Freebird {Ed}

[Deleted]

credit to my-teen-quote.tumblr.com

Stereotypical camp. Edmund in the forge. Even though he had never claimed his parentage himself, people could easily look at him and be like "son of Vulcan", even though he denied it to this day. He could have been a son of Pluto or Mars who just liked to hang around and build stuff for all he knew. One thing he did know for certain though: Ed wasn't claiming himself to the gods. It just annoyed him that, once he was claimed, he more felt like it was expected of him to go into the forge and well... forge. For three years he had avoided that place because of the fire and then once he had gotten claimed: boom. It was almost as if because of his god parent, he was expected to do something: become a forge monkey. For the first (and only) time in his life, Edmund let it happen. He couldn't deny a certain sort of pull to the armory because of all the dumped and WIP projects, but the forge had been a completely different story. Maybe he had felt a pull towards it, but any gut feeling he had was masked by his terror of being around fire. After the initial PTSD attacks, the forge had become the closest thing he had to a home. Besides, crafting gave him something to do when he wasn't training.

At her comment, he gave a slight shrug, then followed it with a smirk. "I'm sure we'd all enjoy sitting around a campfire: knitting and doing karaoke," he said in his dry, sarcastic tone. After the fire and his incident at Em's house, Edmund had actually taken up various things such as knitting, origami, and even juggling to keep his hands busy. He hadn't stuck with them after entering camp, but those activities had been a part of his life at one point. Then again, before forging, Edmund had stuck to more the armory and sorting there. His projects were wooden planes, houses, and grandfather clocks; absolutely nothing with metal. It was safe to say that all the houses and clocks had been burned in the forge fire when no one was looking. The planes had gotten buried.

Edmund nodded slightly in answer to her question. "Any time other than training." Food and sleep were third and fourth on his list (in that order). He'd eat at erratic times (mostly to avoid everyone else) and sleep? He got three hours at best. And true, he was in the first cohort and had a pretty rigorous schedule, but he always cut time out for forging. Even if that meant missing a practice or two. Yes, he got on Jolly's bad side a lot. Did he care? She could just pull up a chair and wait for that to happen. She'd wait there and eternity. By now, Edmund was used to getting on people's bad sides. He took out a computer chip from one of the piles and inspected it before answering her: "It's crossed my mind."

OOC: *attempt at slight humor*
IC: 518

[Deleted]

Felicity couldn't help but smile at the sarcastic comment that escaped from Ed. Okay, so the possibility of that happening was probably very low, however if one were to imagine it it could cause a fit of laughter. Though, Felicity wondered if the forge kids could be good at knitting, they use their hands often enough and how different was knitting from creating automatons? Okay, big difference but one thing they both require is a good concentration on what your hands were doing. The singing part though, that was never going to happen. Almost ever forge person Felicity had met were shy or just simply didn't talk much. "If that ever happens, I'll be sure to take a photo." Felicity said in jest because in all honesty, if something like that did ever happen, they would probably need a picture as proof.

Oh, so he did go to training. Felicity figured he probably ditched sometimes, then again, she was so used to people in her own cohort doing that she just suspected that others were like that also. But it was Charlie who was his centurion, she probably kept a tight leash on her legionnaires and made sure that they showed up in training. Probably the only reasons you wouldn't make it to training with Charlie would be if you were either A) Dead, or B) close enough to dead. Felicity was not jealous of the fact that Ed was in the first cohort while she was in the fourth. She preferred her laid back training, well, she had upped it up a few time. Other than training her cohort she just tried to clean out the fourths area in the prinicipia and then train on her own or hang out with people.

