(no subject)

[iprotectyou]

Building a lightbow was a rite of passage for a Guardian of the Whills. The construction started upon completion of the seventh duan, marking the Guardian's progression to physical perfection. The elders would frown heavily on a slap-dash creation; the Guardian was meant to take their time, handcrafting the bowcaster down to the finest details, obsessing over the bolts and the bow and the trigger until everything was just so.

Rituals of purification bookended the work. The Guardian's hands must be clean in order to hand-mill the pieces. Fasting, avoiding alcohol, and avoiding blood in all forms--barring menstruation--were all a part of it.

Which is why Baze sits at a table today, armorless, with only a pitcher of ice water and two glasses, carving intricate designs into a long bar of soft metal.

(OOC: Chirrut may pop into all threads!)

Comments

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut finds a chair nearby with a quick clatter of his staff, and settles in, his teacup kept steady. He is walking a careful line, if only in his own mind. He doesn't want to seem too gleeful at this development. Sorrow and resentment do not have a place in this process.

But he's ridiculously happy.

[iprotectyou]

"Hoi, Chirrut! May the Force of others be with you!" Baze says, greeting him with a joyful ring to the larger Guardian's voice. The Force is incandescent with his happiness, a bright ball behind his breastbone.

"You have tea, I see, but would you like a glass of water?"

[idontneedluck]

"A glass would be appreciated, thank you." Chirrut smiles broadly as he settles his staff against the chair back. "How is it going?"

[iprotectyou]

Baze gladly pours them both glasees of water, and passes Chirrut's to him with a ring of glass sliding against wood.

"It's right in front of your left hand. I'm almost done carving designs into the stock. You can feel them if you wish. Next comes the trigger."

[idontneedluck]

"When you're done." Chirrut assures him, making sure he knows where the water glass is, if only so he doesn't knock it over. "I don't want to interrupt."

[cottoncandypink]

All sorts of people seem to be getting involved in arts and crafts lately.

Wilford is here for lunch, like always. A large bowl full of noodles covered in a thick sauce, and a bottle of beer to go along with it. He brings all of it over to Baze's table, to get a closer look at what he's doing.

"Now what in the hell is that?"

[iprotectyou]

The food is tantalizing, making Baze's mouth water. He has to wait until sundown to break his fast, however, and only with simple rations.

He glances up at Wilford with a smile.

"Hoi, Wilford. May the Force of others be with you. This is a stock for a lightbow, which is a that shoots both plasma and physical bolts."

[cottoncandypink]

Wilford leans in to look at it. He wants to touch it, but thinks it might be best to listen to that little "nope" voice he sometimes gets.

"Oh yeah? How's it do that?" he asks.

And just like that, his food has suddenly become more interesting, and he's mixing the sauce in with the noodles a bit more evenly.

[iprotectyou]

Baze gladly shows off the curliques and angular cuts, but Wilford's hunch is right: the Guardian absolutely would not let him handle the stock. Baze doesn't know where Wilford's hands have been, and they probably haven't ever been ritually purified, and certainly not with the right rituals.

"Simple, really. The weapon shoots a metal quarrel enveloped in plasma energy."

[cottoncandypink]

Today alone, Wilford's hands have been covered in dog spit, someone else's blood, and his spilled breakfast. He's washed them afterwards, sure. But ritualistically purified? Not a chance.

"What? The bolt isn't deadly enough? You have to cover it in goop as well?"

[margolotta]

Lady Margolotta is sitting not far away in a dark corner booth, knitting something pink while observing the bar.

"Good evening, Baze," she says, cheerfully polite.

[iprotectyou]

"Good evening, Margolotta!" Baze says cheerfully, continuing to engage the metal bar.

"How are you?"

[margolotta]

"Excellent," she says, "thank you very much! In my world, coinciding with here, it's Hogswatch soon, and there are so many things to be made ready. I'm planning to actually go to Ankh-Morpork this year for it, and surprise the League members at their annual Hogswatch do. But so much to do! Luckily, there's trains now, so the journey has become ridiculously fast. Almost as if you could clacks yourself. We live in the future, it seems."

She takes a well-measured but perhaps not entirely necessary breath.

"But how are you, my dear?"

