Pink Panthers Theme Here [Edmund]

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A simple watch sat on Tessa's arm, the smallest hand pointed towards the fist dot past the diamond that sat on top while the long hand swung low. It was about twelve thirty, and the sun had sunk far below the horizon long ago. Lights out was hours ago, but Tessa could never sleep. She had so much she needed to do, so many things she had yet to practice. So much to read, and do and people always complained about too few hours of the day. There were twenty four, and that was enough to do everything if they didn't sleep that awful eight hours. Tessa had read plenty of books about sleeping, after people had started getting on her about not sleeping enough she had to make medical proof she would be okay. She now had a fairly good argument, but she continued to read up on new discoveries about sleep. Research is never done. Speaking of new research, Tessa was working on weapons research. The proper care of a sword, and how to reforge or simply forge one. It did not seem like too difficult a process from what she read. Still she knew she'd mess up at first, and she'd much rather do that late at night when everyone was asleep.

Normally Tessa's nights were filled with sword, archery, and anything else that could be done by the light of the moon. She hated trying to read things at night, and preferred to keep that to the day. It also helped that the library had some pretty strict hours themselves, about when someone could be inside. Sewing, stitching, and things delicate like that required a good amount of light. She would of course volunteer for night shift at the infirmary, but they attempted to force a rotation so people could sleep. Some of the people there were much better debaters than her about sleep, and didn't listen to reason. There was nothing Tessa could do about that, so she let them do what they wanted with the schedule. Tonight was one of the days she could not work the evening shift, thought she had worked there earlier that day.

The forge should be an okay place to work at night, the fires inside seemed to burn through the night anyway. Tessa's working inside of them would leave no bright light to draw attention, or anything of the sort. She wasn't sure if the front would be locked or not, actually she was pretty sure it would be. Though it never hurt to give it a try. To her surprise it opened easily, and she quickly made her way inside closing the door quietly behind her. The air was much warmer than outside, the fire causing the air to warm with a pleasant feel. She hadn't realized how cool the nights got at times, it was such a gradual change after the sun started going down. Pulling off her loose camp shirt Tessa had a much tighter fitting tank top underneath. It was going to be the first time in a long time she had worn such a thing, but she liked them more than the loose clothing and loose was dangerous around the forge anyway. She read that in a book. Folding up she shirt she turned to what she had expected to be an empty forge, except for one small problem. It was not empty.

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credit to theconfused1one.tumblr.com

Edmund was pulling an all nighter in the forge. It had become rather common after he got over the first few months or so of being PTSD episodical by just being around the fire. Finally, after weeks of being in a silent panic attack mode, his brain realized that the fire was going to stay in the fireplaces. Then again, sometimes he still did flash back. Sometimes he still felt like heíd panic attack if he stayed in here. But still, throughout the months and years following his thirteenth birthday, Edmund had been able to semi convince himself that the fires were going to stay contained and wouldn't move unless someone in the forge was careless. After that, Edmund made it his goal to keep the forge neat. Half the time it worked, the other half, not so much. Idiots would come in, clutter, and then leave it a mess for Ed to pick up while he was out training or in the armory sorting.

So, cleaning was how he started out his night. Edmund fell into his nightly routine: clean up the forge, straighten up his work table (which was also kept rather neat), and then work on orders. Tonightís project would be Shadow's armor. Edmund took his notebook out of the desk drawer, once again semi analyzing all the diagrams and measurements. Armor for animals, who knew? Ed thought he'd never see the day. Then again, there were plenty of things Ed thought he'd never see, yet had during his seventeen years of life. Kind of weird how he had lived this long. If not eaten by monsters, heíd think that he would have gotten onto a couple of peopleís ìTo Killî list at the Legion. In all reality he should have died years ago, but the stupid gods wanted to keep their chess game going. He didn't even remember how or why he had lived. One moment the ceiling was collapsing on him and the next he was crawling outside in the grass, close to incoherent. Then his throat really hurt and they were pulling a tube out of it like a snake, followed by them talking in what sounded like a foreign language.

Edmund shook his head slightly, clearing his head. Beside him, his all purpose (including human flesh) tissue box like shredder started to grow in height so it was level with his work desk. Then he sunk into his "forge, Stone-could-come-in-with-an-army-and-I-wouldn't-realize mode" (okay, maybe that was a bit extreme, but you get the idea) and started feeding Cineribus some of the metal miscellenous that he had taken from the armory. Seriously, after seven years of trying to organize that place, it was still out of control with massive piles. Oh well. No one could blame him for trying. Unlike the first three years though, Edmund could actually bring the piles into the forge to fix and repurpose the metal instead of just try to repilize and reorganize it. Cineribus' metal razors made something akin to a purring sound as it "digested" (aka shredded then burned) the metal. Edmund would probably repurpose some of the melted ore for Inek's armor. When he finally looked up from shredding scrap, he noticed that he was no longer alone in the forge. Standing a few feet away from him was none other than Tessa Yates. The forge boy silently looked at her, giving her a nod of acknowledgement. He had her book, along with the bandages, and demigod version of antiseptics still in the draw of his forge desk; it was locked up tight along with his other gifts: the coral from Alistair, tool box from Jolly, and animal book from Felicity.

IC: 635

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The boys head tilted slightly, and Tessa could see his eyes glaring out from behind his bangs. Her breath froze, she had not expected anyone at all to be in the forge this time of night. Sometimes she caught sight of a person or two in the Fields of Mars when they could not sleep, but it wasn't very often. Did that make today like that? Was this person only here because he couldn't sleep, or was this a nightly thing? Tessa thought about turning around and leaving, like the little coward she was. She knew she would mess up, and was pretty sure she would some how end up burning herself. She knew she would let her voice out at that point, she was a wimp sometimes when it came to these things. It seemed she gained immunity to being hit with swords and shields, she could keep her mouth shut at that point, but anything else was game for a yelp. There was also the problem that she would disturb him, if this was a normal nightly thing then her might want to be alone. Then it would be pointless to come back another night, and she might as well say now.