Felicity smiled as an idea popped into her head. "You could make one that is reversible, that way theres not just a random bed in the forge." She though on a way to explain her idea and walked over to one of the work benches. "Okay, take this work bench for example. Maybe one side could be a work bench but then it can flip over and work as a bed. Though, I suppose it would be a pretty big work bench, unless you used a really squishable mattress." Felicity explained. The idea had sounded a lot better in her head then it did when it came out of her mouth. She shrugged. "Or some other way, I don't think my way is even possible." Felicity said as she walked back over to Ed and stood by his side, though giving him enough room for personal space, she had known Ed for awhile and was aware of his personal space issues. She looked at the pile of computer chips. So this is what Metal Bird was made of. "How do you know which ones are use for what? They all look the same." Felicity asked in her usual curious manner.

outfit: camp stuff
words: 541
notes: yay for sudden muse! Too bad it was during 6th period >.>

[Deleted]

credit to my-teen-quote.tumblr.com

Edmund had actually done some finger knitting when he was nine. Mostly to pass time and to distract himself than anything else. Younger Edmund had composed a rather long list of things he could do to preoccupy his fingers after he got his wood carving things taken away. Somethings, inevitably, went better than others. It had just so happened that finger knitting was one of the things that went on the "better" side. He had found one of Em's stashes of yarn, looked up how to finger knit and BAM. He could made several 100 foot long scarves in one day. There was nothing much else to do. He didn't have friends, his legs prevented him from moving much, and Em wasn't exactly on the best of terms with him. Once he had made a few, he'd take it all out... and start all over again. Tedious, repetitive, but better than not doing something, letting his mind wander, or sleeping. A smirk flashed across his face at Weingarten's mention of a photo. Even though mortal technology basically screamed "hey monster, come and get me!", Edmund wouldn't put it past some of camp's sticky fingers to smuggle a camera or two in. They'd probably sell it in the Legion's version of the black market. Wherever that was. "Just the thing to black mail us with," he scoffed sarcastically. Seriously, he couldn't imagine anyone around here singing except for people who worked in the infirmary (aka the Apollo kids and McKinnon).

Training had also become one of his many tools for distraction. Being in the first cohort and their rigorous training regime, he couldn't afford to get distracted. If someone got distracted during one of Jolly and Petty's training drills, they were toast. Either that, or the person would be cut, bruised, possibly broken boned, and would have one (or both of them) of them yelling at them. Not pleasant, but he had kind of grown up with it. Used to it. Just like everything else. People adapted and rebounded, especially demigods. They had to. Besides, the first cohort had been through forty eight hour drills and survived: himself being one of them. If that wasn't all about adaptability, stamina and willpower, he didn't know what was. Cue him still questioning how on earth and Mount Orthys he had gotten into first, but whatever. He was there with a strict schedule... which in retrospect was pretty useful for keeping him preoccupied. Did he wish he had a bit more down time? Sometimes yes, but down time for forging, not for leisure. Gods knew that Jolly gave him enough armor and swords to fix and that the armory and forge would always be a mess.

He looked up as Weingarten started sharing her idea about the bed. Edmund raised his eyebrows slightly. Squishable mattress? How would that even effect the size of the bench? Unless it was able to double fold onto itself and become a bed from there. In that case, it would be a really thick work bench. He gave a slight shrug. "Nah... not impossible. Some aspects could work." Question was, if he became serious enough about it, would he have to entirely remake a work bench, or could he possibly modify his own? Eh, project with potential to be added to the books later. He looked over at her at her next question. "Well, my way I get a sort of, know," he said, tilting his head slightly. Edmund honestly hadn't tapped into that part of his technokesis before creating Metal Bird. Well, he supposed he had at one point or another during his childhood since he remembered Em freaking out about him deconstructing and reconstructing her computer. "I dunno," he muttered with a semi shrug. It was like that "did you have to learn how to forge?" question she had asked him when they had first met. He took a chip and looked at it closely, "I suppose you could tell by the number of transistors, ports, and letterings."

OOC: lol yay ^^
IC: 686

[Deleted]

Felicity smiled and shook her head slightly. She wasn't one to blackmail, well not usually. There was one time when she had to force a camper to give up information and that was the one time she resorted to blackmail. Besides that one time, she was against the idea totally. No, if she took a photo she would willingly give it to all the forge monkeys. Oh there's an idea. Why not photo shop it so that they all look like monkeys. At the thought of the idea of humanoid monkeys singing around a campfire Felicity couldn't help but widen her smile, probably making her look somewhere between ecstatic, or mildly insane. She quickly tuned down the emotion plastered on her face so that it was at a sane level. "Oh yes, I would totally use it as blackmail to..uhm..to make you make more stuff?" Felicity said the sarcastically but then lost any humorous train of thought which gave it a bleak ending.

