player plot: when my time comes around, pt. 2.5.

[propulsion]

WHO: Stephen Strange, Tony Stark, Viktor, Wysteria de Foncé, feat. James Flint, Yseult, and sundry!
WHAT: A sleepless month.
WHEN: First week of August
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Partially open! Within are some closed threads for time travel solutions and geniusing, but feel free to use this post as a catch all if you wish to RP about time travel and sciencing or talking to people about time travel and sciencing.

Something is happening!

And at first, who could possibly say what, with the research workrooms kept closed? But the sounds of other voices muffled on the other side can be picked up at just about any hour. Eventually, this becomes more erratic, but only because there is the sound of metal grinding, clanking, and quiet conversation drifting and pattering up through the lyrium-glowing stone passageways that funnel down into the basement of the Gallows.

Eventually, an announcement is made, and the cause for at least four of the Research division being utterly consumed by work becomes apparent. Do feel free to stop by, whether to register your disapproval, make sure they are eating, or to lavish upon them your tearful gratitude, but don't expect to stay too long regardless.

Comments

team imagineers. closed to stephen, tony, wysteria, viktor.

[propulsion]

There is no one place that the work is confined to. There are, of course, the Research workrooms, which scarcely needs a booking schedule but Tony has cordoned off anyway for their exclusive useage. Slates, or chalk marks written directly onto stone walls (and sometimes floors) show scrawling mathematical equations and drafted runic patterns, some hasty looking diagrams of complex theory made into abstract forms, some partially smeared lines meant to delineate what can be scrubbed away and what is not allowed to be.

Stacks of books, scrolls, documents paper a worktable, including several large sheets of cheap paper with surprisingly clean diagrams of machinery and their component parts laid out in a semblance of order. Empty plates and coffee pitchers imply some degree of sustenance being had. Some cushions and blankets in a corner are a little more worrying, as far as omens go.

There is also the basement, in which the fractured and dismantled parts of the Magrallen can be found in an orderly sort of disarray, some large frames hanging off chain and others carefully placed on worktables or simply the stone floor. Other elements of in-progress machinery, runic engraved, coils of wire, glowing lyrium-infused crystals, all make for a chaotic set only discernible to a few.

Down here, it's often overly warm, smoke pulled through vents but the heat from furnaces, when lit, has nowhere to go. For the most part, those are kept cold. FRED spends most of his time down here, able to lift and hold heavy things as directed via remote control magic rod, the sounds of his heavy scraping footsteps echoing off stone walls.

There is, too, the Haunted Mansion in Hightown, or Tony's office, or the library, all of which can play host to a wide variety of alarming conversations at any hour.

other imagineers feel free 2 threadjack/join in if desired

[portalling]

They’re in the research workroom, and Tony has just spoken this impossible idea into life, and it feels like a window slamming open.

The suggestion clicks something into place. Some nagging idea which has been buzzing at the back of Stephen’s mind, some persistent instinct which says that when the universe tells you not to avoid tragedy forever, some part of Stephen Strange will always think: why not?

The rules are different here, in Thedas — he doesn’t possess the same eye-wateringly powerful capabilities he once did — he doesn’t even possess the Time Stone anymore — but then again, they’ve always made a habit of breaking the rules.

And for the first time since Granitefell, he feels a faint flicker of hope: a match, sparked in a void.

“You invented a quantum time machine,” he says, “and I once rewound time on the destruction of downtown Hong Kong. Everyone in Research is uniquely situated, with unique capabilities. If anyone’s gonna figure out how to pull this off, I think we stand a pretty good chance.”

[grindset]

It's that same flicker, or the inveterate pursuit of it, that has drawn Viktor out among the others. Since the news dropped he's become increasingly reclusive, emerging only for biological necessity, those telltale taps few and far between. His workstation remains in stasis even now, hammer and rag lying just where he left them.

It is no exaggeration at all to say that hope has kept him moving his whole life. He's carried it, fed it, done his best to nurture it in others. But this, this void they're in, has proven so inhospitable to hope that for him its spark has simply failed to catch. His pilot light is as low as it's ever been—but the thinnest shell of flame is still a flame, so here he is, sitting in, like he said he would. In minimal concession to the meeting, he's on a stool near the door, still grimly leafing through whatever papers Stark would put in his hand when he arrived, which he did latest of all present. Between this and his silence, it may seem he hasn't really been paying attention. (And even by a metric adjusted to account for his frail health, it may be noted, he looks truly terrible.)