Her terror gave way after she noticed Edmund really just did not care. She had over analyzed things again, over thought and obviously thought too much of herself. Of course her presence wouldn't bother him, she hardly had any to begin with. With that she smiled, and finally moved away from the door. It would be fine, perfectly fine. Edmund would keep doing what he was doing, and hopefully she would keep her noise down to a minimum. She'd have to try harder not to hurt herself though, other wise it would have meant every time she walked into the forge with Edmund there, she hurt herself. This was going to be fun.

After she took a few steps in she looked at the floor, then at the work benches. It was actually clean. She supposed the people mush pick up after themselves at the end of the day, or something of the sort, because it was normally only Edmund's desk and a few other choice spots that stayed clean all day. Like whatever the stone wheel in water thing was called, she read it while looking up weapon maintenance but it didn't seem that important. It wasn't going to hurt her, so she could due with learning about it slowly. She didn't realize the sparks that fly when using the sharpener.

Tessa walked through the forge, looking at the floor, she was pretty sure it was the first time she had seen it. At least so much of it, and nearly walked into a wall. It startled her, and her body flinched when it came into sight. Taking a step back she re-evaluated where she was and where she was going. The fires were past Edmund on her left. She turned to walk to them, looking curiously at the shredding box as she went by. She had seen shredders before, but never something like that. It almost seemed alive.

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credit to my-teen-quote.tumblr.com/

Edmund honestly didn't care that he had another person in the forge with him. Was he used to other people in the forge at night? No, but whatever. The girl wasn't bothering him and as long as she didn't purposefully reek havoc, steal tools, or make a mess, she could stay. The forge was a public camp structure, after all. It was probably one of the less used structures by the non forgers. Most people only came in here for the "make your own weapons 101 class" and then didn't come back. If they did come back, it was usually to ask someone in the forge for a repair or a make, or to just annoy the forgers. Then again, that gave Edmund little right to put out anyone who came in; the forge may have been where he spent most of his time, but it was public, none the less. Besides, Yates was on more of the quiet side and seemed to not be an annoyance to people, so there was no reason for him to go kicking her out. If it was Stone, Kyoto, Hunter, or a god, then he'd probably send Cinny after them.

What she was doing in here was, naturally, none of his concern. Edmund didn't know and he didn't particularly care to know. Whatever reason she decided to come into the forge tonight of all nights was her story and no one else's. The seventeen year old just looked back down and continued working on the animal armor. He knew Yates to be on the more quiet side, like himself. The only difference was that she would write things down, while he would grudgingly and emotionlessly talk. Maybe he should have stayed a mute. It had worked for nearly a year; then again, when he was nine, no one really paid any attention to him (except to reprimand him), and his "home" life was near to zero, so there really was nothing to talk about. Besides, after his other hospital visit, he'd just stay in his room. There, he learned how to cope without an exacto knife, including but not limited to juggling, Play Dough, origami, drawing, deconstructing and reconstructing objects, even finger knitting. Not the best year ever.

After a few moments of a silent forge, Ed gave a wary look up. Yates was still walking around the forge, almost as if inspecting it. This was the probably as clean as she'd ever see it. Before the morning came and various people messed up his few hours of cleaning time. She almost went head on with one of the walls, but managed to stop herself. Edmund raised his eyebrows, but said nothing, continuing to tinker with properly shaping up Shadow's armor plates. He'd be lying to himself if he said that he wasn't wary of having her in here. Yates and the forge/armory didn't have the best streak going. Actually, she seemed to get injured every time she was near him. What was wrong with him? ...everything, most probably. He heard her footsteps get nearer; closer towards the fire than near him, so he continued working. Cinny watched her walk by and looked at her before giving a slight whirr of his razors. "That's Tessa Yates," Edmund told Cinny. "You do not chase or eat her." Yet, he added silently.

OOC: *imagines nine year old Ed playing around with juggling, Play Dough, and Finger Knitting* XD
IC: 573

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It was alive. It was something with moving blades, and was alive. Comforting? Not really. Terrifying? Yes, yes it is. Tessa would have stepped farther away from it, had there not been a table there. She almost ran into it wanting to escape the whirling blades of doom, but she did not. She was just slightly pinned, and dead if it came at her. Then came Edmund's voice, he told it to not eat her. That was nice, so now hopefully she wouldn't be eaten. How well did that work in movies? Sure this wasn't a movie but Tessa could think of a million and one times where electronic things went crazy. She realized she had stopped walking forward, and was just looking at the shredder. It had looked at her, and started it's blades up. That was not something that a simple sentence was going to erase from her mind. With a deep slightly broken breath she started walking toward the fires again. One foot in front of the other after all. The image of the thing's mouth opening to reveal fire and blades came to her mind and she turned to look at it again.

Tessa looked at the fires, and took a deep breath so she could focus on the task at hand. It had been a long time since they came in for forging 101, and she had not exactly been the best student at that time. This time though, she was going to do something and do it right. Today was going to be the basics, bending, twisting, upsetting, and flattening. The scrap metal box was near empty, Tessa looked around and could not for the life of her find what had happened to the pile of metal that normally was there. She frowned. This was not acceptable, she had sectioned this part of her day out for this purpose and it was not about to be thwarted because she was too silly of a girl to not be able to find some metal in a metal shop!