Felicity smirked. So, her ideas made sense. Okay, parts of it made sense. Edmund said some aspects could work, not all. But, details, who needed them? Just being told that her idea was not all impossible was just a plus in her book. She nodded. Of course, dumb question. Edmund was a son of Vulcan, he just had a knack for this kind of stuff. At least it was something he could fall back on in the real world. The only thing Felicity could do was probably be a mortician. Why check out the dead body with surgery when you could just ask it their cause of death?

As he looked at chip Felicity looked over from where she was standing. Transistors, she had no idea what those were and the only ports she were aware of were ones that ships anchored at. Ah, but lettering, that was something she understood, barely, due to the dyslexia, but it was at least a word she recognized. She reached her hand out to the pile and grabbed a chip, very gingerly, and copying the way that Edmund was holding it. Felicity had no idea who fragile they were. She squinted as she looked at the chip. Chinese had to be easier than this. Besides, where were the lettering at? "I see." Felicity said with a nod, pretending to understand the tiny contraption in her hand. Needless to say she had a even better than before respect for Edmund, make that any forger. To be able to understand that stuff was something to be proud of.

Felicity gingerly set the chip back in the pile, careful not to mess with the others that were there. She wondered how many different chips actually had made up Metal Bird. Did it need only one, or many? She walked over to the workbench were the Metal Bird pieces were and examined them, trying to figure out exactly how many chips had been used with bird. Though, staring at the disembodied pieces she wasn't even sure you could still call it Metal Bird. But, they were original pieces still there so part of Metal Bird had to be there too, right? Felicity waited for Edmund to return with the pieces he needed. Meanwhile Felicity just stared at the pieces, remembering all the fun times she had with that bird, despite many people hating the piece of metal. After all, that piece of metal was part of her family.

outfit: camp stuff
words: 611
notes: muse started to die near the end. Sorry.

[Deleted]

credit to my-teen-quote.tumblr.com

Edmund couldn't say that he had ever been blackmailed. He had heard about it and all, but he didn't think he had ever done anything that was worth using against him in a blackmail. What did he do? He was either training or making things in the forge. Someone could possibly use juggling against him, but Edmund didn't exactly care. He didn't care what anyone thought about him anymore. Ed would be Ed, and that was going to be the end of it; no reason to be ashamed in what he did. If it made him distracted from his mind, that was all he cared about. When he looked up as Felicity started to talk, the look on her face was a cross between insane and overly excited, but her voice was somewhere between teasing and sarcastic. Mixed signals. Right there. Exactly the reason why Edmund didn't do anything with his face or voice. The person who he was talking to would probably be intelligent enough to guess what he as getting at. Granted, he may have been giving them more credit than they deserved, but whatever. It was all up to interpretation. A smirk flickered across his face. "Workable," he said with a semi teasing scoff.

Weingarten was probably more creative than she gave herself credit for. She had been the source of at least two things on his worktable: one of them being the metal bird, two being the little car with a rhyming monkey (which was still under construction; Ed still needed to work on programing the thing to only speak in rhymes); maybe a third could be a workbench convertible to bed. How could that work... Edmund looked at the floor under his work bench. Maybe the work bench could flip around with a bed via switch or something. Dig out the floor underneath him and th- no wait. If it flipped underneath, everything on his bench would have to be nailed on. Hm. Or maybe he could make one of his draws pull out to become a bed, and then he could make it so he could close it; maybe modify his desk to have an extendable back while still being physically the same dimensions? It could have air holes, but the bed wouldn't be visible.. it'd just look like the work bench. He would feel like he was in a casket... but it would give him peace and quiet since no one would see him. Kind of morbid, but hey, this was Edmund. That idea would probably fester for a while... he'd have time to work something out... maybe.