Strange isn't wrong; even in its diminished state, this is a strong team. The notes aren't exactly exhaustive, but he's worked with less, and the idea itself carries a Fuck It, We Ball calibre of ambition which appeals to him on a personal level.

Moreover, this concept isn't so far removed from the realm-warping operation he helped to pioneer—a comparable mechanism would have to be activated from the point of origin, which seems to have been the case previously—if only they had that amulet—

[heirring]

That Wysteria de Foncé would be to hand in this moment seems obvious. Nevermind her association with Tony, or the particulars of which members of Riftwatch had been laid in careful state in the infirmary and her relations to them, or her black mourning clothes (the dark clothes look very strange on her). The young lady has something of a nose for transgressive magiscience, and this promises to fit the bill. Presumably even without an invitation, she might have somehow sniffed them out.

Stood there at the edge of one of the workroom's tables, her station having exploded with papers and various bits and pieces seemingly in defiance to the absence of work being accomplished elsewhere in the room, Wysteria sets down her pencil. She has been taking notes on a folded sheaf of paper, having abandoned the pretense of keeping things in booklets.

"Perhaps," is not strictly tentative nor skeptical. From the slight frown she's adopted and the wrinkle pinching there between her eyebrows, she is thinking about something very hard indeed. "—Well," is a pivot. She's decided on something. "It's not entirely dissimilar from what occurred in the Crossroads last winter either, is it? Not in the sense that the places we went were entirely real, so to speak, but we've seen that there's a way for Rifters to influence how places adapt to, er, let us destabilizing forces. So we might have some natural advantage which could be levered. Hypothetically. In the right circumstances."

[propulsion]

Tony can be found sitting crosslegged on a section of table only partially cleared. Some pages are being rumpled under his left cheek.

There is an immediate and fierce gratitude for Strange picking up what he's putting down without as much question as he'd have a right to ask; Viktor's presence in the room is a positive enough sign that he doesn't feel the urge to needle the other man into responding; and so his focus angles off towards Wysteria in her black silks and ruffles.

A flip of his hand in her direction communicates: exactly.

"My gauntlet's a product of trying to work out how to get home," he adds. "I mean. Obviously that didn't work, because that's not how we work," you live and you learn and sometimes that learning is that you might be a Fade-construct of a person you remember being, no big deal, "but I've got some practice in harnessing Fadeiation into doing all different kinds of useful nonsense."

Temporal-shielding, gravitational manipulation, matter attentuation—why not time travel?

war room. closed to tony, yseult, flint.

[propulsion]

There is an untouched cup of coffee on the table near Tony's seat. Tony has neither drunk coffee, yet, nor sat down.

He probably should do these things, or sleep, which he has failed to do in about sixty hours. There is a live-wire energy to his demeanor that is at distinct odds with the otherwise buttoned-down, sombre mode he's defaulted to over the past week and change. Matching with the urgency with which he had called this meeting.

"So let's review," he says, hands together. "Granitefall? I'll say it. Devastating loss. Personally, professionally, but in terms of resource? Manpower? Credibility? Show's over. We're not coming back from that, not without substantially downsizing our operations and kissing goodbye everything we've been working on, or sublimating into the Inquisition, if they'll take us. So what I need from both of you," his hand presses fingertips down on the table, "is to hear me out when I say that we need to start focusing our resources on what we do next."

The hand lifts up, sets back down again, as if he could maintain a certain amount of delicacy at the same time as he is saying, "By which I mean, we make it so Granitefall never happened. Redo."

There, a beat, a temperature check as he glances from one to the other.

[katabasis]

It's late summer and the war room is stifling even at this early hour. Or maybe he's just well sick of the look of the room, and the sense of dreary pretense that has colored so many of these meetings in the last days. He has been reminded of the patching of a crippled ship, seeing how far it's possible top stretch out a sinking and hope land swims into view before it all slips below the water line.

So it's possible, sat there on the far end of the table without any cup to attend, that Tony has him in the first half. It's possible that in his gutted division's office, Flint has been mentally weighing a few options himself—ones that warrant proposal in this room, versus the ones which involve stealing away with as many of the remaining members of Riftwatch might be made willing to follow. For there are places to go, and forces they might join up with which have no relation at all to the Inquisition.

But as for the lunatic second part—

Tony's thermometer of a glance is rewarded by Flint turning his head to confer directly with Yseult: "Do you have any idea what he's talking about?"

