Midnight Machinations

[Shanty]

February  2^nd, Year 1, Midnight

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... Itchy.

Shanty pushed back from her desk with a sigh, standing to stretch out her circuitry. Metal parts click and whirr as they slide back into their proper position, a mechanical blessing for finally getting up and moving. It had been... so long. Too long. Shanty could swallow her pride. She could work on the land, operate within walls. But there was... a vestigal need. She was built for the sky. A deep ache rolled through her gears and sockets, pleading to feel the breeze slide though them once again. Her hand was shaky, her skin felt ill-fitting. Tight. Itchy.

Oh, how the stars sang to her, like sirens in the night.

The chair groans lightly against the floor as she pushes her chair in, the glow of the port hole in her chest sending flickering shadows across her blueprints. Maybe, she could hope, Varian had found a place to fall asleep. And even if he hadn't, she wouldn't be gone too long. Just a few minutes.

Just a few, sweet minutes.

Shanty's skirt brushes silently against the door as she leans to close it behind her. Bless this castle, it was the one thing she enjoyed about this predicament. If she needed the height, there were stairs. Or, if she wanted to go about it another way, she could climb. Bless the hour, no one would be around to notice. Or, if someone did, they were most likely drunk. Just a gargoyle, or a shape in the midnight clouds, nothing more. Nothing more, nothing more...

Shanty slips hurriedly into the courtyard, not once looking to see if anyone had followed or seen her.

[Varian]

Unfortunately for Shanty, sleep and Varian were a couple not so comfortably wed, and he was also awake at this ungodly hour. He'd been working in the re-purposed room that he'd found wholly unused, diligently building and planning, soon, soon he would be ready to show the king exactly what he had planned, and maybe for once he'd be recognized as the brilliant scientists that he knew he was.

But his limbs were aching, and his eyes were heavy, and he wouldn't admit it but he was actually feeling the tug of his fatigued body trying to get him to sleep. He ignored it for now as he stretched out his limbs, heading back to Shanty's workshop to maybe see if she needed help. But he stopped short when he noticed her leave with some sense of urgency in her steps. Curious.

He tried to keep his footsteps silent as he fell in behind her, keeping far enough away that he hopefully wouldn't be detected, but close enough that he could keep her in his sight. It wasn't entirely normal to see her out and about this late, and his already endless curiosity had been well and truly piqued as he tailed his mentor.

[Jack Castle]

A single sigh, and a plume of smoke billowed up into the night sky, and faded away.

Castle's usually sharp gaze was tired and following the wisps of smoke coming from his curved billiard pipe. It was his favorite. Thoroughly broken in with a healthy coating of ash inside the bowl. He could trust it to never give him pipe bite. It was a gift from his daughter. The damn thing had a pipe filter, her futile attempt on making his smoking habit even the slightest bit healthier. Castle felt it sapped all the flavor from the tobacco... He kept replacement filters and exchanged them diligently on her request.

Another sigh, another plume of aromatic cherry smoke.

He was sitting upon one of the tallest towers of the... castle. (Hmph. Castle sitting in a castle.) He needed a private moment. Oh, he wasn't exactly swamped with visitors. Often times he was left alone to his work. But it wasn't true solitude. People could come to him with requests, assignments, work, or all manner of interruptions. Clopin being the biggest interruption of them all. Here in the night, he was truly alone. No one to bust in with a sheaf of numbers and figures needing to analyze the amount of taxes that the aristocrats in the western end of Paris could be skimming from. No panicked assistants coming to check to see if he ordered 40 crates of apples or 40 gross of apples. (Damnit, Bob.)

It was just him, his cherry tobacco, and a full sifter of some ludicrously high proof'd liquor. 

[Shanty]

"Oh, how I've missed you."

Shanty's words are nothing but a hint of a breath, of sorrow and a dream. She steps carefully into the clear night, face tilted towards the full, beautiful moon illuminating the sky. The breeze hefted lightly, and she can be observed sighing in time with it, hand carefully moving to pull something from her shirt. It's a small glint of metal, shimmering in the moonlight, only disappearing as she unties her hair and wraps it in the binding cloth. She sets it aside, tucked away, before returning to her standing position...

It's here where curiosity would have murdered the cat.

The sound is... unique. A tearing of cloth, a popping of separating silicone. Machinery expands with a sharp, repetative clicking. It starts with her head, jaw tearing through her false skin to produce a more beastial head. The motion travels down her neck, across her arms and back, following the rest of her in one, fluid motion. A beast spirals upward and outward from the humanoid form, beautiful and terrifying in every way.

In this form, it's possible to see every gear, wire, and plate that makes up the machine that is the Wn-D1g0, that is Shanty. Delicate and deadly, calibrated to the finest, most minute detail. Years of dedication. A work of art.

The last of the cloth and silicone scrapped by the transformation sloughs off onto the ground, and the beast shakes itself out with a gentle huff of smoke. Free from it's binds, the form carefully makes it way to one of the taller towers, taking hold and moving to gain altitude.

