[Percival's Lair] There Came a Soft Rustling

[Mr. Blackbird Lore]

Tanuki's confidence was crumbling with each word. She'd not been so vulnerable-- so trapped-- in years. She had bit her lip in a failed attempt to suppress her anger. Now, it quivered faintly. Stop that! she ordered her rebellious body. While the Professor spoke and tinkered, her mind was in overdrive, scanning the room for escape or leverage. She began to unconsciously retreat toward the corner where she had emerged in small, shuffling steps, still scanning for something, anything. But there was nothing.

How is there nothing!?

The click of the box regained her attention, and she spent a moment recalling what he had said. "I don't..." She took a deep breath, trying to still her jaw. "I don't know." Each word struggled under the heft of complex emotions, especially that final admission.

Tears were welling up in her eyes, despite her fiercest efforts to calm herself. "I didn't mean to... I didn't know you lived here. Please don't hurt me."

[Kokuten]

Tanuki's response caused a visible reaction, a shuddered shock, in the Alchemist.

"Ha- He -- hurt you?" sputtered Percival, shaken by what she expected from him. This sort of reaction was becoming more normal, but never to this extent. "No no no no, it's okay. It's okay. I don't know where you've come from, Tanuki, but this isn't that sort of place. The worst I can do is give you a demerit, detention, homework--... Listen now, my workshop is a hazardous space, and you must-- must--... Ah... Um... Oh..."

He looked over his shoulder, waved his hand, and pointed at the containment circuit, "Sokka. Snowball."

From her spot in detention the lightning sprite arced as a bolt into her place. The lights came on, the ceiling unshuttered, the racks below the floor receded, releasing the air from the space below. With the outer lamps turning on, ambient light began to flood in along with the errant glow from the moon through the skylights above.

"Breathe, you're okay," Percival spoke as softly as he could to assuage her and pointed to the way she had entered, "the door is right there, you can go through it at any time. No one is going to hurt you."

[Mr. Blackbird Lore]

Tanuki started edging toward the door even before Percival gave Sokka a command. She was only thinking about keeping her distance. There was no way out and she was trapped and--

--And the shutters lifted. The lights came back on. There was sky above, filtered through a window. She scuttled to the door and slammed the handle hard as she could, expecting resistance or a trap, but knowing it was her best chance.

The door flung open, and she careened, surprised that it had opened at all. She noted with a furtive glance over her shoulder that the Professor hadn't moved at all. In fact, he looked concerned. Confused, possibly. She rubbed her eyes and nose with a sleeve. He seemed to be telling the truth. So what was all that lecture about intruding then?

In the absence of fear, her insatiable curiosity-- the very power that had led her to break in-- now urged her to stay. To ask. To learn. "So..." She looked ready to ask a question, then interrupted herself. "No, wait, hold on."

Then she stepped outside and closed the door.

Knock knock.

[Kokuten]

"Just a second!"

A softer voice than all the others Tanuki had heard before answered her knocks. The handle turned again and the door arced open. In succession, three heads poked out from the edge of the door, one orange, one golden, and one silver.

"Hello!" squeaked the orange faerie, a big, warm smile on her face, "You're back! That was fast. Come in, come in!"

Zippo and Sokka shot the third faerie incredulous looks, but, despite their misgivings, helped open the door to the workshop. They both looked like they had their opinions, but something about the fire sprite kept them from voicing them.

Mr. Caxton had moved to the kettle, and had begun to pour steaming water into a tea-bag laden cup. The professor looked a bit gloomy as he tended to his evening treat, but that seemed to change when he noticed Tanuki at the threshold.

"Ms. Issei. You've come at a good time, I was about to break for tea."

The Alchemist smiled, despite himself and turned to tug down a second cup.

"How can I help you?"

[Mr. Blackbird Lore]

Tanuki had expected to put the Professor off-kilter with this little maneuver (and steal a small break to calm herself). So it was quite the reversal when Jakku merrily answered the door and ushered her into a quiet and inviting room. Professor Caxton was making tea, and being amicable, speaking as if he had expected her- which, really, it made sense. Maybe she was the one still off balance. She sniffed and rubbed her nose with a sleeve as she entered.

This reminded her that she was still in her tanuki onesie pajamas, and dropped the hood hurriedly, mildly embarrassed, though she didn't know why. She loved her suit. She perched on the nearest item to the Professor that was not a chair. It was a comfort move, and one she didn't even realize she was performing as she squatted, butt to heels, hands on her knees, and chin on her hands. Her eyes were transfixed on the tea preparation while her mind raced to find the correct way to voice her questions.

"Umm... Why do you have a super secret laboratory? Because only bad guys usually have a secret lair, and five minutes ago I probably would have said you were a bad guy-- I mean, a villain-- but now I think you're probably not a villain. Is it because you want a safe place? Because that sounds really nice. What's that like?"

