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31_days2011-07-02 01:41 pm
treeflamingo.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2011-07-02 01:41 pm
[July 1] [Original] When The Known And the Unknown Swap Places
Title: When The Known And the Unknown Swap Places
Day/Theme: July 1/Doused his flame of rebellion
Series: Original
Character(s): Ferram, Laylien
Rating: K+
A/N: Part of a long story I've been working on sporadically which is tentatively named The Middle Wars. Also, it's already July 2 where I am, but hopefully it's still July 1 where the mods are?
Ferram rounded a corner in the fifth-year study hall and was surprised when he was confronted by a hunched back and piles of books dominating the nearest table. There had been no sound to warn him of the presence of a person. He was surprised, and a little annoyed. He hated being in the study hall. He couldn’t think in empty, closed-box rooms like that. When he studied for anything – which admittedly was not very often – he went to his Mechanic’s place and listened to the whirring, clanking, popping sounds of activity. It helped him concentrate. He was only here because Tom had said she’d let him copy her homework, and she preferred to study in the school study hall. He couldn’t figure why. Just being here – in a hive of rooms all characterized by hush, inert lines, boring old digital Libraries and the ancient intimidation of wood-made books – made him uncomfortable. The unnecessarily silent boy at the table wasn’t helping.
When he recognized who it was, the surprise disappeared, but the irritation heightened. Laylien. Made of meat and not enough metal, preferring study to action, trained in Analog fighting techniques and nothing else, possessing precisely no firepower, barely qualified to be called a Mechanical, Laylien. Pale-skin arm sliding silently across paper, pen wedged between imprecise human fingers, eyes trained on the dumb ink of a wood-paper book so old and low-fi it probably couldn’t even read to you, completely unaware that Ferram had appeared, eternally defenseless, Laylien. Inexplicably, the favorite of the tiny but powerful, the exceptional Den, the model student of their entire year, Laylien. Ferram had known him since they were five years old – nearly ten years now – and he could not remember a time when he did not hate him.
He should slip away and find Tom, give him a beating together. It’d been far too long since they’d had the chance – years it had been. He deserved it, for letting his guard down.
Laylien flipped a page of the book he was reading. His right hand continued moving the pen across the paper. He twitched the wood-paper of the book with the fingers of his left hand. His eyes were on the book. Ferram felt his temper rise and did nothing to stop it.
“What do you want, Ferram?” The question was so unexpected that Ferram jumped a little. “If you’re looking for Tom, she’s over in the southwest corner. Head through that left door.” He indicated with a slight nod of his head a door on the other side of the little room. “It’s an unbroken corridor. It’ll run you all the way down to the south wall. Otherwise you’re just distracting me.”
Ferram was angry, and embarrassed. “H-how – ” he started, but Laylien wouldn’t let him finish.
“Even your breathing is loud,” he said, eyes still on the wood-paper book. “And that left knee joint is horrible. I hope you didn’t pay for it.”
“It’s just a temporary one. I’m getting my 15-year improvement in three months.” He was torn between an infuriating, burning desire to know how Laylien could tell about his new, ill-fitting knee joint, and an even more infuriating need to defend himself.
“It’s poorly installed.”
“I’m still growing!”
“That doesn’t mean your Mechanic didn’t botch it up.”
Ferram’s patience was a short affair in the first place; Laylien had the special skill of wearing it away uncommonly fast. Ferram took one step forward to take physical vengeance on him when Laylien stood up, sudden, silent, swift. He grabbed a little multitool from under the wood-paper book that he hadn’t once taken his eyes off of during their whole conversation – Ferram saw it flash and spin in Laylien’s hand – and turned to face him. He made no eye contact. Ferram had enough time to process that Laylien was taller and broader, probably more heavily muscled, before the boy was crouching on the floor at his feet and holding the left leg of his loose pants up above the knee, the multitool prodding and poking with tinkering noises into his bad joint.
“The hell – !”
Laylien brought his other hand over to brace the interior side of the joint, putting heavy pressure on it to move in a direction that it was in no way built to move. The dark fabric of his pants were bunched up above Laylien’s knuckles so that Ferram couldn’t see what the fingers were doing. He registered that he was scared, and then he registered that his knee joint has been completely stalled. He froze. His knee was rigid-straight – the tip of the slim patella plate was pinched between the dense meniscus pad and the more pliable articulator bearing with the patella plate was meant to protect. The plate was encroaching on the space occupied by the anterior cruciate ribbon, and the displacement was acutely uncomfortable. In truth this happened quite a lot – that’s why he knew exactly what was happening; he’d asked his Mechanic about it – but for some reason it was much more painful when somebody else was doing it on purpose. To make it worse, the back of his knee felt curiously absent – it was a good thing he’d already developed the habit of not putting weight on his left leg when standing, because he probably would have crumpled otherwise. He was afraid the posterior cruciate ribbon had come unattached, or maybe the lateral tapes. He couldn’t feel anything but pain and fragility in his whole knee, and his fear was mounting. He’d beaten and bullied Laylien their entire school career because Laylien was too weak to fight back – it was that very weakness that made Ferram hate him so much. And now Laylien was using his own unfinished improvements to get revenge? Ferram clenched his fists.
Then the multitool whirred loudly and there was a pop-slide-lock from his knee. He yelped and jumped back, clutching at his knee which, as the searing flash began to fade, felt strangely sound. Ferram looked up at Laylien, who had backed against his chair and was leaning against it, twirling the multitool in his fingers.
“Stand up straight,” he said, and Ferram did as he was told, more out of reflex than obedience. “Step towards me.” Ferram surprised himself by doing so. The motion was easy, easier than it had been for many weeks. His knee made neither noise nor complaint. The parts fit perfectly against each other. “That’ll fix it,” said Laylien, and, turning, resumed his seat.
Ferram stared for a moment at the multitool, sitting still now on the opposite page of the wood-paper book that Laylien was, once again, concentrating all his attention on. The left fingers returned to their fiddling, and the paper soon glowed again as the right hand moved a pen across it.
“You–” he started, but then he realized that he didn’t know what he wanted to say. He watched Laylien’s broad, muscled, metalless back for another moment before leaving through the far left door.
Day/Theme: July 1/Doused his flame of rebellion
Series: Original
Character(s): Ferram, Laylien
Rating: K+
A/N: Part of a long story I've been working on sporadically which is tentatively named The Middle Wars. Also, it's already July 2 where I am, but hopefully it's still July 1 where the mods are?
Ferram rounded a corner in the fifth-year study hall and was surprised when he was confronted by a hunched back and piles of books dominating the nearest table. There had been no sound to warn him of the presence of a person. He was surprised, and a little annoyed. He hated being in the study hall. He couldn’t think in empty, closed-box rooms like that. When he studied for anything – which admittedly was not very often – he went to his Mechanic’s place and listened to the whirring, clanking, popping sounds of activity. It helped him concentrate. He was only here because Tom had said she’d let him copy her homework, and she preferred to study in the school study hall. He couldn’t figure why. Just being here – in a hive of rooms all characterized by hush, inert lines, boring old digital Libraries and the ancient intimidation of wood-made books – made him uncomfortable. The unnecessarily silent boy at the table wasn’t helping.
When he recognized who it was, the surprise disappeared, but the irritation heightened. Laylien. Made of meat and not enough metal, preferring study to action, trained in Analog fighting techniques and nothing else, possessing precisely no firepower, barely qualified to be called a Mechanical, Laylien. Pale-skin arm sliding silently across paper, pen wedged between imprecise human fingers, eyes trained on the dumb ink of a wood-paper book so old and low-fi it probably couldn’t even read to you, completely unaware that Ferram had appeared, eternally defenseless, Laylien. Inexplicably, the favorite of the tiny but powerful, the exceptional Den, the model student of their entire year, Laylien. Ferram had known him since they were five years old – nearly ten years now – and he could not remember a time when he did not hate him.
He should slip away and find Tom, give him a beating together. It’d been far too long since they’d had the chance – years it had been. He deserved it, for letting his guard down.
Laylien flipped a page of the book he was reading. His right hand continued moving the pen across the paper. He twitched the wood-paper of the book with the fingers of his left hand. His eyes were on the book. Ferram felt his temper rise and did nothing to stop it.
“What do you want, Ferram?” The question was so unexpected that Ferram jumped a little. “If you’re looking for Tom, she’s over in the southwest corner. Head through that left door.” He indicated with a slight nod of his head a door on the other side of the little room. “It’s an unbroken corridor. It’ll run you all the way down to the south wall. Otherwise you’re just distracting me.”
Ferram was angry, and embarrassed. “H-how – ” he started, but Laylien wouldn’t let him finish.
“Even your breathing is loud,” he said, eyes still on the wood-paper book. “And that left knee joint is horrible. I hope you didn’t pay for it.”
“It’s just a temporary one. I’m getting my 15-year improvement in three months.” He was torn between an infuriating, burning desire to know how Laylien could tell about his new, ill-fitting knee joint, and an even more infuriating need to defend himself.
“It’s poorly installed.”
“I’m still growing!”
“That doesn’t mean your Mechanic didn’t botch it up.”
Ferram’s patience was a short affair in the first place; Laylien had the special skill of wearing it away uncommonly fast. Ferram took one step forward to take physical vengeance on him when Laylien stood up, sudden, silent, swift. He grabbed a little multitool from under the wood-paper book that he hadn’t once taken his eyes off of during their whole conversation – Ferram saw it flash and spin in Laylien’s hand – and turned to face him. He made no eye contact. Ferram had enough time to process that Laylien was taller and broader, probably more heavily muscled, before the boy was crouching on the floor at his feet and holding the left leg of his loose pants up above the knee, the multitool prodding and poking with tinkering noises into his bad joint.
“The hell – !”
Laylien brought his other hand over to brace the interior side of the joint, putting heavy pressure on it to move in a direction that it was in no way built to move. The dark fabric of his pants were bunched up above Laylien’s knuckles so that Ferram couldn’t see what the fingers were doing. He registered that he was scared, and then he registered that his knee joint has been completely stalled. He froze. His knee was rigid-straight – the tip of the slim patella plate was pinched between the dense meniscus pad and the more pliable articulator bearing with the patella plate was meant to protect. The plate was encroaching on the space occupied by the anterior cruciate ribbon, and the displacement was acutely uncomfortable. In truth this happened quite a lot – that’s why he knew exactly what was happening; he’d asked his Mechanic about it – but for some reason it was much more painful when somebody else was doing it on purpose. To make it worse, the back of his knee felt curiously absent – it was a good thing he’d already developed the habit of not putting weight on his left leg when standing, because he probably would have crumpled otherwise. He was afraid the posterior cruciate ribbon had come unattached, or maybe the lateral tapes. He couldn’t feel anything but pain and fragility in his whole knee, and his fear was mounting. He’d beaten and bullied Laylien their entire school career because Laylien was too weak to fight back – it was that very weakness that made Ferram hate him so much. And now Laylien was using his own unfinished improvements to get revenge? Ferram clenched his fists.
Then the multitool whirred loudly and there was a pop-slide-lock from his knee. He yelped and jumped back, clutching at his knee which, as the searing flash began to fade, felt strangely sound. Ferram looked up at Laylien, who had backed against his chair and was leaning against it, twirling the multitool in his fingers.
“Stand up straight,” he said, and Ferram did as he was told, more out of reflex than obedience. “Step towards me.” Ferram surprised himself by doing so. The motion was easy, easier than it had been for many weeks. His knee made neither noise nor complaint. The parts fit perfectly against each other. “That’ll fix it,” said Laylien, and, turning, resumed his seat.
Ferram stared for a moment at the multitool, sitting still now on the opposite page of the wood-paper book that Laylien was, once again, concentrating all his attention on. The left fingers returned to their fiddling, and the paper soon glowed again as the right hand moved a pen across it.
“You–” he started, but then he realized that he didn’t know what he wanted to say. He watched Laylien’s broad, muscled, metalless back for another moment before leaving through the far left door.