More than likely, Castle can feel the beast coming.

[Varian]

There were a lot of times even before finding his way here to France that Varian's curiosity got the better of him, ended up putting him in unfortunate situations, and this was without a doubt one of those moments. He'd followed Shanty out towards the courtyard, doggedly keeping tail on her as he used whatever stealth he could manage to figure out where she was going and why. When he found her stopped in the moonlight, he ducked down behind a jutting wall and peeked around to watch what was happening...And he kind of wished he hadn't.

He wasn't prepared for what he saw, and the sight brought an uncomfortable dread, he'd always been incredibly squeamish, and even though there was no blood, there was still something deeply visceral about watching the familiar face you knew be torn away to reveal a monster that looked exactly like something his nightmares might show him. He ducked back around the wall and clutched at his chest for what felt like ages, trying to calm his rapidly hammering heart, when he finally mustered up the courage to round the corner, he noticed Shanty...Or what used to be Shanty...Scaling the tower he knew to belong to Castle.

He half implored himself to turn back here, forget about the need to find out more and have questions that now invaded his ever thinking mind answered...But he'd always been rubbish at listening to himself, so before he could scold himself for it he was heading towards the tower at a full sprint.

He didn't even really bother to knock as he came to the top of the tower, to Castle's door, pushing it open panting before making his way to the outer portion, leaning back against the wall as he tried and failed to catch his breath.

[Jack Castle]

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Heavy footfalls. EXTREMELY heavy footfalls for him to feel them through a stone tower. Castle's brow furrowed even lower over his sharp eyes. What in the devil was... whatever those footsteps belong to, and why oh why of all the towers and parapets of stone in this castle they had to pick his. He groaned and sipped his liquor and hoped that maybe whoever it was might stop or get distracted or do ANYTHING but come up to the top of the to-

Nope, his door opened and Castle turned to face the intruder of his solitude.

[Shanty]

Stunningly, it doesn’t seem like the creature— or Shanty, as Varian would know —has noticed either of them. And it seems to have picked this tower for the exact reason that Castle had. Metal rolls by the window in a careful, cooking motion, allowing an impressively close look at all of those bits and baubles. Wires, pistons, valves, springs—

There’s a glimmer here, as the underbelly passes. A single blue glow amongst the furnace fire and steel, something cold against the heat. And in fact, that’s what it is. For a short moment, a small, glowing tube flickers by the window, containing a human heart, frozen in time.

The beast clears the window, and one can hear it settle on the roof above. There’s a heavy, shuddering sigh, and the tail hangs down, the tip slipping idly in through the window.

For the moment, all is silent.

[Jack Castle]

Castle sat like stone, practically a gargoyle himself, as he watched the beast crawl through a window and onto the tower roof. Then he turned to Varian standing in the door way. A beat passed, then two, then Castle lowered his pipe from his mouth. He cleared his throat roughly.

"What. Was that?" it had obviously been mechanical, and then followed by Varian, so obviously, "What did you do?"

[Varian]

It took a moment for Varian to properly catch his breath, but when he heard Castle's accusation he drew himself up and looked thoroughly indignant, "It is not one of mine!" Followed by a much softer, "...This time..." His eyes found the creature and he approached with a careful, almost fearful slowness, "I-I saw Shanty slipping away and followed her..." He was speaking to Castle as much as he was speaking to himself, "and then I saw her..." His voice hitched and he felt an involuntary shudder as he remembered how that had looked, he wouldn't be able to sleep for a while without remembering, "she became that..." He breathed out in soft awe.

"I have never seen anything like it..." He wanted to be fascinated, he wanted to be excited by this marvel of mechanics and engineering...But he couldn't help but have that dampened by the sight that was stuck in his head now, "Shanty?" He called, unsure if she...Or it...Could hear or understand him at all, he couldn't keep the slight tremble from his voice, the off chance that maybe it wouldn't was pervasive and terrifying.

[Shanty]

"Hm...?"

There's a stirring on the roof, and the tail slips upwards and out of sight. A gentle clicking of metal heralsds the creature's movement, her voice gentle as she draws herself to peek in the window with bright, luminous eyes.

"Ah, I'm sorry, did I disturb someon-- Varian?!"

Metal grip slips from the bricks outside of the tower, and the machine slides down the side like a graceless, startled cat. There's a noisy scrabbling as she catches herself, and scrambles back onto the roof, as if to hide from the younger's gaze.

"Gods, Varian, I didn't-- I thought you were asleep, I--!! You didn't want to see this, I didn't want to show you, I-- Gods, Varian, I'm so sorry..."

It seems she can understand and hear him just fine, though she seems almost as stratled of him as he is of her, hiding on the roof as if in some sort of pain. She hasn't even noticed Castle, too startled by the realization that Varian's seen what he'd requested otherwise.