After a little while of looking Tessa's steam ran out, and she let out a silent sigh. There was a person here she would have rather not bothered with a stupid question like this, but she really needed some metal, and other than the scrap metal she wasn't sure what she was allowed to use. She was a little glad there was a person her now though, at least her entire time would not be wasted. Pulling her notebook out of her pocket she began scribbling down her question. Elegant perfectly spaced hand writing may not always be called scribble, but she did it fast enough that it should have been. After a moment she began to walk towards Edmund, looked at the shredder, and proceeded to stand in front of his work bench with her question in hand.

What metal am I allowed to use?

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credit to my-teen-quote.tumblr.com

Metal Bird (or Timothy), Shade's raptor (he didn't know if it had a name), and Cineribus/Cinny were the first three automations that Edmund had ever made. He wasn't sure if they were adequate or what in the standards of the usual forge monkey or not, but they were his and they were his first, the end. Nothing was perfect the first time. Not at all; just like the first few tries he was doing at animal armor. Edmund could steadily improve until he learned how to make more complex ones. He honestly didn't know why he hadn't tried making them before. They were almost a fun challenge to him now. Make something that could respond like a human, but it was actually just metal, computer chips, and wires. All of them probably reflected their creator in some way, but Cinny was probably the most alike to Edmund so far. Metal Bird would peck, bite, and be annoying (he had seen plenty of that from the forge window). He wasn't exactly sure what the raptor did, but it was kind of similar as far as innards went to Metal Bird. Weather it took on it's own "personality", he wasn't sure. Edmund wasn't entirely sure at this point if Cinny's personality would stay the same or change, but as of now, the shredder matched Edmund pretty well.

Edmund looked back over at the diagrams of Shadow, slightly adjusting his cat dummy. He was also using the animal encyclopedia that Felicity had given him to get the bone structure. Who knew that it would serve a double purpose? He silently went about doing his work: prototype cat armor was on. How successful he'd be, he didn't know, but all he could do was stubbornly try. Edmund was kind of wary at the same time though. He didn't want to give Shadow faulty armor by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe he could put sensors on the dummy (like sensors on a fencing suit) and shoot at it to make sure the animal armor was good enough. He'd probably have to do that with Inek's armor too. Putting the sensors on now was out of the question. It would go of all the time with all the adjustments he'd have to make. Besides, it wasn't like he was going to have the animals wear it while he tested it. He may have been harsh, but he wasn't that harsh... at least, sometimes, anyway.

He heard Yates moving around the forge, but didn't bother looking up. At least that meant she wasn't hurt... yet. Maybe she was just checking out the entire place; it was pretty big. Either that... or she was looking for something that she couldn't find. A few minutes later, he heard approaching footsteps. Cinny gave a small wine, also giving him a clue that Yates was getting closer. Then she was infront of him with a near to perfect written letter on her notepad. "Anything in here," he said, nodding to his still moderately sized pile of armory miscellaneous, "there," he pointed over to the scrap box that was probably near to empty, "or in here," he finished. With that, Edmund tapped Cinny. "Open." There was a slight nose as if a door closed within the machine and then the bottom part of Cinny slid out like a drawer. Inside where newly made sheets of metal.

IC: 587

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Tessa's eyes followed where Edmund had gestured, the pile of what looked to be projects must have been tron away projects. The scrap boxes she had already checked, and the final thing was the strange shredder. She could hear something inside of it close, shortly before a drawer slid out from the bottom. That certainly was interesting, though she probably should have guessed since it was a shredder and they needed drawers. What puzzled her was how did it shred and turn the metal into such nice flat sheets? You'd have to melt it since it was obviously shredding things. Yes. Melt it. That meant the little thing had a furnace inside. Obviously not terrifying. The opening on top seemed to change size to fit whatever Edmund put inside, at least from what she had seen so far. Tessa's mind slightly wandered to the possibility of human flesh getting ground into hamburger meat and flame broiled inside of this machine, then she couldn't help but think what was wrong with her. It wouldn't be used for that reason, and Edmund had probably built in a safety device to avoid that exact scenario. Yes, the thought made her feel better. She tried not to think about how she heard Edmund tell the creature to not eat her earlier. Right. Best not to think about that.

She was a little hesitant about taking something from the drawer, but slipped out a sheet or two of perfectly smooth metal out of the creature. Looking it over she couldn't help but kind of start to like it. It did exactly what it was supposed to do perfectly. In fact possibly better than Tessa would have imagined herself. It was intriguing, she was not quite as imaginative. She was pretty sure she had no imagination actually, just kind of did what she was supposed to. Recently people had been asking her what she did for fun, and she couldn't respond. She didn't do things for fun, just did them so she could be perfect at it. Fun was never something she did, despite her parentage. It made her want to pick something else up, some excuse to interact with people even less than she already did. It was so backwards, she wanted friends and people to talk to and have fun with, but she did things like this to avoid such situations. Maybe she didn't want it, maybe she really would be better off away from everyone. She wasn't sure what she would be doing, since she had never found fun in anything. A dilemma.

After securing the pieces of metal Tessa flipped to one of the only two words she had written in every notebook, 'Thank you'. She smiled and wondered how she could thank the little machine, it didn't look like it had eyes. She pat it lightly on top before running off to the fires again. The people in the forge seemed to have something against using a set of sharp scissors to cut the metal. Apparently blow torches where the way to go, and Tessa only wanted strips of metal at the moment. Securing the pieces of metal Tessa started up the blow torch only to immediately turn it off, slightly blinded by the light. She put the thing down before curling into a ball rocking back and forth on her feet. Her eyes were now covered by her hands, and she should still see the red burned into her eyes. She stayed that way until it went away.