Tanuki was discovering that she had a lot to say now that there were people willing to listen. Not all the time, but some of the time was more than the never she had grown accustomed to. And it was nice to hear her own thoughts; it reminded her she wasn't alone anymore.

[Kokuten]

“For a long time, I lived in a deep, dark place. I got used to deep, dark places.”

That cryptic sentence hung in the air as Percival inspected the small collection of teas embedded on the bookshelves. He determined that this late at night, it was unsuitable for someone who needed to sleep to have any of the leaf-based teas. An herbal infusion would have to be the best offering.

A small cup with little blue flowers on it was set in front of Tanuki. The innervator she had perched on would have to do as a chair for now. Mr. Caxton did with one hand what would have been awkward for a person for two to do without. He tugged out a bit of chamomile, set it in an infuser and rested it in her cup, and poured some of the piping hot water into it. Then, he dumped a couple of bags into his own cup and filled it as well.

Then, he grabbed a small hour-glass and turned it over.

“More to the point. I am an alchemist, an aspiring artificer and what you would call a scientist in the mundane world. I have many things I want to do, many projects I want to explore, many things I want to learn.”

His hand aimed at the hulking AXETONNE, “Whether that is how to develop the means to protect your friends...”

Then he wiggled the box he had picked at earlier, “... a method to practice lockpicking without having to buy a bunch of locks…”

Finally, he pointed the box at the large glass container off the center of the workshop that was suddenly occupied with a voluptuous ifrit, “... Or a way to power all your experiments. Consequently, it means that I keep track of a lot of hazardous things that become more hazardous to people who aren’t quite sure what they’ve got their hands on. Honestly, I’m only a mad scientist by reputation, and I use that to mostly discourage prying eyes and hands.”

While staring off at the sky-light, and away from her, he added, “Sorry.”

[Mr. Blackbird Lore]

The hamster that ran Tanuki's curiosity engine was sprinting full tilt while he talked. She inspected the mug, decided she liked it, and had it halfway to her pouch when she remembered what she was doing. The small Japanese girl put it back with a reassuring pat.

She studied the infuser as the older man started tea, her hands miming its contours in the air.

When he gestured to the mecha, she turned and truly saw it for the first time. She tensed to jump, then checked herself.

Instead, her eyes followed Percival's to the lockbox and lit up.

All the while, she started and aborted a half dozen questions in the slightest pauses. The metaphorical hamster had its cheeks chock full of questions.

"Sorry."

The hamster tripped and spun out of control. She blinked, befuddled. "What? Sorry? Sorry for what?" Was this a weird Professor Caxton thing? He hadn't even done anything.

[Kokuten]

"For upsetting you. For frightening you," answered Mr. Caxton, his eyes coming back around to check on the hour glass. There had been notches cut into the glasse, but their meaning was only known to the Alchemist himself. "You were handling the situation rather well, but I think I pushed you a little too hard, and that wasn't my intent."

The ifrit in the large glass container stared at Percival with admiring, glittering golden eyes, beaming pride at him with all the warmth that came with it. The other two fae in the room had carried on with their tasks, albeit Sokka seemed to be mentally clocking every thief-like action Tanuki took.

[Mr. Blackbird Lore]

She shrugged and began balancing on her butt atop the innervator so she could nervously fidget with her tabis. "It's your lair. You can do whatever you want here, right?" At this point it became quite obvious that whenever Tanuki was given space for a question, she would inevitably cram in a dozen as her curiosity wildly spiked. "How does that even work, anyway? How come you just have a lair? How did you get it? Where did it come from?"

The orphan was still coming to terms with the realities of modern society and was still missing several key pieces. Obviously, other people had stuff, like houses and apartments and cars and all the good little things she liked to take-- or needed, in some cases. But where did they come from? Why did they always have stuff and she didn't?

"I tried to ask another girl about this kinda stuff, and she just looked at me like I'm stupid-- and I'm NOT stupid-- and said, 'Yen, duh.' But that doesn't make any sense. Who would trade a stupid plastic card for a lair? THAT'S stupid."

[Kokuten]

Something about the glut of her questions made Percival smile. He couldn't quite place it, but he enjoyed her curiosity, even if it was about more mundane things.

The hour-glass caught his attention, and he put the small trinket away, now that its sands had run their course. He tugged the infuser out of Tanuki's cup, and tossed it across the shop into a work sink that was positioned far away from the more delicate things in the room. Then he plucked his own tea-bags with a spoon and catapulted them into a bin.

"I'll answer all your--... those questions," Percival caught himself, realizing the danger of inclusive logic in this situation. He tugged down a small tray of sugar cubes, and set it down on the table. "If you answer one of mine."

He jumped, having forgotten an essential piece of the sugar-set and put a tiny, ornate set of clamps next to the tray.

"Where is my... lair located? Geographically."

The instructor took his first sip of tea to hide a little smile, but his eyes said riddle.