[iprotectyou]

"Hogswatch? What an odd name for a holiday. Does it involve actually watching puffer pigs?" Baze says, raising his brows. But then her question makes him smile.

"Oh, I'm quite well, thank you for asking. I'm building a lightbow, which is the traditional weapon of the Guardians of the Whills."

[margolotta]

"Oh no, it's because of the boars that pull the Hogfather's flying sleigh," she answers. "It's about the old year ending and a new one beginning, and about presents for children, and big parties for families. They have something very similar here, too."

Pause.

"What happened to your old one?"

[ostro_goth]

Here's somebody Baze is probably less than glad to see, if if he's a colleague from Security.

"Greetings, Baze Malbus," Teja says. "I didn't know you worked metal, also."

[iprotectyou]

Baze looks up from engraving a curlicue into the soft metal.

"Hoi, Teia. May the Force of others be with you," Baze says, reluctantly but trying not to be reluctant about it.

"I do, I used to be a weaponsmaster a couple of decades ago. But it's been a long time since I crafted one."

Baze can swallow his pride for this. Just for this. He pushes the seat opposite out with his foot and indicates with a tip of his head that Teja is welcome to sit down.

"I actually had a favor to ask of you. May I please use the forge when you're not making use of it?"

[ostro_goth]

"Indeed, you can," Teja says, taking a seat. He is not going to hurt Baze's pride further by making a production out of this. This is just two Security colleagues talking, as you do.

"The forge was there before me, and will still be there when I -- leave," Teja says. He knows that one day, he will either wander on to whatever final rest there is, or start life in the modern world with Pyrrha, courtesy of a Loki whose long-con plans to cheat Ragnarök finally came to fruition. But that is something he can never talk of, until it has happened.

"It isn't mine, I just run it; any that come here may use it. However, most of the tools, materials and finished pieces inside are mine, as is the way it all is ordered; so I better show you around once, in order for you to find your way without searching through all the boxes and drawers."

Another pause.

"What weapon are you making?"

[iprotectyou]

"Thank you, I appreciate that greatly," Baze says, engraving a flourish into the metal bar with a pneumatic graver.

"I'm reluctant to go into particulars with... someone I don't trust. I'm sorry. So, how long have you been on Security?"

Baze is reluctant to converse with Teja. But the Guardian feels it would be rude to turn him away after he granted a boon.

[ostro_goth]

"I have been here for ten years; I serve in Security since round about my third year in this place," Teja says. "I felt that to have a say, I need to contribute. I have often arrested Vyvyan Basterd, but my first arrest was Ramon Salazar, who probably spent more nights in the cells than I made arrests in those seven years. He was completely unimpressed with the new Goth."

[electro_kinetic]

"That looks interesting," Noriko says in passing as she sits at a table only a little away: she doesn't reach out to touch it, though if she had it would be with bare hands, something she's never been seen with in the bar. Her gauntlets are not, and have never been, off her for more than twenty minutes at a stretch, since she got them.

But she needs her fingers bare to manipulate the wrapping paper she's carefully unfolding from its package. "Making a decoration? Or decorating something for another use?" One never knows.

[iprotectyou]

Baze wouldn't let her touch the stock; her hands haven't been purified.

"Hoi, Noriko. May the Force of others be with you," Baze says, engraving the aluminum with a pneumatic graver.

"I'm decorating the bar for another use. How are you? How's wedding planning?"

[electro_kinetic]

"It usually is in some way or other," she replies, shrugging. Such is the dubious benefit of her ability. "Hi."

She pulls out a slim box to wrap in the paper, carefully folding and shaping it. "Wedding planning is slow, and tedious. I don't know what we're doing at this point, and I'm half-convinced planning a ceremony is a bad idea."

[iprotectyou]

"I don't envy you the job," Baze says, cocking his head to the side and invoking a giant, lost puppy.

"I know nothing about planning for weddings, save for some religious traditions. When's the date? How much time do you have?"

[electro_kinetic]

"We haven't set one yet," she says, shaking her head. "We didn't want to rush into anything that's supposed to last, and since neither of us are overly religious there was no real timeline to stick to, like when we could and couldn't get hitched."

She runs a hand through her hair, fluffing the side of it that's stayed long: the other half her head is shaved close to her scalp. "I don't really have anyone to invite to a wedding, so...I'm a little lost on what to do."