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credit to me! o.o

Edmund didn't know why he hadn't decided to make one of these metal shredder things sooner. Cinny was quickly becoming his best friend (yup, Edmund could have friends! HA! There! ....just, non human friends). He was easily most like him and most relatable, so why not? Besides, he got along better with mechanisms and animals than humans. Preferred the non-animate things, actually. True, they could break or malfunction (just like a human), but unlike a human, they could be re-fixed, memory wiped, or entirely remade. If the creator didn't like it, then they could remake it. Change it. He was sincerely fine and comfortable around machines: building them, making them, and fixing them. But take a real, human death, loss, or wreck. That? Something like that couldn't be fixed, changed, remade, or memory wiped. Real life was impossible like that. People would try, and try, and try until they turned blue (he had gone to enough shrinks to figure that out) but humans weren't as easy to fix as things were. Life lesson of Edmund Simons, learned at age nine. Happy Belated Birthday!

He watched Yates as she approached his metal shredder with caution. Well, heck. He had just ordered it not to eat her. Ed'd be eyeing something with capability to eat a human warily too. The knowledge of Cinny's ability to eat people didn't completely drive her away though: she took two metal sheets out and Cinny clicked in gratitude as some of the weight was lifted off of him. "I'll empty you out in a few minutes," Edmund grumbled to the machine. Not soon enough for Cinny apparently: it ejected two draws full of metal sheets. "Or now," the forge boy amended a slight smirk of amusement flickering across his face. He stood up, stacked the draws on top of each other and proceeded to fill up the scrap metal box. The seventeen year old looked over as Yates flipped through her notebook: her preferred way of talking. Not that he cared. He would have gone that route too if he had been smart enough, but no. Edmund had elected to talk after nearly a year of silence. Everyone would have probably been better off if he had just… not existed maybe? The only good he was to camp was being a forge monkey, and even at that, there were plenty of other people who could do what he could, and could do it better.

He gave a slight nod in acknowledgement as he read the perfectly written note. Cinny, not used to the affection, gave a wary whirr at first, but it quickly turned into a purr when he realized that it was a positive reinforcer. It didn't take long to refill the box, so soon after emptying Cinny's drawers, Edmund returned and slotted them back into Cinny. Back to Shadow's armor. He turned over his notes on the diagram of the cat, along with his scribbled notes on cat anatomy that he had taken from the book Weingarten had given him. He took hold of a string that he had fastened to the mannequin an took a few pulls. The legs started moving in Shadow's approximate strides: first walking, then trotting, then running. The seventeen year old watched the armor move with it for a few moments before pulling on the string again to get it to stop. That looked like it was in order. Weapons test time. In his glancing up to find a spear, he saw Yates double over with her hands over her eyes. Edmund raised his eye brows slightly and quietly drifted over. "Yates, did you hurt yourself?" he asked in his usual tone of voice. She did have a rather nasty habit of hurting herself every time she stepped foot in here. Gods, there must have been something wrong with him.

OOC: Sorry for the wait >.<
IC: 656

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It seemed like the forced silence Tessa had thrust upon herself made her more aware of the subtle changes in a persons voice and the non-verbal elements of communication. It was good practice for her possible career as an actress, getting the little things down was a good way to make emotions truly believable. The small sighs, and brow raises. Which leg a person favored, all of that went into her acting. When she finally got back into the full swing of it anyway. She tried to avoid acting around people now, unless it was the nurse mask she put on in the Infirmary. She wanted to make friends for who she was, not who she pretended to be. That was also the reason she didn't talk to people, she wanted friends. Real ones, and not the ones who liked her when she spoke, then talked about her when she left. Those weren't friends. Television and movies may have given her the idea of what a real friend could be, and she didn't know if she could believe them until she came to camp. Here people truly cared about their friends, and that was what made Tessa stop talking. Friends that would have each others back when the other wasn't there, or if they were hurt, and a friend who would help you pick up the pieces of yourself.

It whirled at her and for a moment Tessa though it was going to eat her hand despite Edmund's advice that it shouldn't. She immediately began plans on how to continue her life with one hand, until the whirling turned into a kind of purr. That was cute. It was still terrifying, but with the thought of living without a hand quickly disappearing she couldn’t help but think it was kinda adorable. Like a cat, can rip your arms to shreds if it wanted, but still cute. Even if cats were fluffy, and this was a metal shredder. Tessa wondered if something was wrong with her to think a metal box with wheels was cute. Yeah, probably. Oh well, she'd deal with that quirk of hers and leave it be. Something else for people to avoid her for, but whomever got over all of her weird quirks was bound to be a great friend right?

Tessa watched as Edmund emptied the clean smooth metal sheets into the scraps bin, then proceed to replace the creature drawers back where they once where. It seemed thankful for something, perhaps for the lighter load? Yeah, Tessa looked at the pile of metal that was dumped out. It must have weighed quite a lot. She didn't stand by for very long, he was busy. He must have been since he was up so late at night, and undoubtedly had some tough training in the morning.

Tessa could scarcely hear him walking closer to her, trying to open her eyes she didn't want to obviously be in pain. Not again. Her eyes started tearing up, and she stopped. His voice was just as rough and unemotional as it had been any other time she heard him speak, but his words were caring enough. It was interesting, and completely backwards from what she was used to, unless he really didn't care. Which was always possible. Tessa attempted to look up with a smile, despite the tears that strained against the corners of her eyes. She wanted to write something, but her vision was blurry at best. She shook her head dislodging the water so it started down one of her cheeks. She wiped the tear away and proceeded to try and blink the rest away. It seemed like the pain faded away. Her vision was still slightly off, probably temporarily damaged her retina’s. It was the same as though someone where to look directly at the sun, just a little more intense since it was directly in front of her. She didn't immediately drop it though! That was a good thing.

Edmund had been there every time she entered the forge, and every time she entered the forge she hurt herself. She supposed it could be transposed that every time she was around Edmund she was hurt, and hoped that he wouldn't make that link. She hurt herself whenever she got into doing something new, tore up her fingers when she started sewing, her upper body was in shock after she started practicing archery, and she could swear her brain should have burst, or eyes bleed from studying nursing. She'd have to remember to take better care of her eyes after this, they are very important and she'd done a it seemed like all the things she worked on involved straining them a great deal. Archery for distance, sewing and reading for closeness, and this bright light that just temporarily burned out her retina's.

At least it was only temporary, soon Tessa's vision began to clear up and she could see properly again. The room seemed a lot darker than it had before, to be expected. The rods of her eyes were still adjusting, it might take a few minutes before she could try again. This time she would defiantly need a pair of goggles. She supposed she could try looking for them, rummage around the place probably to not find them. Then she'd have to ask Edmund and there would go more time wasted. She might as well ask now, instead of wasting time, which was fairly precious when trying to get so much done in a day. 'Are there community use goggles?'

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credit to me

Edmund had never really been the chatterbox sort of type. Sure, he had been hyper active in body, but not in tongue. All he had wanted was to make friends. All he got were people who though he was an odd ball. At first he didn't mind. The first time it happened, his mother had said that everyone was special and odd in their own way. Edmund was able to live with that until first grade. After that came the name calling, upperclassmen, and the shoving into walls part of grade school. Some kids shut down and just let it happen. Edmund didn't go that route. Instead, he took the complete opposite one: snapping and fighting back. He honesty didn't see what was wrong with him needing to fidget around every few seconds because his hands had nothing to do, or having his mind wander outside, where he could be playing, only to be (what his teachers called) "refocused". Edmund did see a grade problem, even though he was trying his hardest, at least for his parents he had been. It had never been enough though: he was always a few inches away from failing, even with the tutors. His parents had taken him in for testing once: he wasn't mentally handicapped or anything, it was just... he had already kind of stopped caring. Yup. The career had started early. The old "you've already failed, so why even try?" mentality. Edmund would always get into trouble, would always fail, and would always get pointed at for being the kid with ADHD and dyslexia.

Of course, plenty of people at the Legion probably had it worse. It was just a matter of how they chose to deal with it. Some chose sarcasm, some chose kindness, others (like himself) chose to get a "screw the world; I hate it and everyone in it" attitude. Healthy? Probably not, but it helped him live to day to day, and that was all he needed at the moment. All he needed to do was survive the Legion three more years. After this he could leave... although he really had no idea where he was going (if he decided to leave). It wasn't like he had anywhere to go... Any family he had was dead. Em didn't count. She was just a woman who "took care of him" after the fire and then had shipped him off here. A woman who took the easy way out in order to solve her own problems: by getting rid of THE problem. He watched Cinny for a moment. Okay, so even though Cinny was the most like him, it wasn't 100%. For one, Edmund did not purr... or show any real signs of affection really. For two... he wasn't that that useful. He could have remade the sheets of metal himself, but no. He decided to make a machine to do it for him. Cinny was good though. Made for a good companion along with Jadis and Ryley. He'd say Tim (MB) too, but he was under construction and near to incoherent most of the time. Call it a weird Edmund thing: befriending automations and animals rather than people.

Some may have called Edmund a creeper for it (which, yeah, he kinda was) but he had an ability to quietly approach or quietly slink away from a situation without being noticed. He knew of nearly everyone at camp (how couldn't he? he had been here for seven years), but he just hadn't interacted with many of them. Call it his antisocial behavior. Although, through the past four years, he had quietly absorbed information on people: their walking habits, their quirks, what made them tick, even snippets of their personality and fighting style, all though creepily staring out the forge window. It had been like that in school too. Edmund would be that kid fidgeting quietly in the corner, just watching other people, and gathering information on them. He stood behind Tessa quietly, just watching her recover. From what it looked like, she had temporarily blinded herself via torch light. Harsh way to learn to use goggles when using that thing. Even though she smiled, tears of pain were starting to streak her face. Gods. Behold: one of the many reasons he didn't smile. "Right," he said flatly, taking out a package of Kleenex that he had in his back pocket. "Need one?" he asked with his usual tone, extending a tissue to her. After a few more moments, it seemed as if she had recovered enough to straighten up. Not permanent damage. That made three times Tessa had hurt herself around him. There was something wrong with him...

As soon as she looked like she was in full control of her vision again, Edmund drifted back towards his work bench. He picked up a spear and went to go back to where he left off on: testing. He had gotten two jabs in with no reaction from the mannequin when Yates approached him again with a question. He didn't blame her for wanting goggles after that. "The shelf below the first aid kit. Goggles, gloves, a whole head visor if you want," he said, gesturing to a shelf on one of the forge walls. Although, the latter two were for scared newbies in Forging 101. Thank the gods he didn't need to teach that class. Who on heaven or Hades could ever imagine Edmund trying to teach a group of tinies? Especially since he kind of believed that he shouldn't be giving out full on weapons to ten year olds, much less teach them how to make their own, use a grinding stone, and use the fires. He'd be a horrible teacher, taking into account his monotone, emotionless, non-patient demeanor.

OOC: o.O one of my longer posts on here...
IC: 979

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Tessa couldn't exactly make out what Edmund was offering her, she looked at it trying to clear the pain and tears from her eyes. Something white and cloth like? Tessa reached for it, recognizing it as tissue. Did Edmund carry these with him? She was pretty sure he wouldn't have been able to know she would need one, having them on his person was about the only thing she could think of. He was more prepared than she was, and considering she was supposed to be a medical professional that made her feel rather bad. She had tried making a first aid kit to bring with her several times, but they never seemed to be able to fit in the box. She had a rather large list of things she wanted to put in the kit, and it always seemed to grow instead of dwindle. Sure it wasn't a simple tissue, but he was still more prepared than she was. She'd have to try and work on that first aid kit again, or at least bring bandaids with her. Also some antibiotic ointment, maybe a little gauze and large bandage just in case. While she was at it a bit of pain pills couldn’t hurt, for emergencies, and....okay she could have gone on for a while with this. After a few minutes Tessa had a rather lengthy list of things she should take with her, and had to drop the idea for perhaps the millionth time. She was never able to keep the list to essentials, because anything could be needed at anytime and she'd be so upset if she needed something and it wasn't in the so called first aid kit she created. She used the tissue to cover her eyes for a little, letting it absorb the specks of tears that would sometimes flow from her closed eyes.

Tessa couldn't tell if Edmund was still there, but she hadn't heard his foot steps leave so she guessed he was, or she had not heard him. Looking up through the slightly tear stained eyes she saw him, standing behind her seeming to wait. It was a little unnerving, but she supposed she did the exact same thing win the infirmary. That made her feel a little better, he was probably just worried about her. After a few moments he left her side, probably because she was looking around normally and functioning like before. Not the same as she would have done, but she knows a person can act and move normally while still being sick or in pain. This was the Roman Legion after all. To many people worked through the pain, like they were often trained to.

He seemed completely unfazed by everything that just happened, which Tessa supposed was a good thing. His face remained fairly calm and he immediately went back to what he was doing before. She couldn't see his face when he was beside her, but his voice remand the same, and she could easily think his face did also. It was interesting. His face showed a lack of caring, as did his voice, but his actions showed differently. She was probably over analyzing things. He had said something about not wanting to do the paper work hadn't he? She supposed without being able to see she wouldn't be able to, but that was still the job of the infirmary when you got there. It would have been pretty hard for most people to get to the infirmary without seeing also. Tessa found more and more reasons for Edmund to not care about her, and she was fine with that. She preferred this, not over worried about her because she was female, or a legacy of Venus, or any kind of mess other people paid attention to her for. No questions about why she didn't talk, no questions other than if she was going to be okay after hurting herself, and accepting her answer. It was nice.

She still felt a little bad for bothering him again, but his answers were pretty short and to the point. He wasn't a fan of wasting time either. Tessa was never able to speak so frankly, she always ended up saying a lot more than she needed to when talking or even writing. Though she thought she got writing more to the point than speaking. Probably the Apollo and Venus coursing through her veins. Not that gods had DNA, but still. Tessa's eyes followed where Edmund gestured, everything was fairly well organized at night. She was pretty sure she had never seen anything in these places during the day. She gave him a nod and a smile, flipping her book to the sharpied 'Thank you' that lay in the back cover.

With that settled Tessa walked over to the shelves, looking at the gloves and the rather heavy head visor. She could remember wearing them once or twice, but she was pretty sure they weren't necessary. It was mostly just to make sure you didn't have anyway of getting hurt. Not so much a safety of the body, but for safety of the mind. She picked up the goggles and tried them on, quite too large. She adjusted the strap on the side to get them correctly secured to her face. She was used to a different set of goggles, the type shaped more like sunglasses that were only used to keep blood from your eyes while still being able to see everything. These goggles seemed to have a kind of tunnel vision thing going for them. The little bit of rubber that surround her eyes left her feeling fairly vulnerable considering her training. She could not remember the last time she had no peripheral vision, and it was a bit weird. She pulled them up and over her head so they sat on her forehead. That was better, but she would have to live with it for a little while. She walked to the torch again, pulled the goggles back over her eyes and light the fire. It sparked up, bright even behind the goggles. It took only a few moments for her to make crookedly cut strips of metal, then off went the little burner. She wasn't happy that they were so very terribly cut, but it couldn't be helped. Picking one up she quickly dropped it, the heat having of course transferred over the entire piece of metal. So smooth. The clatter of metal on the floor echoed through the empty forge, and a bit of sound escaped Tessa's lips.

OOC: I am soooo sorry it ended up being so long, it just kinda....went. Had to stop my muse T^T

[Deleted]

It must have seemed odd to other people: rough and tough Edmund Simons carrying around Kleenex tissues. Emotionless people didn't exactly need tissues, but he didn't care what people thought about him. He'd carry what he wanted, for whatever reasons he wanted and that was the end of it. His reasoning was his business and no one was ever going to get the answer. It was because of his father; his dad, James. It was one of Edmund's scarce, random memories about him. What else did he remember? Not his voice or face for sure. Handkerchiefs and he always had a lot of computers around him. Had that been his profession? Something with computers? Edmund could honestly not remember for the life of him. What did his mom do for a living? Couldn't remember that one either. Ugh. Edmund snapped his eyes back to the matter infront of him. That sort of thinking was exactly what he was always trying to avoid. His eyes went back to Yates as she seemingly fought to get her vision back. Edmund had watched most of the forgers from afar for a couple of hours, and then just sort of mimicked them. Once again: odd combination of figuring out and going with his gut; going along with a skill that he never knew that he had and for some reason could do just fine even though he had never done it in his life.

He stood there silently, until Yates appeared okay. Sure, she could outwardly appear okay (everyone did), but if something was still severely wrong, she'd communicate it to him somehow. He had to give it to her: remaining silent for however number of years she had been in the Legion was quite a feat. He wished he could have kept his mouth shut, but no. It probably would have been better at any rate. Most problems usually began with him opening his mouth. Maybe that's why he decided to go mute for a year. No one would care anyway. He could have probably died in that fire and no one at school would do so much as bat an eyelash. Which kinda reminded him... he should have died in that house. He wasn't a brother or son anymore. He was just a mechanized, Roman demigod. No better than a child solider... which they all were when someone really thought about it. We all fall down... like toy soldiers... how that fit the Legion... so well. He had heard it as part of a song when he was trying to reprogram Tim's (Metal Bird's) trigger words for reaction songs. He kinda felt bad for whoever said "solider" to Tim next. Especially if it was Lyn. Maybe he could program Tim to get the clean versions of the songs.

The back of a notebook flashed in his line of vision and again: it was flipped to the "thank you" page. Edmund gave a slight nod. "You're welcome." He was not going to be responsible for another camper getting their eyesight damaged. He took his spear and continued to prod at the four legged armor, trying to get a reaction: trying to get it to light up. Even though it would mean a fault in the armor if it did light up, better it light up on the dummy than have Shadow get hit with a sharp object. Now that he was thinking about it, the armor was still... what if Shadow was running? He should probably make a dummy type thing that could run and do basic forms of a cat... and then do them for a fox. A piece of metal crashed the floor, followed by a slight noise from Yates. So far, Edmund hadn't heard anything out of the girl except for when she was in pain from getting hurt in here.

Once again, Edmund got up and quietly drifted over to where the other Camper was. Torch in her hand, piece of crookedly cut metal on the floor, small sound of pain from Yates... it was easy to guess what happened. Instead of lingering over her like he had before, he drifted over to the first aid kit shelf. Beside it was a medium sized, portable freezer; it was always semi ironic to him. A place as hot as the forge and then it contained a freezer. Talk about two extremes. Ironic, but necessary since Yates hadn't been the first (and would definitely not be the last) to burn herself in here. He took out an ice pack and then tore a paper towel off and walked over, wrapping the pack as it went and wordlessly handed it to her. There was no reason to expand or call her out on it: she had just learned to let the metal cool before touching it the hard way.

OOC: It was a lovely post dear <3
Mine's a bit shorter, sorry! .... and Ed apparently likes that Eminem song
IC: 820

[Deleted]

Over and over again Tessa messed up, and while most of the time a cut or burn here and there was no problem for her. It hurt, that was a given, but often people let her help herself. She'd suck it up and bandage herself, or thrust her hand under cool running water. She was supposed to be a Roman and around here that normally meant you could take care of yourself. Especially when you've managed to be around camp for seven years. Edmund appeared in the corer of her eye a moment, and she hated herself. He was just here working hard on something and she kept bothering him by hurting herself. She looked at her fingertips, red and stinging. At least it wasn't bad, she had dropped it quick enough. She hadn't expected it to be hot, it wasn't red or anything. It was her left hand too, her dominate hand. Plenty of people would never know Tessa was left handed, since she used her right hand so often. That was of course because she needed all the practice she could get with her right hand, it lacked a lot of control and power compared to her left hand.

Tessa looked up when Edmund seemed to wander back off, a small smile came across her face as she hoped he would simply go back to his work. He had not. She saw him drift over to a little box near the first aid area, a freezer that was probably there for just such an occasion. Tessa frowned as Edmund came back to her with an ice pack. He felt guilty, and it probably showed in her slumped shoulders and downcast gaze. Still she took the wrapped ice pack in her hand and held it with her burnt finger tips. It was so cold it hurt, the temperature difference becoming very clear if it wasn't before. She rolled the packet around in her hand and went to sit down. She needed to cool the injury for a little while before she could go back to trying anything with the forging tools, and there was no point in standing for that.

There were plenty of seats around the forge, very different from how it was in the day time. Sure the seats always existed, but often people who worked in the forge did not sit, always moving her or there grabbing tools, testing projects, whatever. The seats ended up just being another place to put those very things. Tessa found a tall stool and stepped up on it laying her hand on a table top with the ice pack resting on her finger tips. Her feet dangled just above the floor, as she looked at the armor Edmund had been working on. Something for a small animal it looked like. It was on a dummy, and while she hadn't been paying purposeful attention to what he was doing, it was rather hard to ignore him. They were the only two people in the forge, and he was hitting the metal armor. She hadn't seen it light up, so didn't know about that part, but she heard plenty.

Tessa took a notebook out of her pocket, flipping it open with her right hand and put it on the table shifting her left hand out of the way. Next came a green mechanical pencil, one of the ones that clicked on the side. It was faster than the top click ones. She began to write things down, mostly brief descriptions of what just transpired, and an attempt to find something of equivalent value. It was difficult, but if she was going to be bothering Edmund in the forge for the next month or more, every night, she was going to have to find something to do or get him for the trouble. Even if he only spent the occasional night in the forge, she'd have to find something to at least make up for this night. She looked up from her booklet once in a while to look at Edmund's workbench, trying to see if there were any clue to his personality that might lead her to a conclusion on what to get for him. Last time she had gotten him a set of bandages and a small booklet on treating your own injuries. Nothing much, but it should help him avoid the infirmary, but stay relatively healthy. It seemed to be a legion thing, playing keep away from the infirmary. Or was it keep away from the medics? Probably that wince even when they went out to observe training it was like they were the plague. Hard when one of your centurions was the head medic, and the secretary in charge of all the files was also in the cohort. Yeah, second cohort was probably one of the healthiest, and not by choice.

OOC: Sorry Ellie she didn't say a single word >_> or write....

[Deleted]

credit to me ^_^

Well this night had taken a turn for the more interesting side. For one, Yates was still here. Not many people (besides forgers) decided to stick around to try to re-learn, on their own, how to make weapons outside of Forging 101. They usually just came for the classes, then only came back to the forge when it suited them: to get a repair or a make from a forger. Oh, the forgers were there to serve the Legion alright. Forge work on top of their own training schedules. Edmund wondered what would ever happen if the forge went on strike for a week. He doubted much would happen if only he went on strike. They all did exactly what he did: make weapons (some better than others) and fix things (again, some better than others), but still, the same basic functions. Besides Stone breaking his neck for ruining the continuous supply of weapons though, if someone's broke or something, they'd have to hope that they didn't take a shabby replacement from the armory. Right. Edmund's next project after his other projects.

