milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(no subject)

In a bit of numismatic irony, American coins (including the brass dollars) are mostly copper--except for pennies, which are mostly zinc.

This has very little to do with anything, except that Weyland has busied himself, the past few days, with defacing currency in pursuit of creation. Or, possibly, to turn the $4.73 in pocket change he'd brought with him into something of much more value, just in case. It's best to make the most of what you have, when you don't know when you'll be able to get more.

Either way, he has turned his handful of change into a handful of feathers--swan feathers, to be precise, only smaller and varying in color between copper and silver--and currently, he is at a table near the bar, turning a length of wire into a length of chain to string the feathers on.

He doesn't mind company, and he is even not smoking at the moment, as the forge has given him his share of dirty air for the day.

[tiny tag: Weyland]

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"That's what I like about doing commissions," he says. "If I come up with all my projects on my own, they will all have the same feel to them, they will all be similar; but if other people request things to their liking, they will be different. Not things I would have designed."

"And you can get new ideas from others ideas"

"I do," he nods agreement. "That's how I got into making clockwork animals, actually. I started with clockmaking, but people wanted fancy things to go on their clocks, a show when the hour chimes."

"Wow that's cool so like a coo coo clock?"

"Like that, yes. Now I make them completely separate from clocks, scenes of life all in metal. Birds are my specialty, but I can make other things as well."

"Wow. that is impressive to like live art? Do you make watches too?"

"I do," he nods. "With chimes in them, sometimes, which almost no one else does anymore. And with small moving figures in them, but they are very small and there is not much room for movement."

Ginny looks at him as she feels her purse beside her.

"are they hard to do?"

"Not very," he says, "depending on what they are. The more complicated, the longer they take, but those don't take magic, just very delicate work. Things that don't take magic are almost always easier than things that do."

"Yeah, but the nonmagical are best. if they move that is all your work."

"Those who work with magic--I mean no offense, of course; I refer to my world, and things may be very different in yours--sometimes take shortcuts, you might say. If you can make anything with a wave of your hand and some magic, it would be easy to conjure up a bird, for instance. But to build one, from nothing but ordinary metal and with nothing but your hands and some perfectly ordinary tools--I could take shortcuts. But I don't; I prefer to do my work the longer way."

"I meant that, that is what i was talking about."

"I love my work," he says. "Starting with nothing, and then creating something. I have become my work."

"Yes, I think that is important to well be one with what you do. But i think you are more of that them most."

"You should see the extent of it," he says, amused. "But it's not something I can show in public."

Ginny smiles.

"I see takes getting naked?"

"More naked than I am right now, at least," he says with a nod. "Where the metal ends and the flesh begins--do you have, in your world, people who do body modification? Piercing, branding, scarring, that sort of thing."

"Yes, some of all of those. Well yeah we do and tattoos, and those things. I once knew some one with a silver hand."

"I think when I make my next career change," he says, "and move to a new city, that's what I'll do."

A pause.

"Solid silver, or... sort of plated?"

"That sounds like a good plan."

She thinks half a second.

"Solid"

He nods. "If you have to replace a part that is missing, that's the way to do it. But I don't recommend removing parts just to replace them with metal; mine are overlay. Like so."

He holds out one leather-gloved hand. "Metal over flesh."

Ginny reaches over touching it softly then nods.

"I see no he cut off his hand to bring back Voldemort the evil in my world."

It looks like a leather glove, but it seems that's just an illusion over the surface; to the touch, it feels like warm and smooth metal.

"Interesting," he says. "When my people sacrifice parts of themselves, it's usually to prevent something. Keep the great wolf from killing us all, things like that. I never thought about doing it the other way."

Ginny nods as she looks up at him.

"Yeah, Every world is differnt. I don't really like how this happened but cant change it."

"You could, if you had a time machine," he says. "But that takes a lot more than most people can ever do, and with good reason--if everyone could do it, nothing would ever happen. And everything would happen. And time would fall apart."