He looked at the chip, tilting his head; Weingarten had made him think again: how did he know? Did he really have to learn? He honestly didn't know. It was a weird combination of semi learning how to bring things together, along with going with his gut and knowledge that he some how knew without knowing how he knew. Just... weird demigod power things. His parents had been freaked (he remembered that random snippet about them; deconstructing and then reconstructing technology had been a calming past time to him), but at least they hadn't outed him for being a freak, unlike the people in his school. Seriously, he fixed a computer, and from the looks he had gotten, he'd thought that he had just come in from a different planet. He watched her inspect the chip, squinting at it. Dyslexia probably didn't help distinguishing letters. After a few moments of locating chips, Edmund came back to the table. Weingarten was staring at the pieces. "We'll get it back," he told her with his usual voice. "And put whoever did it under a 48 or worse drill."

OOC: np np <3
IC: 624

[Deleted]

Felicity smirked at the idea of putting someone underneath a drill, but, how bad was a forty-eight drill? She really needed to research more on forge stuff in order to understand Edmund. Or, she could just nod pretending to understand. Besides, she could always look it up later, or not. "I was thinking of just dropping them into Tartarus. Just drag them through a shadow and leave them down their to suffer for eternity." She stated with a shrug. "But then again, your idea doesn't sound too bad either. More humane probably, but still, not a bad idea."

Felicity ran the list of potential suspects in her head again. Who would have the guts to actually do this? Perhaps people have thought Felicity had gone soft, she had been trying to keep a lid on her powers at times, unless it was to shadow travel. If people were thinking she was easy to mess with then it was probably time to open the lid again. Establish some real fear into people. A slight evil smirk ran across her face before she made it go away. What was wrong with her? Lately she had been thinking more and more of letting her powers run more, she was probably just annoyed at keeping them locked up for a year. It was more than likely a phase, it would probably pass before any harm could be done. Suddenly her mind wondered to a thought, could the gods have done this? She shook her head slightly, no they probably wouldn't have to break into the barracks or use acid. Still, there was that nagging possibility. The only people she could trust to have not done it were her and Edmund.

She glared at the pieces slightly. Right, they would get it back, but it would never be the original version. Something was better than nothing though. Felicity would just have to adapt, overcome, and improvise with the newer version. She had the motivation to be its friend again, heck, she loved everything Ed made. "Well, with you working on it I doubt it would turn out bad." Edmund might not have been one to receive compliments but Felicity was one to hand them out, whether or not the individual wanted the compliment.

outfit: camp stuff
words: 419
notes: hmm...I like adding some foreboding XD Also, sorry for the shortness

[Deleted]

credit to my-teen-quote.tumblr.com

So maybe if the perpetrator was in the first cohort, a 48 hour drill wouldn't be so bad. They would have been conditioned to it, unless he or she was new. Truthfully, the he first time Edmund had been ordered to do one, he thought he was going to die. It was so long and draining and just... hard, but he hadn't given up on it or complained. Now? He could do them easily, stamina wise. It was just like his sleeping patterns or anything really; rough the first few times around and then the body got used to it. Edmund got used to it. All it did was prove that he could function fine on zero hours of sleep if he had to; three was almost like a luxury. A slight smirk flickered onto the seventeen year old's face as Weingarten proposed her idea. "Yours isn't too bad either." Based on how much Weingarten seemed to love the bird, he wouldn't put it past her.

As he began trying to reconfigure all the new wires that were going to make up the "muscles" of Metal Bird, Edmund's mind went to who they could possibly track down. Okay, fine. He was a bit miffed that someone would destroy this. (A) it had been his first automation (B) it had been a gift, kinda (C) it was technically Weingarten's [your idea, your invention] (D) he had spent a lot of time trying to make it. Edmund wasn't trying too hard to have complaining thoughts about it, he honestly didn't mind remaking it, but he just thought it was kind of low for someone to go destroying something that he had worked hard on for someone else. Ah well, he supposed that was one of the potential hazards of creating a bird that semi took on Edmund's personality. It had the potential to annoy, have enemies, and to attack for gods sakes. Of course, the person could have done it just to get even with either Weingarten or himself. They both probably had accumulated a good number of enemies at camp over the years. Who didn't? On Edmund's list it could go from Warlow (who he knew hated the bird), Petty (who could have easily gotten annoyed with it), Jolly (but she seemed to kind of like it), Kyoto (who was on their mutual enemy list), and of course, even the gods.