Speaking of projects, maybe trying to get Yates through ten minutes of not getting injured should become one. Seriously. It seemed to happen always around him. Was he that much of a danger magnet? Honestly, he could do nothing right. Yeah, there was something wrong with him. He looked at her defeated demeanor as he handed the ice pack over. Edmund may not of had any emotions anymore, but he still knew how to read people. "Don't worry about it. It's not a bother." Burns on non forgers were common enough that Ed knew the signs. Getting icepacks and redirection to the first aid kid were near to 3rd/4th nature to him while in the forge. Roman or not, burns hurt like heck. Edmund knew that from personal experience; a bit too personal. Sure, being Roman also entailed sucking up the pain and looking after yourself, but this was the forge and Edmund wasn't taking any chances. Besides, it was usually better for something cold get onto the burn as fast as possible. He didn't have the chance to do that... and ended up getting skin grafts. Then again, they were 3rd degree, so he doubted that even if they had dumped an ice bucket on him it wouldn't of made a difference. Sure, it didn't look bad, but he wasn't going to wait around for Tessa to possibly write out the question of where the cold water in the forge was.

Edmund went back to testing out the armor on the animatronic dummy. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Tessa pulled up a stool and went to rest her hand. At least she wasn't as dumb enough to just continue as if nothing happened. Her fingertips would probably be a bit tender and tingly for the next few days, but she'd live: no scarring or major damage. No, Yates seemed pretty logical when it came to resting after getting hurt. She was logical on that stuff; Edmund was not. Edmund would be that person to continue whatever he was doing even through he was in pain. It had actually been that instance his entire life: working straight through whatever injuries he had. Training with Jolly (which left a lot of scars); accidentally burning his fingertips (and driving himself into a PTSD episode afterwards); plane making even when his exacto knife nicked him (which added a couple of scars to his finger tips); going to school and functioning "normally" even when he was supposed to be at Em's house, on pain killers, and on crutches/in a wheelchair. He had been born with that disposition and coming to the Legion had only solidified it. It wasn't like Jolly would let him sit down in the middle of a drill just because he got a cut or two.

Still no light ups. Well that was a good thing. None of his shots were penetrating, so the armor was in good shape. Standing still. Moving time. Ed walked over the automation approximation of Shadow and pulled the string, causing the legs to start walking in the kitten's approximate strides (slightly longer now that the kitten had probably grown some). The seventeen year old took his stance again and started to jab at the armor, trying to see if there were any faults in its structure. If there was and his spear it, Shadow would stop moving and would light up in the hit area. After a few moments of no lights at walking pace, Ed gave the string another yank, causing the cat's steps to pick up a different stride and rhythm: trotting. The demigod took another step back and continued trying to find faults in the cat's armor.

OOC: Lol no no it's fine!
HA finally o.o Sorry for the wait D:
And Tessa gets my trial run with a new font. yay! XD
IC: 823

[Deleted]

His words felt like another blow, a crushing weight that just cemented the knowledge that she was being an annoyance. Tessa had a middle name associated with dragons, though she supposed like the wyvren she was not as strong, intelligent, or all around wonderful like it's counterpart. She was a legacy, and while she had seen plenty of other legacy's make their own names for themselves she was still here, making a mess of things. This was why she wanted to be alone in the forge in the first place, because this was going to happen. It was obviously going to happen that she hurt herself a million and one times. It was the same every time. She was glad she did not scar easily, or bruise easily, because she certainly would look like a mess. Her fingers would be terribly messed up, the bloodied finger tips she had gotten from archery and of course sewing. There was nothing to be said about what happened when she first practiced with a sword. That certainly did not end up well for her when she went a bit over board in practicing. That specific instance she passed out and was sent to the infirmary much sooner than any other thing she tried to master. Of course that was from blood loss and not exhaustion.

She stared at the ice pack in her hand as it slowly melted to shape around it. It sank over and around her finger tips, terribly cold on her still stinging fingers. If at all possible it was best to not expose them to heat for the next day or two, but that certainly was not happening. Tessa would just have to wait an acceptable amount of time before taking the ice pack off her fingers and go about what she was doing before. For now, study was always good. Other than studying the only other person in the forge and trying to plan some sort of return gift, apology, item, she also needed to go over what they learned in class today. Finished with her observations of 'Edmund has nothing on or around his desk that could show his personality' she pulled another notebook from her pocket. At least she wanted to, however it was in her left side pocket. Normally not a problem, and for things like this is why Tessa put notebooks in separate pockets to begin with.

Shifting slightly on the stool, Tessa made sure to keep her balance and not promptly fall to the floor. She used her uninjured hand to pull out her study book, one of many since these where the only ones she actually kept instead of recycling. Sitting back to normal, the stools legs slammed back to the ground. She had accidentally started balancing on only two of the legs. The sound echoed through the forge, and she severely startled herself jumping at the sound. She stared at her notebook, face red in shame and embarrassment. With one hand the flipped her notebook open, and adjusted it so if Edmund looked he'd see it easily. 'I'm sorry'

Tessa could not even look up, sure Edmund was making a fair amount of noise but he was actually doing something. He had not make a loud noise in a near empty forge by sitting around doing nothing, and almost falling out of a stool because of it. She probably was about to fall over during also, given she had some how managed to stand it on only two legs. Good thing these stools where sturdy enough to handle things like this, other wise Tessa could be laid out on the floor. Plenty of things to hit her head on near by too, at least if she didn't catch herself. She supposed that was more probably, since cohort training taught you how to fall correctly, and get right back up.

OOC: I like Arial font the best <3 <3