Home is Where the Inventor is

A humble invitation addressed to Mr. Boston Brilliant

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A large forest in Central Anaxas, the once-thriving mostly human town of Dorhaven is recovering from a bombing in 2719 at its edge.

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Sednai
Posts: 66
Joined: Thu Jun 21, 2018 8:04 am
Topics: 10
Race: Human
Occupation: Resistance
Location: The Stacks
: "Cypress"
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Plot Notes: Plot Notes
Writer: Quix
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Mon Oct 15, 2018 9:09 am

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17 Yaris, 2718....
Morning. Early Viendan sunlight dripped down the streets like molten gold, but few were out to see it. The air was dry, as if one could simply reach up and crush it between their fingers like an orange leaf. Sednai was a stranger in this streets, but she remembered them well as she strode down them, boots scuffing the cobblestones her barefeet had stumbled over so many years before. She smiled and breathed in the chilled air of Yaris.

Home. She was home.

The 15 years of her absence had changed the weary streets. Where once this time of morning would bring a bustling crowd of women and children rushing to the textile factory, the downsizing of the factory because of new, quieter machinery left the streets more serene. Now, the sleepy shops began to open bleary eyes to the refreshment of morning. Paint had peeled, shingles had fallen, bricks had chipped, signs had faded, poles had rusted, weeds had grown.

Time had continued. Sednai had aged. Here she felt the strangely familiar feeling that comes with physical growth- the feeling of a world shrunken out of remembered proportions. She marveled at the lamp poles whose bulbs, once heavenly, were now newly accessible by her hand; at the bricks of the road that, although once comparable to the size of her foot, now quivered in fear at the descent of her long feet; at the streets, once rivers impassable less a strong swimmer, that now were crossed within a few strides. Yet, the soft smell of city dust, dried sweat, and carts selling pastries was the same, the dampened, desaturated color of the bricks, doorknobs, and lamp posts was the same, and the sign above the only shop that mattered to her in this moment was the same.

She couldn’t read it, of course. She recognized the sign’s coloring, however, and the shape and type of the letters proudly printed across it. She knew what they said, too- Belle’s Brilliance. Her excuse for coming here weighed heavily in her heart and bag. She had broken a childhood promise and gift.

She had broken the music box. It hadn’t been intentional or her fault, for that matter- but Teuila, her galdor master, was a curious one and a clumsy one. A simple knock of the elbow had left the box on the ground, and Sednai had nervously cradled it to find the pane of glass webbed with white cracks as a loose gear rattled its way throughout the interior of the box. She had promised to keep it in good condition, but now it lay bandaged in fabric and asleep in a wooden cell in the bottom of the satchel at her back.

Now she stood before the shop, clad in a modest, simple dress whose crooked hem kissed the top of her boots. Inside the building was an old friend to whom many a promise was made, but perhaps not kept. She had not stayed in Vienda, had not written letters, had not remained his friend. She had simply left, and she could not forget it. She stepped up to the door, placing a palm on the smooth knob of the door. She hesitated, but remembered, remembered the happiness at which Boston had met her, remembered the authenticity of which he had spoke to her, and her fears drifted away in what she hoped wasn’t false comfort. She pushed open the door and stepped cautiously into the shop, hoping that Boston would want to see her.

BURNED, NOT BURIED.

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Boston Brilliant
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:04 am
Topics: 4
Race: Human
Character Sheet: https://anaxasdiaries.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=228
Plot Notes: [url=http:/fullurl/]Plot Notes[/url]
Writer: Nate
Post Templates: [url=http:/fullurl/]Post Templates[/url]

Sun Nov 11, 2018 6:34 am

17 Yaris, 2718
Time passed for Boston as it does for everyone. Growing up he blessed with a mother who cared for him and taught him the skills which came to define his life. He didn’t form many bonds as he aged, but he managed to find happiness in his own way. It was a quiet life, but a life he still found comforts in.
He was a young man now, still young enough to have a future, but old enough to have a direction. The days went on following a repetitious pattern. Running the shop, inventing, fixing, eating, and sleeping. He sometimes strayed from his usual path and ventured out to old places, old alleyways and shops, down to places his mother would take him for picnics, and, in the very rare occasion, he would venture out somewhere new. Straying would be rare in itself, but it was nice to give his head an occasional break from the usual and the predictable.
Today…would not be a day he would stray from the path. He would spend it in the shop and work on a few of his personal projects. He, of course, would still be running the shop, but there probably wouldn’t be any customers today. It was getting slower and slower the colder it got. There would be a surge in business towards the holiday seasons, but it would take some time.
He opened the curtains to the windows of his shop and let the warm sunlight in. It took a moment for the blur to pass from his eyes, for them to properly adjust. The light shined off the small cloud of dust which rose from the floorboards, still settling from Boston’s trip over to the window. The swayed lightly in the air, dancing this way and that.
Once his eyes adjusted he didn’t remove himself from the light, rather he let himself drown in the pleasant pools of heat that filled the room. The It all felt like a pleasant bath, not too cold, and only warm, something you could fall asleep in. He could spend all day in that pleasant bath of warmth and sunlight. He knew he had work to do and that he couldn’t actually, but he wanted to. It’d be nice to spend a day just sitting there in the window, taking all the light in.
He took in a deep breath and then exhaled.
He went over to the door, flipped the sign to open and then finally headed back into his workshop. A light similar warm light shone down into from a high hanging window. On one of the counters rested a small kettle he had brought from upstairs, the hot water still steaming and the mug of tea he had prepared still plenty warm and ready to be enjoyed. He took a long sip from the mug and let out a breath.
It was time to get to work.
On his schematic workbench, to which he now loomed over, there was a large pile of half-finished designs and plans. The pile never decreased in size, or at least to a truly noticeable value. It was the ever growing tower of work, an endless workload of things to do. Just the thought of going through them was exhausting. The daunting, almost mocking, height of the papers was something fueled the anxiety that his occasional night terror he had….
He missed the old days, when things were simpler. When all he needed was to make things he knew. Watches, crossbows, typewriters, and, of course, music boxes. He still made those, he made plenty of those. They were the main source of income, but now’a’days, there was pressure to make something new. To make a mark of society. No one had put this pressure on him. No one had come to him and said “Boston! You have to invent something to change the world! You need to create something new and brilliant!” No no. He had done that to himself. It all came from himself. But he could never shake that feeling.
At least today he would try.
He slowly reached down for a paper when his senses were bombarded with the sound of the front door’s bells chiming. While the chime was a pleasant sound that Boston loved and cherished, they came at an unexpected time and made Boston jump up, nearly knocking over his papers.
He looked towards the door to his workshop and chuckled a bit, a usual response a person had to getting humorously scared. He walked out into the shop, moving the goggles around his eyes to his forehead. His attire was the same as it usually was: brown pants, white shirt (slightly stained with soot of course), and a brown vest.
He smiled confidently at his guest, but it slowly faded into a smaller smile. He looked almost confused by what he was seeing. The girl who walked in…he had seen her before, but a long time ago. Memories stirred and whirled in his head, like the gears would on one of his clocks. His mouth hung open, inviting some of the dust to fall in, though he held back a cough. He let out a small laugh and slowly walked past the counter.
“I…I know you?”

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Sednai
Posts: 66
Joined: Thu Jun 21, 2018 8:04 am
Topics: 10
Race: Human
Occupation: Resistance
Location: The Stacks
: "Cypress"
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Plot Notes: Plot Notes
Writer: Quix
Post Templates: Post Templates
Contact:

Wed Nov 14, 2018 12:45 am

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17 Yaris, 2718....
This was not the child of her memory, and Sednai nearly laughed at the realization that she had truly expected some eight-year-old to peek over the counter at her as she entered. Here was a man just barely taller than her, not a boy whom she had to look down at, whom she had been sure she could punch and hurt in a millisecond if necessary all those years ago. His face had lost the roundness of youth, and pink rings surrounded his eyes where the goggles had pressed into his pale skin. Yet, he was recognizable. His dark hair was a mess over his brow, goggles nestled in the inky locks. His greenish-brown eyes still smiled and welcomed her. What had become the embodiment of childhood was now grown, responsible, and contrary to the child she had known, taller than her.

His consumer-friendly smile faltered slightly as he spotted her, and Sednai stood just before the door, the vines of nervousness and deep-set dread crawling out of the floor and up her legs. He recognized her, or, moreso, he recognized that he recognized her, like the familiar stranger who appeared in dreams, a character to remain unidentified and in the background. Yet, her identity seemed lost- understandably, she reminded herself. It had been over a decade. They had each seen a million more faces. She sighed through the small valley in her flickering smile, clasped her hands before her, and searched for words- the right words.

“Yes, you do,” she reassured, voice soft as if afraid to disturb the dust floating lazily through the shafts of morning light. “Been a bit o’ time, I’ll admit that’un. That be being my fault, ‘course.”

Sednai stepped forward, hands still twitching nervously around each other as if she were balling up a long string of invisible twine that had rolled across the floor. She watched her own feet as she walked boot over boot, until she had closed the gap between them into a comfortable talking space, him just at the end of her finger is she chose to reach out her arm. She hesitated a moment, the stuck out her hand rigidly, awkwardly. She cursed her own awkwardness for how gawky, how ungainly could an adult be! Had she been younger watching herself, she would not believe how incredibly inelegant her older self still was.

"My name is Sednai Igaluk," she introduced herself, searching his eyes for some further recognition of her name, of her face, of anything, whether the gap in her teeth or the singed flesh under her dark hair or the disorganized jumble that was her communication style. "We met in childhood, you and I.” She shuffled her bag around to her front as she spoke, hanging the strap in the crooked of her bony arm and rummaged through the mostly-empty bag. She pulled out a wooden box, its stained finger joints steady despite the wear and tear of obvious years that had faded the stain and smoothed the sharp edges. The top, a round-edged piece of mismatched pine, was secured by a loose-screwed, rusted metal latch. She opened it up, stepping closer to Boston to present to him the sacred contents. There, snugly inlaid into the box in a nest of loose fabric, was a small metal box.

”You gave me this music box,” she finished, holding the wooden box out towards him and inviting to take the metal box within. And, gods, did she hope he remembered her, and remembered her pleasantly. In the one billion times she had ran over this scene in her head, never was their the falter of a smile as deja vu held him back.

“We were buddies, remember?” she asked, giving up on paying attention to worrisome and false social cues. She smiled and awaited him.

BURNED, NOT BURIED.
User avatar
Boston Brilliant
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:04 am
Topics: 4
Race: Human
Character Sheet: https://anaxasdiaries.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=228
Plot Notes: [url=http:/fullurl/]Plot Notes[/url]
Writer: Nate
Post Templates: [url=http:/fullurl/]Post Templates[/url]

Wed Dec 26, 2018 12:05 pm

17 Yaris, 2718
It was a strange, that. The feeling of a memory returning, so suddenly and so fully that it nearly knocks you off your feet. Sednai’s words seemed so distant to him, like they were standing at opposite ends of a cave and talking to each other via the echo. But in this moment they weren’t standing in a cave, nor did Boston really see himself standing in his shop and see her extend her hand out to him. No, he saw that alleyway where they had first met. He saw them as kids, but he was there too, adult him, and so was adult her. They were standing right behind their child counterpart and everything was so clear.

He could see how she aged, how she had grown into a woman. Though, he was pretty sure she would still whoop his ass if she so desired, but she had grown plenty. They both had, hadn’t they? Time was strange like that, it seemed like this all had happened moments before, he could swear he still tasted that jammed bread. It was an unbelievable feeling and for the first few moments she had her hand extended he didn’t quite catch it.

Finally, though, he stepped forward, but past her hands. He let out a bright, cheerful laugh, a youthful one, and tried to bring the woman he had known from his childhood into a friendly hug. “Oh my gears…” He managed to laugh, it was a breathy tone of disbelief, “Look at you! You’ve grown so much!” He’d back from the hug if she had accepted it in the first place, if she didn’t he would’ve apologized for the awkwardness. “Sednai! I’ve been waiting for you to come into my shop! It’s been too long, don’t apologize though! He crossed his arms and smiled kindly at her, a true warm and welcoming smile, a smile like that of a father’s seeing his long lost child after they returned from school. “My god, there’s so much to tell you and catch up! I’d offer you some jammed bread, but I think I can do a bit better than that now. Can I get you something? Tea? Biscuits? I have some stew cooking if you don’t mind the waiting!”

He shook his head, coming back to reality. It had been too long since he had seen her, or really any friend besides his coworker and he was getting ahead of himself. “Sorry.” He laughed again, “I just didn’t expect this at all. You caught me a bit off guard.” His eyes traveled from her to the box, “Oh my…you still have that old thing. Ha…I can’t believe it still works-Well…worked up until recently broken. You must’ve taken good care of it.”

His eyes took in the features of the box. The design of it was somewhat more crude compared to his newer designs. He could see from the top of it that there were gears inside which probably caused a hard rewind of the song when spun backward. Even aesthetically it looked almost childlike, at least to him, there were some minor chips and very little breaks in the pattern he had designed. The key’s color didn’t quite match the box even.

It was beautiful to him. Every imperfection, every minor error, he didn’t care at all about those. That was his first invention and it was so beautiful to him, he couldn’t care less about any of them. It was almost as amazing as seeing Sednai walk in. This was all getting too nostalgic for him, he could hardly handle it.

Finally, he managed to look back up to Sednai, that same smile still planted on his face. “So, what happened to it? Ain’t blaming you or accusin’ you of anything. Just curious as to what happened. It’ll help me fix it.”

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