First Entrance

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

The door warps and twists, bending towards several points at once as if unsure as to which reality it should open forth upon. Then, there is a woman, or perhaps a man, occassionally a tree...a being if you will. A wish had been made, a wish had been granted, it had simply taken time.

The bieng's form shifts and twists almost as much as the door, but the living bundle in her arms does not. No, the pale, small child in a large leather jacket barely stirs before being settled gently upon her feet. "Well come, Tool...to Milliways" Wish whispered before fading away.

Tool opened her eyes, large and soulless, and looked around in puzzlement. Her small hand clutched teh edges of the jacket about her shoulders, covering the lace and silk composition of her gown. The jacket looks familiar, for those who care to look...it belongs to a security member.

The girl on the other hand, delicate, almost elven, and certainly young, couldn't possibly be related.

"Master?"

Comments

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

Not at all, or not by blood, at any rate. The woman moving towards her - on whom the jacket had been almost a second skin for most of her time at Milliways, excepting the last month - is of a far more solid build, and darker.

There is a glance towards Wish as she fades, and a mouthed thank you.

She stops a few feet away from the girl, outwardly calm. More calm than she ever appears in truth.

"He is not here."

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

Tool tilted her head to the side, platinum tresses pooling to the floor from so simple a shift in posture. "I cannot sense him" she agreed.

"If he has come to harm he will be much vexed with me" shedoesn't desire that at all.

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

"He's dead." It's a simple statement, devoid of inflection. "He's dead, and his place is gone. You are safe here."

It has the ring of a promise to it.

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

The trouble with being nothing more than a Tool is that there is no concept of existing outside of the setting you've been crafted to. Existing for time out of mind simply at Gaunt's will leaves little room for the idea of what comes after.

"I do not understand, Mistress"

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

And that, for Max, is the greatest horror of it all.

She doesn't quite flinch, she's holding herself too tightly in check for that. But there's a faint tightening to her expression at the form of address.

"Gaunt no longer exists. Here, or in any other place."

Other times, of course, being another thing entirely. And she's taking the truth of his death on faith, not having been present herself.

Something she might regret.

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

Gaunt...gone.

There is no emotional display, no tears of joy or loss. She isn't capable of such. She's a shell, a tool with no hand to guide her now. Useless.

There's also no curiousity, no call of Why? or even How?.

"What is required now, Mistress?"

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

She hadn't expected joy, and had hoped against sorrow. Now, though...anything would be better than nothing, she thinks.

An edge of heat creeps into her tone. "Nothing is. That's not why you were brought here."

A broken child who needs to be directed, and a woman who believes in nothing more than self determination. It will be...interesting.

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

"As you will, Mistress" she is quite used to "nothing". When not required she was but another decoration in the great manse.

She swept into a deep, dancer like curtsey, then paused, the fingers of her lef hand just close enough to Max to sense what she needed to know. "Mistress, you are injured, and still ill. I have failed you"

She awaits punishment.

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

This time she does flinch, her eyes flickering briefly shut. "No. You didn't. You did not fail anyone."

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

She rises from her obesience, fluid as a ghost and just as silent. "I do not understand, Mistress"

And she doesn't. She had laid hands upon the Lady Max and healed and yet here the Lady stood, harmed, bleeding, and still ill deeply with what she had sensed before.

Perhaps this was a test? A game in which Tool was expecte dto punish herself?

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

Only half of what had been there before, at least. Perhaps some of it had taken.

"It's simple, really. You didn't fail anyone. Illness, injury...they happen."

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

"Rarely" she agreed. "And it is my place to combat those occurances. For what other reason woudl such as I exist?"

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

"Often." She tries for a smile. It's weak, strained, and slightly sick. "I'm a warrior. It's my purpose to be harmed so that others aren't."

It's a vast oversimplification at the very best.

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

Her head tilts the other way now, along with that fountain of hair. "And who takes your sins upon themselves to redeem you?"

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

She blinks once, frowning slightly. "No one. I don't need anyone to."

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

She doesn't understand that. The strong use the weak to purge themselves. There is always cause to bleed, whether in punishment or salvation of the Master...

She does not understand at all.

Her hand raises to stroke down theedge of Max's sleeve gently, healing because it is her function. "Where would Mistress have me sit?"

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

Max's response to that would be simple: you save your own damned self. No one else can do it for you.

She forces herself to stay still, not to jerk away at the touch, the wash of energy. There's another internal step back, retreating not just from the girl, but from everything.

"Wherever you'd like."

She can lead, but she can't dictate. It's not in her nature.

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

Tool watched Max's face, perhaps sensing something in teh woman's body language that in other master's woudl presage a strike...

...but none seem forthcoming, so she sweeps another elegant curtsey and looks around the Bar proper, not with curiousity, but weighing where art should be placed.

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

Well, the posters are still up...

She watches Tool study the room, frowning slightly. It shouldn't be so hard a decision as all that...

"Are you cold?"

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

"No Mistress" its' winter outside and the girl is wearing what most woudl cosider gothic lingerie, her hands are ice,and yet the answer is no.

"Mistress wishes her jacket?" she could sit near the fire, there's couches there it seems. she woudl not stand out too badly...

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

"No, I'm fine. You can keep it." It's not that she doesn't get cold, she just doesn't get cold at the same temperature as normal people would.

"Are you hungry?"

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

"If Mistress is hungry" she stated. She eats then. Perhaps this will get Max to accept normal meal times?

Then again, perhaps not.

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

Hey! 2:30am is a perfectly acceptable time to have your first meal of the day. Especially if you don't have to sleep.

...Shut up.

"Very well. What do you like to eat?"

She wants to scream at the girl to do something, to feel something, to have any reaction that is wholly her own.

She can't. The words lodge in her throat, cold and barbed and tearing.

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

Long and long ago she sent her soul abroad to protect that precious core. What was left was this obediant husk...

There is nothing that is her own.

"I can prepare most cuisines" she stated calmly.

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

Somewhere, a storm is threatening to break.

"There's no need. You can ask the Bar for anything you'd like. It'll go on my tab."

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

Ah, a fabricator! That creates so much ease. With a doll-like smile, perfect and empty, she walksslowly to the bar. Each step precise, each motion a dance...

And then "A tray for Mistress"

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

Her hands close around her own arms, tightly enough to bruise, her knuckles white with strain. This is the only outward sign that there is anything wrong. Even the unusually rigid posture could be explained away as training or breeding.

She moves to a table near the fire to wait, forcing herself to remain casual, calm.

The inward retreat continues, step by step.

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

It seems Bar is perceptive enough to spare them some pain, well, spare Max pain and Tool Max's displeasure. There are two plates and dish of shephards pie.

Tool will not have to await scraps, as she would, easily.

Instead, Tool sets tehtray down at teh table and serves two plates, one to Max and one at her own place setting.

Then she waits.

Masters eat first.

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

But Max is not the master of anything. Not even herself, much of the time.

"Eat." It's soft, empty.

[simple-tool.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Mistress is testing her table mannerisms?

So, eat she does. Slow, sedate, perfect. Not a crumb out of place, not a graceless movement.

Mechanical.

Like it or no for now, Max has been entrusted with Tool's care, and for now that means "Master".

Perhaps that will shift with time and work.

[transgenic-max.livejournal.com]

Once Tool begins to eat, Max turns her attention towards the food as well. Her own motions are just as graceful, though not out of any drive to not displease. She's simply trying to keep control.

Because deep down, she knows exactly what is needed to keep the girl alive and functioning until she can find a way to put together the pieces that were scattered so long ago.

And there is no part of her that doesn't hate herself for it.