[hassaran]

This is not the lowest temperature Yseult has ever given off in this room but it is decidedly cool despite the fact that she can feel a bead of sweat trickling down the middle of her back. This really isn't high on the rifter patter scale, but Tony's manic vibe has it already feeling like one of those conversations where he rattles off a half-dozen inside jokes in a row while they sit and wait for something comprehensible. When combined with the subject matter, she finds her tolerance limited.

She shakes her head without looking at Flint. "None."

[propulsion]

"Yeah you do."

They're talking to each other, but he's in the room too. Not immediately defensive for skepticism—it's a natural part of the process—and, likewise, seems very ready to dismantle it as much as he can.

"We all saw a Broadway musical about it and drank novelty cocktails. We had a wonderful time." His hands come down to alight on the back of a chair. "I'm talking about going back into the past to change the outcome of the future. We send two or three people back to give us the information necessary to avoid Granitefell happening at all. We manipulate the timelines so that we snap back to the new and improved one and it'll be like it never happened."

In theory, is what he doesn't add. Instead, he starts counting off on his fingers,

"Poppell is an expert at rift interactions and rifter-native magic translation. Viktor cracked spacetime travel in his world. Stephen Strange is an actual time wizard. And I've done this before."

His hands spread. "Nothing to lose. I mean. Nothing to lose except funneling all remaining resource into this one thing, but, I'll only ask for it once."

[katabasis]

Somewhere in there, Flint has shifted back to look at Tony—and then sink lower into the chair he presently occupies, elbows hooked on chair arms and knit hands suspended somewhere in the middle. There is a crawling itch forming at the back of his neck under the lay of his shirt collar. Maybe it's the heat.

Maybe it's the part where this proposal is fucking lunatic and Stark looks like he hasn't slept in four days, and the effort required to keep a grip on those facts is an irritant.

"You'll forgive when I say that the mechanics behind that part of the play weren't well communicated."

stephen strange | ota.

[portalling]

pepesilvia.jpg intensifies (open to all).

He has been here before.

Stephen Strange’s first few months as a sorcerer had been a frantic crash course in magic, astral projecting in his sleep to keep reading and not lose any study hours, shortening the time needed to complete his training, filching books, reading them until his eyes ached, reaching for magic despite how much he failed, and failed, and failed again. He kept trying.

So. Time is a flat circle and Strange is here, once again: buried in books and texts on arcane lore, hunting down reports of native mages accomplishing anything near what they’re trying to do, reading about time spirals. Trying to adapt what he knows, and find a way to fit it to the framework of Thedosian spellcraft. He might not have the Eye of Agamotto any longer, but he’s the goddamned Sorcerer Supreme — or used to be — so he should be able to do this. People might find him hauling away armfuls of books in the library, and commandeering the nearest bystander, declaring “Here, carry this for me,” and marching off with them and books in tow.

One of the empty project rooms has been commandeered and turned into a beehive of activity: chalk diagrams of the Magrallen, hextech, runes, a frenzy of notes. Whenever he needs a break from the other nerds’ physics and engineering, he retreats to the comfort of his own desk in the workroom. He casts spells over and over, with the stubborn determination of a man set on repetition until it breaks him, until he’s drained and has to go nap it off. Maybe you have to help him to the nearest pile of blankets in a spare office so he doesn’t pass out in his chair.

There are empty mugs with tarry black coffee residue, plates with half-eaten food and crumbs, the place is a disaster. The researchers might need some help cleaning it up or bringing them meals when they forget to eat.

He misses, desperately, the days he could control time so easily: he had once understood those spells with a reckless speed, playing fast and loose with them despite everyone’s warnings. His broken fingers twisting, notching minutes backwards and backwards; he had exerted his will on reality, and reality had obeyed. Today, it feels more like the spells are constantly wriggling out of his reach. It is so much harder now.

Strange sleeps poorly otherwise; insomnia kicks in, lying awake and staring at the ceiling in his room, thoughts buzzing on an interminable loop. One might find him in the middle of the night in the most casual of clothes, glassy-eyed and walking the hallways. For a second, he looks like a sleepwalker, but then it becomes apparent he’s on his way to the research workroom and no one can stop him. He’s carrying an apple.

Eventually, it’s just simpler to set up a cot in the corner of the office and sleep there.



proof of concept (one thread, first come first served).

— and then one day, at last, it fucking works.

Strange has drunk a lyrium potion, his fingertips tingling and prickling, his pupils blown wide. There have been apple cores scattered all over the Research offices; the food debris looked like garbage, but he’s been working on something for hours and days.

An apple, with its crisp clean bite marks. He’s been picking it apart and trying to find where all the pieces fit together and how to press them into a different shape.

He hauls on the fabric of reality, on those slippery threads of time and space,

and finally, finally he yanks time backward, and it moves in awkward jerky fits and starts, the bites vanishing one by one, as if they never happened, then reappearing —

It’s only seconds, not weeks; it’s an apple, not a group of rescuers; but it is progress. It’s proof of the goddamned concept. Strange shouts, jubilant, and accidentally knocks over his now-cold coffee.


wildcard.
( Researchers pitching in & assisting even if they’re not the core imagineers, non-Research folks stopping by, etc. Feel free to riff something off the above or do something else bespoke or hmu @ quadrille to plan! )

for mobius.

[portalling]

It’s all hands on deck, particularly since Tony put out the call. Stephen had been conflicted about it at first — on the one hand, they knew they would have to field such a wave of skepticism and incredulousness (which, fair). Plus: what if it fails. What if they promise Riftwatch something they can’t actually deliver.

On the other hand, they need the extra hands, and Riftwatch could do with some hope. Something to do. A last-ditch effort —

The key is to simply not accept failure. Stephen’s good at that part.

So he’s working late camped out at his desk, the one beside Mobius’ — on good days, their mood in this room had been jovial, bored, like two kids goofing off in class while Tony held court at the front of the room and carved out their priorities for the week.

This week, and for every week going forward, they only have the one priority. It’s late and the candles are running low, an echo of the first time Mobius ever found Stephen Strange squinting over books in the library and told him to go rest.

The context’s just different, now. Stephen barely notices the other man as he walks in. There’s a stack of texts in front of him, some rune schematics, and— oh, Stephen’s committed a cardinal sin, he’s underlined some sentences in the book in pencil, jotted little symbols in the margins to categorise the information.

[favoriteanalyst]

"You're all insane, you know that, right?"

There might be a stack of texts in front of Stephen, and there are about to be more texts, but on someone else's desk (his own, actually), because there's just not enough space. There isn't much that's concrete he's found, but it's also...also just so out of his sphere of actual understanding that how would he ever be sure if he did see something more concrete? Scraps of reports, yes, alarming stuff that's happened to Riftwatch, or to the Inquisition when they were still one entity in the same. That doesn't mean the ability to do it deliberately.

Mobius catches where Stephen's writing and groans. "I get paper's a bit at a premium, but really?"

[portalling]

“Mmhm.” It’s an automatic hedging of a response; a little unclear if he actually heard (or paid attention to) Mobius’ rhetorical question. Then there’s the thump of books hitting the table, which draws his attention much quicker: a swift, slightly bleary glance up to the books, then following further up, Mobius’ elbows, his face, his tense expression.

Stephen reels back the seconds, catching the last thing he’d said.

“It’s not for lack of paper. It’s to sort the information— you don’t have highlighters here, they’re like little pens with transparent yellow ink, for marking passages of interest. Never thought I’d miss them like this.” Swift pivot: “How much do you know about the arcane school of magic, by chance? I keep finding slight references to a thing dubbed a time spiral, and that it’s conceptually similar to a Fade shield, which, if you think about it, isn’t that far off from the shields I create here.”

His thoughts are ping-ponging all over the place, skipping along this chain of thematic association. In fact, he is very much like Tony Stark when he’s in this mood: that mingled distracted multitasking in one hand, alternating ferocious hyperfocus in the other.

[favoriteanalyst]

Not that Mobius necessarily wants to distract someone who might, by some wild offchance, be able to actually pull this off. But he's not sure how much he'll be able to help, really, and also there's a certain mania to all of this that he doesn't really like.

Is it all that different from his reaction, the books and books and books that Viktor called him out on, trying to learn a little bit more about anything and everything until it all felt like it was pouring out of his head? Is this how damned annoying he seemed to everyone else around him? And damn it all, now that he's attempting to help this harebrained scheme, is he all that different from Stephen now?

He leans over, hands flat on the desk. "You don't have your Time Stone here. You might have been researching magic here since the day you landed on our doorstep, but our magic and your magic back home are fundamentally different. And you yourself said it might be too much power." For one person, which this is not just one person. Mobius is choosing to overlook that part. "You really think this could work?"

Genuine question.

"Do you really think it should?"

Also genuine.

proof;

[grindset]

Viktor, still working on a cheekful of apple flesh—no time to pause for chewing between bites when there's scientific momentum to preserve—hastily lifts a sheaf of notes clear of the table as coffee sluices by. Now clutching these notes to his chest, he's getting one hand free to commence a gesture led by his finger,

looping that gesture until he gets through swallowing, grimacing broadly,

and exclaiming at last: "Outstanding. Again! Again, again, let's see it."

(also per tk’s q: threadhopping welcome! just didn’t want several diff iterations of this one)

[portalling]

Viktor clears out the important part — their paperwork — and Strange lets the rest spill all over the table and the floor, not caring, there are more important things at hand. He’s straightened in his seat, bolt-upright as if he’s electrified, all of his nerves a live-wire. He can’t feel the pain in his hands anymore.

Everything else has faded away, except for this:

Doctor Stephen Strange digging his fingers into the edge of reality, prying open the edge of it, and twisting,

and there it goes, chomp chomp chomp, neat bite marks appearing in the apple again without him physically touching it. The bright glow of the spell’s light is even green. A time spiral, cinched around the apple like a noose. A small localised field where time is malleable, permeable. All of Strange’s attention is honed in on it and for once, he’s not talking, not mouthing off; there’s just his lips pursed into a thin line, attentive, desperate.

It isn’t as effortless as it once was in Nepal. It requires great effort, in fact. He’s sweating slightly, greying hair slicked to the side of his head, but there’s a savage grinning triumphant grin, too, as he says:

“Tell me I’m not hallucinating this.”

[grindset]

"If you are, then we're sharing the same delusion."

With notes still bundled, Viktor comes up to the field, as close as he dares (very close) and leans in to see. He isn't grinning, himself, but a similar ferocity is roiling inside him, cutting his attention knife-sharp. His yellow eyes are ablaze with it—they're all but glowing.

"I can still feel the flesh in my teeth," only the technicality of fruit makes this not creepy, "and yet there it is. Astonishing." His hand lifts—pauses— "May I?"

for tsenka.

[portalling]

This is one of the only ways to pry him loose from the workroom: fieldwork outside in a literal field, feeling for an odd moment like they’re students getting to have class outdoors.

A new discipline, Tsenka had said, and rift magic. It’s as good as dangling live bait in front of him, and so Strange — Stephen, apparently they’re on a first name basis now, this is what an accidental dreamshare will get you — has arranged to have this private demonstration out-of-doors, far away from breakable buildings and civilian collateral and horrified bystanders.

The end result is getting some fresh air and stretching his legs, easing the sore back and stiff shoulders he’s developed over days of musty paperwork and acrid magic and bitter apples and dead ends.

They’re standing in a grassy plain, outside the confines of Kirkwall. There’s the faint buzzing drone of insects in the air, the distant twitter of birds. The summer day is lovely. The summer day does not match the hollowed-out, ruinous mood they left behind at the Gallows.

But Stephen is standing there bright-eyed, back straight, with that odd hungry eagerness which always comes over him at the prospect of new magic. Rifts and breaches are exceedingly relevant here, and most sane people would probably shy the hell away from them for that reason — but then again, some people have learned by now that Stephen is tremendously reckless where magic is concerned.

“So,” he says. “You draw energy from the veil?”

[delphian]

Tsenka rolls her shoulders, sweeping her staff out in front of herself in a way that seems — because it is — more like a warm up than anything truly purposeful. In this moment, at least; Stephen is not exactly unfamiliar with magical forms. That she's taking the time now to stretch her legs, figuratively speaking, doesn't mean she always would, or that not doing so might never look a lot like this.

She looks like what she is: a person grimly bearing the unbearable, presented with an outlet she's in dire need of. Her brother is dead and the cause he came to believe in here might burn in smoke with his body. There is a slim chance that entertaining this might contribute to undoing that grievous wrong,

and she's had a really shit couple of weeks and she'd like to do meteors about it.

“That's what makes rift magic dangerous,” she says, by way of confirmation. “Manipulating that energy in an entirely different way means getting that energy entirely differently.” She considers, for a moment—

swaps her staff to other hand. Holds the free one out to him, and plants her feet.

“Take my hand and pull as hard as you can.”

[portalling]

“My hope,” Stephen says, “is that I might have some applicable experience which could translate well for this. Back home, my magic came from tapping into multiversal energies — siphoning from the ambient power in the cracks between worlds — so perhaps siphoning from the Veil is similar enough in theory. That’s what I’m banking on, at least.”