Edmund looked at all the computer chips and started rummaging through one of the boxes to try to find a circuit board or something that he could use to connect all of them again. He'd have to try finding a couple of them incase this ever happened again. "Right," he muttered, loosely placing a few of the chips and then connecting a wire between them. It almost reminded him of grammar school: that stupid circuit project they always had kids do. Edmund, of course, was on his own for it (no one ever wanted to be partners with him), but he had gotten his done first... and had even elaborated on it a bit.

OOC: Np np!! <3
IC: 527

[Deleted]

As Felicity watched Ed work on the wires she let her mind wander. Did Ed care that the bird was destroyed? He didn't seem like one to be attached to anything, but then again he had put energy into it. It would make sense if he was slightly annoyed or angry about this ordeal. Then again, he could just be annoyed that he had to rebuild the metal bird. Was Felicity being a nuisance by making him rebuild it? No, he was willingly fixing it so that must mean it was okay. Or he was fixing it because she was still there. Should she leave and let him focus on the work? But she was curious about what made it work and then if she had a slight idea maybe she could be the one to fix it, or at least help so that he didn't have to do all the work himself. She could attach a wire or something, once she figured it out of course. Speaking of which she was suppose to be paying attention, so Ed working on the bird had half of her attention, stupid brain always running wild.

Then the computer chips into some weird board looking object. Felicity doubted that if she asked Ed to explain in detail every single step she would be able to understand what was going on. Still, Felicity tried to figure it out as she watched. Hopefully Ed didn't find her annoying that she was watching. Though she did have a question. "That wire the you use to connect the different chips, is that to connect the information together? Like how a brain uses electron pulses to communicate?" Felicity asked curiously, hoping to not sound like an idiot.

She had learned a bit about how the brain works. Felicity had looked it up a few years back on one of her curious treks into the library in the college in New Rome. Once she grabbed a book concerning the brain her eyes almost glazed over because it was boring, but eventually she got a summary of basically how the brain works, at least to how modern scientist see how the brain works. Apparently its the one part of the body that still boggles scientists. Between dreams, memorys, and everything else they have no idea what to make of it. If Felicity was a kid of Apollo and had any medical skills she might have ventured to study the brain more but that job just sounded to boring to her. Who would want to sit at a desk analyzing pictures and charts of brain waves?

Actually, what was Eds plans after the legion? Granted, Felicity didn't know either at the moment but maybe Ed had something figured out. "We only have three years left right? What do you plan to do after those are up?" Felicity asked. She supposed most campers would make it a priority to see their family first, that is if they had them, and if they lived outside of New Rome. Felicity still had a family, but they weren't close. Heck, she had two half-siblings who didn't even know that Felicity existed. It would be too awkward for Felicity to just show up after ten years and expect to fit in. As far as she was concerned she had no real family waiting for her outside of camp.

outfit: camp stuff
words: 594
notes: Muse

[Deleted]

credit to my-teen-quote.tumblr.com

Edmund? Annoyed? Pft. Always. The one million drachma question was: why? Well, that was for him to know and for others to just... not. If they were stupid enough to nose in, they'd better prepare for something "accidentally" colliding with their head or face. His reasons. His business. No one else's. The end. It was like the stupid file room in the princpia. Why the heck did the Legion have to have it? What a person wanted to tell and keep hidden was up to them. Having a technically public file room kind of defeated that purpose. There were just some things that people would rather keep to themselves about. Em and the psychiatrists never seemed to understand that. It was kind of a given that he'd turn to inanimate objects since trying to identify/stay sane with people never worked out. Things were constant and could always be repaired if something went wrong. For objects, Edmund could do whatever he'd have to in order to make it right. As for people, they were complicated, always changing, and not easily repairable. Nothing he could really do in the useful department.

