trans_9 | An Unnatural Love of Shiny

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An Unnatural Love of Shiny

Now that Nehaalista could work a little bit more naturally (her leg still ached, but at least it wasn't hard to walk on), she'd set out to find a forge. And found one she did, recently used, if the embers in the forge were any indication. With a little, strange sort of almost-grunt, she dropped her box of ore on the ground beside and relit the flame, stoking it until heat boiled from the red mouth of the forge.

While on shore leave, Nehaalista had been able to purchase some ore. To not do anything with her hands while stuck aboard Stacy would have driven her crazy, and Nehaalista wasn't about to let that happen to her sanity. After all, what would happen if she did go crazy? Start gyrating wildly while standing on a mailbox?

She wasn't a night elf, for Light's sake. ~~Sorry, Choline.~~

Nehaalista prospected half the box, pulling away a few dozen uncut gems and setting them aside. They were strange, and Nehaalista couldn't think of names, but had arranged them by color. The rest of the ore was melted down into bars, one of which Nehaalista hefted in one hand.

Now, what to make? She pushed away a limp, sweaty curl and swished her tail against the chair, thoughtfully.

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It had been quite a while, hadn't it? And Stephen was not about to interrupt the good Vindicator just yet. The knowledge that she was at the forge was good enough. He'd been down in the City himself, trying to bang out more work on his lab. Literally.

Curiosity had bade him poke his head in the forge, and upon seeing the Draenei female lost in thought, the plan had been hatched. Luckily he was the quiet sort. This meant he left in silence.

Of course, when he came back he was noisy enough, pushing a makeshift sort of cart in front of him. Yes, he'd made it himself. It was full of crates, perhaps four or five in all, with varied types of ore in them. Stephen was rather proud of himself for that.

He was quite certain that this would be an absolutely lovely surprise.

From the doorway, Dustin cleared his throat. Loudly.

He hadn’t exactly laid claim to this forge, though it was obvious that he’d been tinkering around with some of the metals inside, working with the tools, modifying a few of the ones that didn’t function to his liking. It had been relatively quiet there since he discovered it before shore leave, but once he got back and began frequenting it more often, it was only a matter of time before the rest of the crew decided to take a look around. That was usually how it happened, right? As he told Kira…

Luckily for Nehaalista, Dustin wasn’t much of a threat in his current condition, even if the flat, murderous glare he was giving her suggested otherwise. That crutch wasn’t going to let him move very fast, let alone free his arms for shooting the very large gun tucked inside his backpack.

It would take a lot more than a glaring little human to scare Nehaalista. She raised her eyebrows and stopped shaping the little barbel cuffs she'd be working on. [Can I help you with something?] she signed, looking nonplussed. Her hands continued to work on her barbel cuffs, her eyes focused on Dustin.

Nehaalista had moved on from idle thought to cutting and hammering out the metal into small rings, soldering them closed with something from her jeweler's kit. They were just small enough to fit over her barbels, and those particular small gold bands had just gotten a good cleaning, sitting in a little row in front of her.

She jumped slightly when Stephen's noisemaking interrupted her work and stabbed her finger with a sharpened chisel. Nehaalista sucked a breath in and put the wounded finger in her mouth. She waved at Stephan, and signed one-handedly, [Hello again.]

His smile stopped when he realized he'd surprised her into hurting herself. Stephen lifted a hand to rub at the back of his head, sheepishly, before dropping it to sign to her.

[I'm sorry, Nehaalista, I didn't mean to startle you.] He set his hands down on the cart handle to steady it, before putting his foot before one of the wheels so it wouldn't roll away.

[I haven't had a chance to catch up to you until now, but I went scrounging for a bit while on shore leave, and I found a couple things for you.] Yeah, that's how he'll describe it, just a couple of things. He patted the cart handle again, then.

“I should be asking you the same thing,” came the reply, gruff and more than a little aggravated. For his credit Dustin didn’t look away—nor did he seem surprised by the signing. One would assume that a genius of his caliber would understand such a language, yeah? He did, however, recognize that this creature was more intent on finishing her little project than attacking him, and thus he took a moment to adjust his posture into something slightly more comfortable.

Otherwise he stayed where he was and continued to glare.

Castiel had been investigating different locations on the ship when he stumbled across Daja's forge. He stopped, cocking his head to observe the ... interesting woman who appeared to be working within.

A normal human would have said something, announced their presence; Cas did not feel the need. Instead he stood and silently watched.

Nehaalista waved a dismissive hand and pulled her finger out of her mouth to sign, [It wasn't very deep, don't worry about it.] She eyed the cart curiously, and tilted her head. [That looks quite a bit more than a couple of things, Stephen.] She grinned toothily.

He'd be staying there a while then, because Nehaalista only shrugged, [It was empty, I am using it.] There were no clearer black and white principles than that. She returned to her work. Her long, nimble fingers carving out a setting for one of the small stones.

[I'm more of a recycler than someone who builds things from scratch. Well, unless I need to, I suppose. I figure you'd get more use from this than I would.] It was true, all of it!

[Besides, I figure you'd give me a hand if I ever needed your expertise. You know a lot more about crystal properties, I would think, than I do. I might need a lens of some sort for a weapon, if I decide to build one.] Stephen shrugged.

Nehaalista worked, sitting back to examine an uncut gem. It had very few flaws, she noticed, and with the proper application of heat and cuts, would probably sparkle brighter than an Azerothian diamond. It was a bit over large, though. Maybe she should cut it down?

A hand reached up to rub one of her horns. It had cracked slightly in her fall during the fight with the Ohm, and like her leg, still ached a little bit. Nehaalista happened to glance up while working on the gem and raised her eyebrows. She put her tools and gem down and signed rapidly at him.

She was clearly not human, but Cas wasn't sure what she was. Some kind of monster he wasn't familiar with? He frowned as he stared, trying to figure her out.

And then she started making hand gestures at him. He frowned even more, tilting his head as he tried to pull any meaning at all from the motions. "... I'm sorry," he said after a moment, "I ... don't follow."

Oh, whoops. Complacency stuck again, it seemed. Nehaalista sighed heavily, the sound oddly neutral-sounding, and picked up her omnicomm from the table, where it'd been sitting on a bar of ore. [Can I help you with something?] It felt like she was a youngling all over again in her father's jewelry shop, sitting at the counter and trying to decipher what others wanted.

Neheram would've been proud of his daughter... well, prouder if she didn't look so bothered by the intrusion. Certainly this man could see that she'd been working.

Hey, Cas wasn't the one who made her stop working. He was fine just standing there. She was the one who started the conversation.

Cas raised an eyebrow as his omnicom beeped at him, and it took some fumbling for him to get it out of his pocket and actually read the message. He sucks at cellphones, it's a wonder he can use the omnicoms at all. "No," he said as he raised her message. "I was just ... observing."

A pause. "You ... work with all kinds of metals?"

She grinned again, [I'd be happy to help you, thank you very kindly for the... gifts.] After all, the quickest way to get to Nehaa's heart was through the heavy application of ores!

She held up the barbel cuff she'd been working on, [What do you think?]

[I do.] Nehaalista replied, typing slowly with one hand. [I am a jeweler.] But hey, the application and usage of metallurgy hadn't been lost on her. She'd been self-sufficient for a long time, after all. [Is there something I can make you?]

"A jeweler." Castiel considered this. "... I'm afraid I'm not familiar with ... what your particular skill-set would be." He considered some more, but hey, it didn't hurt to ask. "... I don't need anything made, but, I ... am in need of finding someone who can sharpen a blade for me."

"...... would you know of someone?"

Nehaalista gave him a funny look. Where was he from that he didn't know what a jeweler would be doing? Did his people not know how to work precious stones and metal into miniature artworks?

Humans were weird.

[I know how, but only with whetstones, I'm afraid, and they do not seem to have those in great supply here.] And really, she'd was more of an axe-and-mace kind of woman. Swords were nice of course, as were polearms, but there was something very satisfying in the weight of a mace as it crashed down on some Scourge's head.

Humans might be weird but Cas wasn't strictlyhuman. Besides, when you've spend almost your entire existence fighting a never-ending holy war, you don't really have much time for jewelry shopping.

Castiel frowned as he thought. "I believe Sam and Dean have whetstones in the impala for sharpening their blades." So why didn't he just ask them to sharpen it, or do so himself? "This sword is .... something special. It ..... was self sharpening, but it does not appear to be so anymore, and ... I do not want to ruin the blade by having it not treated ... properly."

Edited 2010-07-13 20:05 (UTC)

She nodded slightly. [I understand,] she paused. [If it is important to you, you should find a good blacksmith, certainly there should be one of them here somewhere, shouldn't they? While I'm quite adept at sharpening my own blades, I would rather not ruin yours.]

A sudden thought entered her head, [Kang may be able to help you!]

Cas frowned. "I'm afraid I don't know that many people on the ship yet." A pause as it occurred to him that he hadn't even introduce himself. "... I am Castiel," he offered. And he appreciated that Nehaalista didn't want to ruin his sword, even if he wouldn't actually say so out loud.

"Kang? I ... know him. ... I did not realize he knew about blades."

Dustin frowned, a bit miffed. This wasn’t proceeding the way he expected it to—but he could adapt. With some difficulty though, seeing as Nehaa had revealed a flaw in Dustin’s actions that he really hadn’t anticipated, and he never liked to be proven wrong.

“…Well I can’t really be here all the time to ward off trespassers, unless I move out of my room,” he pointed out with a sniff, deciding now would be a good time to take a weary, unbalanced step further into the building, “What would have deterred you, then? ‘Keep Out’ posters over the windows? Proximity drones? Go on, your input will be put to good use.”

Even though he'd been on Stacy for a long time, Luke still hadn't explored every part of the city--it was a huge place, humid and dark, and he generally found himself only heading to the Temple. So it was that he was on his way there when he caught the smell of fire, and itching for a bit of difference in his routine, went to go check it out.

While he didn't immediately recognize the structure he found, the term forge came to him eventually. These were generally only seen on a much greater scale where he was from; one made for personal use wasn't common at all. But here, anything was possible.

The next thing he noticed was the being off to one side, clearly lost in thought with a block of ore in its hand. Suddenly feeling shy, like he'd walked unbidden into a private moment, Luke bowed politely. "Sorry to intrude," he said. "I was just curious, I smelled fire and wasn't sure if it was something bad or not."

Sweet, merciful Light, this was a gnome in a human's body.

Nehaalista continued to train her expression on her cuffs, but her tail twitched irritably. She picked up a tool and a small, finely cut gem, socketing it inside the barbel cuff. Nehaalista held the cuff up to the light, and appreciated the wink of the stone. Better to make him wait as she worked, after all, he'd interrupted her plans. Besides, he struck the paladin as the holier-than-thou sort, and probably needed to be taken down a peg or ten.

She pushed a limp curl off of her shoulder. [Proof of ownership would've been nice. Perhaps a deed? I assume that you are a civilized being, from a civilized culture, and understand how that sort of thing works.] Sorry, Dustin, it would have to be more than an omnicom post stating that the forge belonged to you. [Also, judging by your scholarly] read: wimpy [physique, I doubt very highly you could work a forge or make weaponry.] Nehaalista shrugged at Dustin and went back to work.

Perhaps a necklace? Or something for Choline?

Ed was in a VERY good mood right now as he wandered through the city, whistling an off-tune note when he noticed the bloom of heat the closer he got to the forge. Curious, he turned towards it and soon found himself standing there, watching the woman work.

"Hi," said Ed, hands in his pockets, the shiny new arm glinting in the fire. "Working on something?"

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An Unnatural Love of Shiny

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