “Who were they, anyways? The kid who did your hips…? How did that … come about?”
Ania perks up a bit, actually taking a break to explain. “Oh, uh, well, its kind of funny actually…i never got it’s name.” she looks a bit sheepish, but continues, “it was a friend of a friend of a friend, the only mechanic we could get on such short notice…”
Ania begins to recount the story with a bit of a faraway look in her eye, kind of the same look a veteran would have talking about old friends long lost, except if said veteran had been a child.
“I was maybe 7 or 8, and usually when your that old your supposed to have already formed connections, try to get yourself set up with a gang, but i was a bit of a loner on account of havin to take care of my mom. I climbed the tower and looked for scrap to sell in whatever free time i could find, had a few friends who did it with me.” Ania rolls her eyes at her childhood stupidity. “It was dumb, i knew the machine had a chance of turning on while i was standing on it, i just thought if i could get a *little* higher….” she trails off as a dark look overtakes her, which she shakes off after about a minute has passed. “Like i said, dumb kid stuff. I got caught in some gears, and uh….” she gestures to her legs as if to say *this is the result*.
“I dont remember much before the surgery was over,someone got help eventually, i was kind of out of it, but i remember it telling me that *this was no big deal, it’d get me fixed up in no time.* I dunno, i never really saw the kid again after that. It wasnt like i didnt try, but the towers a big place, and it wasnt so soon after that i started workin here, so….” she shrugs. Life is hard and horrible sometimes, just the way it is. She has always been strangely proud of the story however, like it was proof that the towers werent *always* bad. There were good gremlins, and there was kindness you could rely on when you really needed it.
She jolts out of storytelling mode with a start, realizing how long she had been talking. Her face turns pink, and she grins, Which can only partially be seen over her mask. “Oh, uh. Sorry, got a little caught up, i think.” she returns to fixing the leg as if she was just caught slackin off on the job.
Ethel can’t help the faint expression of pity creeping into the edges of their expression. It was in Ethel’s opinion, a very sad story, and reminded them of how the tower itself was filled with nothing but sad sorts of stories. Children in life or death situations. One could argue the life of a changeling wasn’t much safer, but the complications that could arise during the metamorphosis of fay folk didn’t scan as violence to the indoctrinated Ethel.
Seven or eight was too young to be fending for yourself… The idea that Gremlins were fending for themselves at even younger than that was heartbreaking. No adults to take care of them, protect them, or teach them. That was something alien to Ethel and it sounded like such a terrible and damaging way to grow up. Ethel smiled a weak little expression, “I’m glad your friends were able to save you. That must have been… a terribly scary thing for all involved parties.”
But… there was ONE part of that story that had caught in Ethel’s mind and wiggled like an unexpected worm, “But… you uh… you have a mother?” From the way Ania had spoken before about the virtues of children raising gangs of children, she had assumed Ania grew up much the same way, and didn’t know her mother.
Ania is well aware by now of Ethel’s opinions on gremlin upbringing, and it doesnt really care to bring up the way shes looking at it. It tilted its head, slightly confused.
“Oh, did i not mention….? Thats where i was, when i went home those few days. Its technically both of ours, but mother can be…tricky,” she grimaces. Tricky is an understatement, “So i tend to…stay here, much as i can.”
It is true that ania had known and lived with her mother throughout her life, which was mildly unusual for the average independent gremlin child, but Angela had always been a bit needy, and one could even say the two were more than a little codependent up until ania met the man who would later give her the lamplight.
She finishes up what she was doing, giving the leg one final polish and a little pat of fondness, a job well done. The thought of mothers, however, sparks a question in ania.
“What about you? Do you-did you have a mother?” she isnt sure the best way to ask that, but from the way ethel has talked in the past, becoming a fairy changes things, and one of those things is probably family dynamics?
Ethel’s eyelids flutter as close to closing as they could several times at the revelation. Not only did Ania know her mother, it STILL knows it. Even lives with it technically. Ethel wishes they could say Ania was better off for it, but by the sounds of it the situation is fraught. Not to mention it sounds like it managed to still grow up living just as dangerous as any of the other Gremlin children.
They’re almost tempted to ask further questions, but they falter considering how …intense the subject of childhood could be between them. They didn’t want to say anything inflammatory. But before they could pick their words, Ania hit them with its own question on the subject. Ethel fidgeted their fingers as they spoke.
“Oh. Well… There aren’t really parents at all on the Spheres. Not in the traditional sense. Reproduction isn’t done through intercorse. Or any sort of internal fertilization. The eggs and sperm cells are joined in test tubes,” Ethel explains with a clinical bluntness. “There’s only so much room in the Spheres so they can’t really afford to leave those things up to chance. Children are assigned in groups of family units typically consisting of at least 6 adults. Different responsibilities divided up among them.”