Computer brains he could work. Human brains? Nope. Edmund looked up at the female demigod as she started asking something. "Correct," he nodded slightly, continuing to connect the computer chips and wires into the circuit board. It was, in reality, a bunch of 1s and 0s just transferring information from chip to chip in milliseconds. He had started to learn that as soon as he had started collecting the chips. Which ones could be coded with voice patterns, voice recognition, memory, radio waves, and so on and so forth. All that great technological stuff that he learned, quite literally, when he put his hand on the chip. Powers that had gotten him into trouble in the mortal world but helped him here at the Legion. At least here he could be a centimeter of a smidge useful. Yet still, anyone else in the forge could easily do it as well or better than him. After a second of connecting chips, he looked back over at his notebook. Okay, maybe he did need to get a little bit neater; at least to the point where he could read it himself. Edmund didn't necessarily rely on the notebook for his inventions, but rather, it was nice to have a resource to go back to if he ever forgot or wanted to double check something. Then again, in part, the messiness could be good. No one would be able understand it.

The art of understanding wasn't one of Ed's gifts. He had few to begin with, but at the bottom had to be "sociability", "understanding" and, well, a lot of positive aspects. Understanding things: sure. Understanding people: not so much. Unfortunately he'd be surrounded by people until the day he died, unless he came up with a way to avoid that. Edmund gave a slight nod, clarifying that they (or at least he) had three more years at the Legion. After that, he gave a slight shrug. "Dunno yet." Maybe he could go off into the forest, make himself a wood cabin and live in isolation for the rest of his life. It kind of sounded appealing. He really had no where to go after Legion. No family waiting for him or anything, so he supposed he could just take his sweet time. Maybe he should just stay in the Legion until they kicked him out (which, by his attitude, could be any day after turning twenty). Here he at least knew that he'd have things to preoccupy his mind, a bed, and food. Things that he deserved? No, but they were necessary to living, even though he knew that he was pretty much a waste of space.

OOC: Ed decided to end depressingly >.>
IC: 644

[Deleted]

Felicity grinned when her assumption was proven correct. Even if forging or computer chip working wasn't her strong suit she was good at perceiving things and trying to figure out the problem. She used to do that with people when she first entered the legion. Felicity wanted to figure out how these Romans worked. Eventually she gave up trying to figure them out. They all seemed too complex and all seemed to have something hidden away from the rest of the world. Trying to figure them out had just been too tiring. Lares were simpler to talk to. They were already dead and had no reason to keep stuff hidden away. They had already been judges and it was all in the past. Of course, ever since Felicity became a centurion she had to talk to more living people, which has probably helped her more in the long run.

She nodded at Edmunds one worded reply. It was common for most people in the legion to not know what to do after living in the legion. For the past ten years they had done nothing but learn how to fight. For all that to just stop after a decade, it probably seemed strange. Sure, some people could re-adapt into a normal lifestyle, well about as normal as it could get.

Felicity wondered what normal even was. Was it her finding someone to marry and raising kids? That just didn't seem like something appealing or something Felicity would actually do. Maybe it was because she still a teenager. Besides, who knows what surprises could await her tomorrow, which spur of the moment trip outside of camp would be her last. You never know when you could encounter a monster who will defeat you. No matter how hard all the legionnaires train, eventually everyone of them will die.

She glanced down the the project currently in progress. Felicity couldn't stay here and watch Edmund the entire time. He probably needed to concentrate and would probably do it better without Felicity watching and asking random questions. She looked at Edmund, studying him for a quick moment. "Well, I better run off. Centurion duties are calling. Thanks again for taking this on. I'm sure MB appreciates it too, even if he can't speak for himself at the moment." Felicity said with a smile. Even though it was getting a complete mind wipe it was probably still thankful to its creator for fixing him. Felicity headed to the forge door and opened it, adding more light to the dark forge. She looked back into the forge. "Don't work too hard. No rush, take some breaks once in awhile." Felicity said as she exited and headed towards the barracks. Why did it seem that everyone Felicity knew worked so hard? Hasn't anyone ever heard of breaks before? Well, maybe that was why Felicity was in the fourth cohort.

outfit: camp stuff
words: 513
notes: