voidtreckerexpress | This and that

Entry tags:

This and that

Who: Samata Mahto, Tony Stark, and you know whoever else is around
What: Various
When: Day after the party
Where: The Train

-1. Hangover-

Samata stumbled blearily into the kitchen train long after breakfast had been served with bags under her bloodshot eyes and awkwardly started searching for ingredients for tea. Her mission was complicated by absence of her left arm. The sleeve of her polo was completely empty.

-2. Meetings (For Tony)-

Later, when she felt and looked more human and had reattached the missing arm, Samata looked through the passenger roster (which involved about ten minutes of struggling to use the computer system), asked several people, and eventually hunted down one Tony Stark. He had been mentioned by several people as someone to talk to. Someone who knew something about technology, who was the leader of the red team, who was the leader of the whole band of travelers on the train, and who had his own workshop.

Samata interrupted whatever Tony was up to with a polite "Excuse me," when it looked like it was a good time to do so.

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It is not so early a morning for Thor, and he is already there, making breakfast, following a recipe in a book. and as the woman stumbles in, he grins at her.

"Good morning!" what is quiet and what is a hangover? Sorry, Samata. Say hello to the cheerful one.

At least he does have tea brewing?

And food, and something vaguely like coffee, that may be stronger than anything that was ever known to man.

Samata winced slightly at the sudden loud sound, but managed to mumble out a "'morning." in response. She drifted over, drawn by the smell of food and drink (though her stomach rumbled warningly. No more of what you did last night!)

"Is that tea?" She asked, blinking. Then with slightly more interest, "Is that coffee?"

Edited 2020-03-08 06:45 (UTC)

"That one is tea, yes, black and strong." His finger pointed, then moved to the other pot, and pointed again. "That one over there, is coffee, also black and strong." He nodded.

"Help yourself, my friend, the first round of breakfast should be done within the half-hour."

Sooner really, but Thor wants to be cautious and not mess up the recipe. Thor is enjoying this cooking thing and does not want to be kicked off the job yet.

After a moment's hesitation, Samata reached for the coffee and poured herself a cup. "Thank you. It's hard to get coffee back home."

Thor bobbed his head. "You're welcome. I was shown where it was by another, but I am glad to make some. I am fond of the drink myself."

Thor approved of any drinking of coffee. It was almost as good as Ambrosia.

She took a sip and winced, then stared down into the cup. "That's some strong coffee. Just the fumes would be enough to wake you up!"

Thor blinked at her, worried.

"Is it? I thought I was maybe making it a little weak. I apologize. I am not used to Midgardian systems. I will have to try to make it less strong."

He nodded.

"Still drinkable." Samata said as she kept sipping at the too strong coffee, albeit more carefully.

"I'm still trying to attach names to faces, but I don't think we've met. I'm Samata Mahto."

Thor smiled at her words, and nodded as he kept watch over the food.

"I am Thor, called Odinson, of Asgard. Well met, Samata Mahto." His repeat of her name was, while in his voice, in perfect inflection of how she spoke it, accent for accent.

"Pleased to meet you."

He seemed very polite, and she approved of anyone who took the time to pronounce someone's name right. It took her a moment to make the connection, but when it did her heart fell very slightly. "Would I be correct in assuming that you are related to Loki somehow?"

"Yes. Loki is my brother." That Loki was alive made Thor's face light up in a smile, bright and warm.

"I am very glad my brother is here. He will likely aid us in doing whatever needs to be done." He nodded, sure of it. Loki was a warrior wizard that made Thor proud.

Edited 2020-03-10 21:28 (UTC)

"Has he always been so..."

Aggravating? Infuriating? Smug? Full of himself? She searched for a way to say it in front of his brother who was clearly close to him.

"...sarcastic?"

Edited 2020-03-11 06:12 (UTC)

Thor glanced at her, listening, then chuckled.

"Hmmm? Yes. He likes to comment on things, and he has a good humor." Thor smiled fondly.

"He and I do not always agree on his words or actions, but he does not mean badly." Or so Thor believed.

"He does seem to find my situation funny."

What do you do when an attractive man serves you coffee? Flirt? No don't be ridiculous, you ply him for information. "He said he was a god. You're not actually gods, are you?"

It wasn't quite a workshop, more like a work shoe box in terms of size. It was one of the quiet rooms with a strange lock on the door, black painted glass in an attempt for some privacy, and far too much clutter inside. However, right now the door was open and the bench across from the one he was currently occupying was cleaned off for someone who might come ~~bother~~ visit him. He had several piles of paperwork on his desk and two were filled with math problems. He had a red pen out as he graded.

He looked up when he heard the polite greeting and offered a mildly friendly smile. "Hello. Come in. I don't believe we've met."

"We haven't," she admitted, looking around his makeshift workshop curiously. Tony was talking to an average height Indian looking woman with a mechanical arm. "Samata Mahto. Pleased to meet you."

It really wasn't what she imagined a workshop would look like. She'd been imagining more of a blacksmith's shop than whatever all this stuff was. "I've heard some things about you from the other...passengers? Treckers, I think I heard someone call us? So I thought I'd say hello."

"Nice to meet you," he answered, gesturing to the seat across from him. He didn't get up which would've been the polite thing to do, but.. whatever.

His smile grows hearing that she's heard his reputation. "Treckers, heroes, passengers, abductees.. I think I've heard all of these used but Treckers is likely the best. Ah, and what interesting tidbits are going around about me presently? It's hard to keep track. It really depends on who you're talking to. Sometimes I'm painted as the valiant leader and others I'm a selfish bastard. I can't say I'm not some of each of those."

"I think I could live with being a hero." She actually noted that he didn't get up, out of habit. Proper upbringings are a terrible thing to try to break out of. At the very least she didn't hold it against him, and simply sat down across from him.

"Specifically, they said that you were a self-appointed leader, which I'm not here to debate one way or the other. They ALSO said that you had your own workshop, which I'm assuming this room here is, and that you have an interest in devices, which I share." She patted her prosthetic arm.

"That's what the conductor calls us. If you remember when the train left the station a voice on the intercom warned us about the jump into the Void. We're pretty sure that's some kind of automatic recording and likely more than one might have access to its programming, but a number of us call it the 'conductor' for simplification." That was a lot more than she wanted to know.

He liked her. He could appreciate someone willing to get the lay of the land so to speak. He glanced at the room when she mentioned it with a bit of a sigh. He really, really wished they had room for him to have a bigger workshop. "I thought it would be pushing it if I broke down one of these walls to take over two rooms," he admitted with a chuckle. He would've had another mutiny on his hands and he didn't want that.

His attention turned then to her arm. "How'd you lose it?"

"They didn't ask for OUR opinion on ripping our lives up by the roots," she pointed out, "so I don't see why you feel like you should ask for theirs when remodeling their train."

And then...the arm came up. Or not the arm, since she'd practically paraded it in his face, but the story behind it. "Accident at a party with a drunk sorcerer."

It sounded cagey, but that was honestly the meat of the story. The rest was just setting details.

"Oh no, I didn't mean that. I've ripped up plenty on the train. I was meaning the other passengers. You can't believe how much these people can whine about something like a workspace or office or whatever you want to call it." He still has people almost always coming in here.

"..." Well that was a new one. "Come again?"

"He said he could magic open a bottle of wine but he missed and magicked my arm off instead." She said, curtly. "But I'm a commoner and he's a sorcerer so he got a slap on the wrist for it and I was told in no uncertain terms that I should count myself lucky for surviving and if I pushed the matter I would get in trouble."

Tony listened to the story with a deepening frown on his face. That didn't at all sound good. "Is there any part of your arm left under the arm?" He'd already made one prosthetic arm, he could probably do another. The ear piece had been the difficult part but perhaps Feanor could help him make that again too.

He got up and came a little closer to examine the arm. "Are you in any pain?"

"I only have one shoulder, actually. The whole arm is gone."

The prosthetic was crudely constructed in many ways, as if made by an amateur (which it was). That it moved at all was something of a miracle. But move it did, though the exact power source was unclear. "And it does hurt, sometimes, but having this actually helps a LOT of phantom pain. Plus I can get dressed and tie my shoes and everything without someone to help me, which is always a plus."

He nodded as he heard more information about it and the injury beneath. He frowned hearing it hurt, but it made sense it would be preventing the phantom sensations to have a prosthetic. Straightening, he nodded once more and sat down.

"I've created one of those a couple months ago. I'll get to work on building you a new arm. I might need to use that original piece as a frame. Are you able to function without it or do I need to do all the work with it still attached?"

You were expecting him to jump at the chance to build this, right?

She hadn't, actually. "What?"

Samata bristled slightly at the implication she couldn't do it herself. "No I didn't come here to ask for you to make me a new arm. I HAVE an arm, and plans for a more sophisticated version of this I'll have you know! I actually came here hoping to get access to somewhere I could make one myself!"

Tony was taken back by her reaction. He'd merely assumed given how everyone else brought their problems to him to fix around here. Either that or they came asking him to spend his train points on something they couldn't afford or didn't want but knew the train needed. As refreshing as it was to see someone wasn't doing that, it still caught him off guard.

"Erm, yeah, you do have one." Give him a second to catch up here. "You're welcome to work in here if you'd like my help or I can help you get set up in the luggage room too. Some of those suitcases are surprisingly sturdy and make for good workbenches."

She relaxed, some what mollified by his response. "Thank you, Monsieur Stark."

"The main thing I need is tools. And silver. I heard there was a workshop and I have to admit I was expecting something a bit more like a blacksmith's shop." She said, trying not to sound like she was disappointed or that it was Tony's fault. She WAS disappointed, but it wasn't his fault. He was just working with the tools available. "So this might take a while."

"That would be extremely helpful to have on board, but unfortunately there isn't a forge of some kind. I have a limited amount of steel we can use, but no silver either." He mulled over that for a few moments. He was well aware this set up wasn't ideal.

"Do you have your plans written down somewhere? I'd like to see what your ideas are." Even if he can't build it for her, he wanted to help somehow.

"Yes, I figured. It seems like space is at something of a premium around here." She conceded.

"I do!" Samata exclaimed as she pulled off her rucksack. It was the ONLY thing she had that she actually thought of as hers. A moment's digging rewarded her with a large, leatherbound book that was half filled with Samata's small, neat handwriting. It took a bit of flipping back and forth through it, but eventually she found it and showed the page to him. "There are still a few steps I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do yet, but this version will actually have five fingers, weigh about a third less, and be able to feel hot and cold. A major step up once I can get the parts for it!"

That sure was a diagram of a mechanical arm, though the technically specs looked more like something you might see out of one of Dr. Strange's texts than a robotics manual.

He leaned closer so he could view the design better. He examined it carefully for a few long minutes before pointing at a couple spots to ask for more detail on. "How are you going to achieve the sensitivity to temperature? Are you wanting that to have a limit too so you can touch things that you normally wouldn't be able to do to the heat?"

If he understood some of those magical components he'd be of more help. "You should show this design to Feanor. He's skilled at magic as well as mechanics so would be able to give you more insight there."

A younger Tony Stark might have balked at the idea of suggesting she get help elsewhere, but he'd long proven his worth. Even on this train, he knew he had secured his position of importance.

"Samata, you're smart. This is good work."

Nita isn't in as bad a shape, but for being her first hangover she's still pretty wiped.

But she'd tagged along anyway, since tea sounded like a good idea. Surely they'd be able to scrounge that up if they worked together?

"... I think you forgot something," Nita remarked, attempting to whisper, staring at the empty sleeve.

"Mm?"

Samata checked to make sure she was actually dressed. Admittedly, the idea of "dressed" around here was a bit different from home, but as far as she could tell she had all the right bits on. A vest or long sleeved shirt would have made her feel better, but one adapts to the local customs as best as one can.

"What's that?"

Edited 2020-03-08 15:06 (UTC)

"Your arm."

Nita said, without further beating-around-the-bush.

"Or, your built-arm."

The clothes were present, at least, which was still a good thing.

"Oh."

She stopped worrying and resumed trudging towards the kitchen.

"'S heavy. I'll get it later."

"Better to handle it when we're more awake?"

That's as best as Nita can reason it right now.

"I guess it wouldn't be good to drop it..."

Though, wouldn't it be worse to drop the tea?

"Well, yes."

She hesitated, before continuing, forcing herself to wake up a bit more. "It's uncomfortable to wear. I got used to it pretty quick and having a second arm is always useful, but there's always a few minutes before the straps fade into the background that I don't look forwards to. It affects my center of balance a bit, it's heavy, and if I'm not careful to keep it dry it can rust, which isn't something I feel up to while hungover and making tea."

Nita herself isn't awake enough yet to have suggestions (let alone practical ones - ways to make the arm feel more natural, take away its vulnerability to rust and so on), but her response was one of more tact this time.

"I'm sorry. For, well, reminding you of all that."

For a few moments there was still silence, then, "You like it dark or sweetened? I think I can still remember where the flavors are."

Samata, who had had a dozen variations of this conversation in the past, patted Nita on the shoulder. "No harm done. It's something a lot of people don't think about until they suddenly find they have to."

Any harm she had done was more than made up for by offering to make the tea herself and breaking the awkward silence. "A few drops of cream, if we have any, would be lovely."

The shoulder pat wasn't quite reassuring to Nita by itself; Samata's tone put her more at ease.

"That makes sense, yeah."

Some sorts of understanding only came from shared experience, after all.

"And I think we do! Hopefully it's in the fridge, and no one's left it out overnight..."

Could cream spoil? Absolutely. Dry tea leaves, however, could not.

Samata spent a moment taking in the refrigerator. A handy device that would revolutionize the world back home, but it didn't even make the top ten list of strange things she had seen on the train. "Will the wonders never cease..."

It was said in an idle sort of way. She mainly wanted tea. And also to explore some concepts. "So I think you said you were 'chosen' to be a wizard?"

"Careful what you wish for," Nita snarked, but set about getting the ingredients for tea and a kettle boiling as best she could.

"More I stumbled upon my Manual in a library, and I believed enough that the Oath and magic could be real that younger-me thought it was worth risking being wrong."

Speaking of the matter seemed to breathe some life back into her. "I could have walked away, I guess - the point is that we choose to have the power; that's part of what allows anyone to be a wizard. No one's born with magic, or wizardry, at least on the Earth I know."

"So, to boil it down the the absolute simplest form: you found a magic book, and gained intuitive magic of some sort from it?"

Granting someone the use of magic was a feat she'd always thought of as the domain of a god. This was clearly an entirely new paradigm she would have to consider.

"That's the basics. There's a hell of a studying curve, though, because there's always more to learn!"

Nita was neck-deep in the fridge at this point, trying to find the cream; someone had gotten creative in hiding it, maybe...

"And not all wizards get it as a book, either; that's just the most common manifestation of it in my part of the world."

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