“I don’t really remember my family unit from before I was revealed to be a changeling,” she shrugs as if this doesn’t bother her. Though to be honest they worry they’re giving a rather boring answer, so they amend; “I suppose you could consider the Coven Father and the Elder Fae to be my parents!”
She clicks the leg back in place, grabbing the other and doing the same. The idea of controlled population is almost enticing to ania, if impersonal. It seems to her that everyone on the tower breeds like rabbits, and noone has enough of anything. Still, just the whole concept of fairies being picked out and changed makes her more than a bit uneasy.
“Right,,,,” she cant say she feels bad exactly that ethel has no “real” parents, considering shed give anything for that to be her. So she just stands up, pulls her pants back on, and goes to put away the tools.
“Uhm well..” Ania feels she should say something about the moment they just shared, but she cant find any suitable words other than a “right then, best to not sit here any longer, huh?”
“Ive got to get opened for the day, but,, uhm. Yea. this was fine.”
Ethel finds herself smiling at Ania’s admittedly slightly awkward acknowledgement of the moment they had just shared, “Yeah,” she responds warmly, “It was nice.”
Opening went much the same as it always was, with the added anxiety of a distinct lack of customers. A couple people came in here and there, but noone stayed for long. The place was quiet, and Ania was bored. Luckily for her, with all the excitement she had forgotten about a special visitor, and when the door was kicked open by a tall stack of boxes with legs, she was almost worried the Demon Gang had returned.
“Barkeep, help me get the rest of this in, would’ja?!”
The pile of boxes revealed itself to be a small boy, carrying far more than a small boy looks like it can carry. Behind it, still outside the door, was a little red cart carrying plenty more boxes. Ania perked up, running over to help Oil the delivery boy carry the packages in. When they had finished, and everything was in piles on the counter and floor, ania returned behind the bar to fish out some money and pour the kid a shirley temple.
Oil hops onto a bar stool, and his little legs dangle as the two catch up. The two share niceties, and eventually the subject turns to the lack of customers.
“I dont think ive ever seen you this busy, miss Ania.” he is very clearly being sarcastic, and ania rolls her eyes.
“Well, we had a bit of…trouble, yesterday. ‘Think people are spooked.”
Oil nods sagely. “Mm, seen the demon gang more ‘n more on these side of the pipes. They arent givin’ you trouble, are they?”
Ania fixes him with a mostly stern look. “And what would *you* do if they were, kid?”
Oil grins, sipping on the drink with a straw ania keeps especially for him. Its a mold of some ancient straw design, and it looked positively silly. “You say that, but i know alotta people who owe me alotta things, and your always so nice to me, miss ania, id hate to see this place go under.”
Ania shakes her head, then pauses, thinking. “Actually, if anyone’d know who knows this, itd be you, uh…” her voices lowers down to a whisper, despite there seemingly not being anyone else in the bar. “...you ever heard anything about…. *fairies* down here?”
Oil leans back, thinking for a minute.
“Well, and you know i dont like to spread around the business of my other customers, but uh…” he pauses again. “Well, this is about the demon gang stuff right? Tryna get your hands on some tech would be the smartest thing for someone in your…..” he trails off, but ania knows what it was going to say, and would rather have oil believe shes getting curious about defending herself then telling him about the *real life fairy* in her stockroom. Sweet as oil can be, Ania know it is dedicated to its job, and doesnt want to put oil in a position where it would have to betray her.
She nods. “So?”
Oil takes its time, sipping on what was now the third shirley temple. “Well, there was this guy,,,,it doesnt do business with me anymore, but it used to have me deliver parts all over the lower tower. A mechanic, y’know? An well, it used to talk alot about having a stock of fairy parts, y’know, for the high payin’ customers.” another pause as Oil finishes the drink. “I dont know if it would still have anything, but id say its your best bet.” it whispers in as close to anias ear as either of them could stomach the name and last known location of this mechanic, then pushes itself off the bar.
“Alright, so i think its about time to settle up, huh?”
The two of them go through the stuff Oil had brought, and after haggling a bit, came up even. Ania was to give all the old bottles in the backroom to oil for reuse, which was honestly a steal, considering Oil had gotten it’s hands on some fine whiskey that Ania was sure would be a hit with patrons. Oil wanted to go in the backroom to pick up the bottles itself, but Ania assured it that it was fine, that she needed the exercise. As such, it took a bit longer than usual for the boy to finish up business and leave, but when he was gone, the bar went right back to being empty, and ania sighed, knowing she was in for being bored again.
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