milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Dinah comes up from the garage, wiping grease off her hands onto a rag, which she leaves with the bar in exchange for an egg cream. It's not really a fair trade.

She's dressed for shop work: hair pulled back from her face, dirty jeans and a Green Lantern T-shirt that's stained from where she's wiped her hands as she went.

Go on, ask her if she can recite the oath.

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"Uh huh," she says. "I have a couple of motorcycles down there I've been maintaining. Thinking about claiming another one. It's almost a crime that so many go without care.

"Have you been down there?"

"I have. I do more work in the forge but more my workshop at home. It's amazing everything that's down there,"

Some of it he would love to take apart to try and figure out how they work.

Dinah would be happy to take it apart with him.

"I love it down there," she says. "What kind of things to you make in the forge?"

"All sorts of things. My current project is a battery for someone who can generate electricity, I've made swords, mechanical toys, armor, and I'm working on repairing some magic constructions in my world. Do you know Yrael? I'm from his world."

She shakes her head. Although she's probably met him, the name rings no bells.

"Wait, you combine mechanical things with magic?" she asks. "That's awesome! Can I see something?"

"Sure,"

He pulls out the mechanical frog and tags the Charter Mark on it. Then it starts flying around, there aren't many flies but it does catch one.

Dinah laughs.

"That's amazing," she says, holding her hand out to see if she can't get the frog to land on it, like she might do to a living bird.

"How long does the magic last?"

The frog lands on her hand, folding its wings back, "Until the spell is stopped."

"And you have to do that?" Dinah asks, looking at the frog even though she's talking to the human.

She lifts a finger and touches it gently between the eyes.

"No, it doesn't have to be me. You can do it if you touch the Charter Mark that's glowing. Since I'm a Charter Mage, I have a few other ways of stopping it if I'm not close enough to touch it,"

Milliways has made him better at making things that use the Charter but don't require a connection to the Charter to work.

Obediently, Dinah touches the Mark.

"Can it do normal robot things without the magic, or is that the power?"

Forgive her the questions: she's fascinated!

The frog stops moving,

"No, it needs the Charter to work, but I've made other projects that don't."

"It's really cool anyway," Dinah says, handing the robot back.

"Thanks for showing me."

"You're welcome. For the motorcycles did you just start working on them or have you brought any here?"

"Actually," Dinah says, "I found an exact copy of my own motorcycle down there, so it's sort of mine anyway? The other I found here and figured no one was using."

"Oh, that does make it easier."

"Right?" says Dinah. "Especially as my door comes in from my bedroom. I couldn't bring my motorcycle up into my apartment."

"Even simpler, my door usually appears near my room or my workroom. Sometimes I find them when I'm traveling but not that often. The Old Kingdom doesn't have that many places with doors that someone doesn't live behind."

"I had a door when I lived in Okinawa," Dinah says, "but other than that my door's never really changed. I think I like it like that. Stable."

"Mine's fairly stable but I'm not always there. I spend part of my time repairing Charter stones and other things in the Old Kingdom and don't know if there will be doors. I don't mind if its not too stable, I had points when I didn't have any doors and times when I was Bound,"

This works out fairly well for him.

"I spent a year without any doors," Dinah says, wrinkling her nose. "It sucked. I missed everyone."

"I didn't lose mine for that long, a few months but they were long months,"

It was harder when he lost his door before the battle with Orannis.

"What happened?2

"I had to help stop the end of the world."

"Really?" Dinah shakes her head with the air of someone who has to do that a lot and finds it annoying.

"Just when you could have done with people from here."