He doesn’t carry a staff, which sets him apart from the local mages; but a lot of the mechanics are the same, his own natural magic having been hammered into a different shape when he came here to Thedas. So he squares up, eyes Tsenka — wondering what she’s about to illustrate — and reaches out. Takes her hand in both of his, fingers cinched around palm and wrist, and tries to pull.

viktor

[heirring]

It is very late.

Or it's very early? So little natural light reaches them here in the workroom where they're toiling over repurposing the pieces of the Magrallen that it's difficult to say whether it's day or not, much less to judge the hour specifically. It's of no help that sleeping schedule has been rather less than ordinary for some days now. Indeed, Wysteria has gone so far as to entirely abandon the pretense of returning to her little mansion in Hightown in the evenings, instead having reclaimed a room in the old Templar Tower. Whether she has slept there much is less than certain; there is that distinct, pit-dark bruising coloration which has finally found its way into her face that suggests otherwise.

Also, she's given up the pretense of the work tables and instead is presently sitting fully on the stone floor with a great slab of the magical artifact they're intent on reassembling according to their new specifications laid across her knees. It paints a somewhat ludicrous picture: her in extraordinarily fine black silk skirts, cranking the pin on a connection point round and round by winding the cabling attached to the clamping hook of her prosthetic left hand. The click click click of the mechanism makes for a steady, maddening metronome in the confines of the room.

And then it stops.

For a moment, Wysteria makes to continue at the crank. When it fails to turn, she blinks uselessly and incomprehensibly down at the whole arrangement for a series of seconds. Makes to reverse it the tension by unwinding the crank, sees that it goes nowhere, and so attempts once more to wind it forward only to hit the same seemingly invisible catch. Click, unclick. Click, unclick. CLICK. UNCLICK.

fully entangled in cobwebs as i type this

[grindset]

It is very early, or very late, and Viktor is the kind of awake that persists without any sense of beginning or end. He has grudgingly taken rest on a little cot in the former Felandaris office (closeable doors being a valuable commodity in such times), but the last time he surrendered his iron grip on consciousness for long enough to count as sleep was over forty-eight hours ago now.

The so-called sun glasses, a pair of glass spheres enchanted to radiate the equivalent of daylight, have been in continuous use since the project began. Each being set in a heavily customized lantern case with adjustable apertures, one glass is acting as a lamp in the workroom here, while the other is similarly set up in the basement, where the Magrallen proper dwells in a state of active refurbishment. While it is more practical to assemble the machine in its entirety where it lies, the scientists at work can at least see to certain of its components up here, this space being much better suited to long hours of fiddly work—and without suffering through flickering firelight or the cold fluorescence of a glowstone. Miraculous as they are, however, the glasses are powerless against the dry and bleary strain of fatigue.

While Wysteria now abstains from furniture, Viktor stubbornly continues to occupy the stool at his workstation. He could be sitting in one of the armchairs someone dragged in here from elsewhere, but he's in as much pain sitting there as he is here, and here he feels more productive, so here he is. While Wysteria fusses with the crank, he is trying to thread a copper filament through a tiny hole. Wysteria clicks, and unclicks, clicks and unclicks and clicks and unclicks and clicks and unclicks and the wire bends against the casing for the third time and Viktor clenches his fist as hard as he can and sets his incisors edge to edge and then puts everything down very gently.

"Maybe," he says, "you should try something else."

[heirring]

"Nonsense. It will come loose," is so automatic a response that she has given it no thought whatsoever, her attention being faithfully applied to the arm's mechanism.

Click, UNCLICK. Click, UNCLICK; the back of her neck growing redder and more flush with each catch.

There is oil in the workroom. Fine tools for taking apart delicate parts of things. There is also, very near to hand, a ball peen hammer for striking the chisel she has been working with some minutes earlier.

Obviously her hand finds it way to this last implement first. She gives the crank a few encouraging taps—click, unclick—and a few more—CLICK. UNCLICK—and then with a decisive strike and a crunch of careful pieces, the whole mechanism is smashed in with a fit of furious impatience.

[grindset]

There are many such tools in this room. Viktor has a set right here, in fact, at rest in the fine leather case that was gifted to him last winter; Wysteria could ask to borrow any one of them at any time and most likely be obliged. Nonsense, she says instead, and resumes her infernal clicking with renewed vigour. The look he turns on her then is a profoundly shitty one—but he's turned just as she pulls the hammer in for her little taps, which seems enough like she's following his barely restrained advice to be a mollifying sight.

This is short-lived.

The sudden detonation of Wysteria's temper stuns him, bodily, cognitively. He can only stare. Something very small rattles, somewhere, then stops: the herald of a dreadful silence.