(Continued from Fifteen Finger Discount)


The car stood out on these streets. Where a Jaguar might not be out of place further into the city, here further out amongst the warehouses it stuck out like a sore thumb. Cosmina slowed the car as they approached a particular warehouse. It wasn't very far into the sprawl of buildings full of boxes. It was a standard looking place for a warehouse. Single floor, mostly gray metal with matching doors. Instead of parking in front of it she pulled around back to where a pair of large doors stood. She got out and yanked one of them open wide enough to admit the car and tarried in the doorway long enough to hit the light switch. Once that was done Cosmina returned to the vehicle and pull into the warehouse.

"Welcome to my garage, Effigy."

Cosmina turned to her passenger with a small smirk and turned off the vehicle. This area of the warehouse was exactly what you would expect. It was fairly barren. There was no decoration in this side of the warehouse or pretense of living space. Steel beams and metal walls were easily visible. There were no comforts here. The only thing out of place was a collection of alarm clocks on pedestals near the far wall. They were arranged in a square and served no readily apparent purpose. Not far from this was a door set in a wall that bisected the warehouse neatly.

She grabbed her tote out of the backseat and tucked it under her arm. After the excitement earlier it was lovely to be back home. Eleven years she'd operated out of this place. Like it or not this was home to her. It was merely a place to rest her head between missions but Cosmina would admit some attachment to it. Rummaging around in her tote for her keys she strode across the room to the door near the alarm clocks. With a twist of a key she unlocked the door and stood to one side for Effigy to enter. This was as much practicality as courtesy on her part. If he'd decided to betray her and try to take her portion of the loot from the store then it would be better to be behind him instead of the other way around. Cosmina didn't think that he would think to do that but you never knew.

The room beyond the door was furnished. White with accents of black and silver made up the color scheme of the very modern styled room. To the left was a living room area. A white sofa with sleek lines sat on a gray rug. Across from the sofa was a flat screen tv on a white and silver stand. Between the tv and the sofa was a glass top coffee table with black legs. To the right and against the far wall was the kitchen and dining area. This was mostly chrome and white. A small island, which constituted the dining area, had two tall stools pushed up against it. On the right-hand wall were two doors. Cosmina pointed to the one closest to the kitchen area.

"That's the bathroom. The other door is my bedroom." she paused and turned to Effigy again, "And that's the tour."

Looking around at the area they had currently driven into, Mat couldn't help but feel a little puzzled. He had expected Mute to drive towards some expensive, inner-city penthouse. Something with an absurd rental price and a spectacular view, perhaps. After all, with the car she drove, it made sense. So when she had taken them towards an industrial area lined with warehouses instead, Mat's found himself rather curious.

They pulled up around the back of some nondescript warehouse, one of dozens. Mute hopped out of the car and pulled the door open. Not sure what the place was, or what she was actually going to do, Mat remained in his seat. As Mute returned and drove the car into the building she turned to him with a smirk and welcomed him to her garage. An empty garage, save for the unusual feature of several alarm clocks on pedestals, arranged in a square.

As Mute grabbed her things from the car, Mat wandered over to the clocks trying to discern their purpose. As he scratched his head trying to figure it out, Mute had unlocked the door and was bidding him to enter ahead of her. With one last glance at the clocks, Mat gave Mute an tip of his imaginary hat and strode across the threshold.

The other side of the door was as comfortable as the garage side was barren. Stylishly done up, it was impressive to say the least. Had it been twenty stories in the air rather than tucked away in a warehouse, it could have easily passed for a penthouse. Sleek and modern, it looked like a place one could comfortably pass their years in. Impressed, Mat let out a long, low whistle.

“Very nice.”

Trip would have loved it here.

Mute gave him the grand tour. Both doors. With a chuckle, he strolled around the area, looking over every little detail. The design of the room was aesthetically pleasing to Mat's sensibilities. He paused in front of the television and gave it a long stare. It had been so long since he had actually watched TV. And the last he remembered, they didn't come so wide. He rubbed sheepishly at his neck. Had he really been out of society's loop so long?

Making his way back towards the woman, Mat couldn't help but smile. Despite everything that had happened today, he was happy. He had a luxurious place to stay the night. Giving Mute a quick once-over, his smile grew a little wider.

The company wasn't half bad either.

He took the his newly pilfered coat off and threw it gently onto the floor, near the wall by the entrance door. Smoothing the suit jacket, he could feel the cash notes he had hastily stashed in his pockets.

“You know, I spent a year or so living in a warehouse like this. Not as nicely done up, mind you, not by a long shot. But still, brings back some memories.” A warm nostalgia began to well up in his chest as he remembered the first time he had met his second family. He had woken up after a week and a halfs sleep, confused and lost. But he had met the man who was soon to become his closest friend. The man who gave him a new name, and welcomed him into his home, his world. A pang of regret passed, and Mat briefly wished he and Trip hadn't gone separate ways.

“So,” he started, perking back up, “what's with the clocks?"

While Effigy inspected her dwelling Cosmina watched him. He was no threat she determined. She wouldn't let her guard down. That was a foolish thing to do no matter the company. There were plenty of people who wanted her dead for some reason or another. This one however posed no danger. It was amusing to watch him wander around her abode. He appeared a little shocked at the size of the television. That only served to widen her grin. Belatedly she replied to his initial comment.

"It's not much but I own it entirely. No one to pay rent to and, other than yourself, no one that knows I live here."

So he'd lived in a warehouse before huh? That was interesting. The circumstances which led to it probably hadn't been pleasant. They generally weren't. Most people would call the reasons she came to New York unpleasant. Then again most people got mad when she tried to kill them. Really, it was just a job and they weren't going to stay that way forever. His question about the clocks brought her back from her thoughts and she wandered over to the sofa where she sat down.

"The clocks? Practice."

A cheeky grin split her face and settled back into the lines of her normal smile. Let him try and work that one out. Honestly she'd be a little disappointed if he couldn't. Meanwhile she remembered that he'd mentioned wanting a drink on the way here. Cosmina stood again and walked slowly over to the kitchen area. Opening up a cabinet she motioned him over.

"Pick your poison!"

Of course Cosmina didn't keep her actual poisons there. She did own a few a they resided with the rest of her work gear. The cabinet was filled with various bottles of alcohol in various states of fullness. Cosmina did enjoy a drink alone every now and again. In particular after a mission had been extraordinarily foul in some way and she just don't feel like leaving the warehouse.

"Glasses are in the cabinet just right of that one."

She owned this place? Mat gave the room one more glance. He wondered how much a place like this would have cost. While he had lived in a warehouse, he had never had to pay a cent. One of the benefits of being a squatter who lived with people that could dissuade any prying eyes and inquiries with a thought.

“How long have you had this place?”

She mentioned that he was the only person who knew that this was her home. Now, that was interesting. Did she have no relatives? No acquaintances? The place certainly had the look of somebody who lived alone, but to have no one that knew about this place? Did she really have no one that she could trust? When he thought about it, Mat came to the realisation that nobody knew where he lived either. And it all begged another question.

Why had she brought him here?

The puzzle that was this woman seemed to be growing more complex by the minute. Did she trust him, after everything that had happened at the clothing boutique? Perhaps she figured he was no threat to her. Or perhaps she was planning to kill him afterwards, and keep her secret safely guarded. Mat let out a quiet sigh. It wasn't worth thinking about. He had lived in places, and with people who would kill you just for looking at them funny. He had stopped worrying about who might kill him for no reason a long time ago. Still, he would keep the thought in the back of his mind. Just in case.

She sat on the couch and told him that the clocks outside were for practice. A cheeky grin was the only other thing he got out of her regarding the topic. Mat furrowed his brow as he tried to make sense of the answer. Practice? What the hell kind of practice required a square of alarm clocks on pedestals? Unless she rehearsed waking up at various hours...

As he puzzled over the conundrum, Mute had walked over to a cabinet and motioned for him to join her. She opened the door and a smile appeared on Mat's face. She had a decent spread, not lacking for choice. He opened the cabinet where she had indicated the glasses and grabbed two. As he approached her, he held out one of the glasses for her to take.

“I'll have whatever the lady is having.”

It had been quite some time since Mat had last had a drink, and after the day's events he was looking forward to one. Or two...

Or three...

"Eleven years I've owned this place. I was sixteen when I came here and bought it."

Right after killing her mother she'd run to New York. For a week or two she'd gone without a place to live while she looked for someplace decent. In the end Cosmina had settled on this place because it was easy to hide here. Very few people thought of living in warehouses. After answering that question Cosmina watched him think. She'd certainly given him enough mysteries to think about. It was amusing to watch him try and riddle things out. Eventually she tired of that so, when asked, she picked a bottle at random from the liquor cabinet and closed it. It turned out to be rum. That would do.

"Rum then."

A quick twist of the lid and Cosmina poured some of the liquid into either glass. The bottle she set on the counter and she then took the glass he offered and took a sip. That would do nicely. Glancing back to Effigy she smirked and raised the glass in a mock toast.

"To a successful heist."

Here Cosmina was with a decent amount of cash and a few new pieces of clothing in her bag. She was sharing her home with a man she'd only met earlier that day at the store which ended up providing the cash and clothing. And now drinks. Maybe that would have bothered Cosmina if she weren't used to being around total strangers most of the time. Cosmina took another sip of her rum. She got by and her bank account grew steadily. What was there to dislike in that situation?

“Eleven years? That's a long time.”

Mat couldn't fathom staying in one place for that long. The longest he had spent in one place since leaving home had been around a year, give or take. And the only thing that had kept him there for that long was the people. Without Trip and Bloom and the others Mat probably would have made his way back onto the streets. As it was, he ended up back on them anyway. Life was funny like that sometimes.

Sixteen when she bought the place, and she had been here for eleven years. Which made her about twenty seven. Not too old, not by a long shot. Mat then wondered, what kind of sixteen year old had the money to buy a place like this? What kind of sixteen year old had the money to buy any place? He didn't think too hard on it. Perhaps she was from a wealthy family. Or perhaps she had started her line of work, at least what Mat gathered her line of work was, early.

She poured some of the rum into the glasses, and raised hers for a toast to a successful heist. The corner of Mat's lips curled into a tiny smirk as he considered just how successful he actually thought the heist had been. He raised his own glass and knocked it gently against Mute's.

"Cheers."

Where she gently sipped her drink, Mat knocked his back in one swift motion. The rum burned at his throat and he struggled to hide the wince that followed. Not the manliest of reaction, he knew, but truth was he didn't really didn't care.

Placing his glass on the counter-top, Mat rapped his knuckles against the surface. It seemed to be made from marble or quartz, or some kind of polished stone. Feeling the familiar sensation of his mental imprint working its way into the material, Mat willed the stone to make a hand, similar to the one that had first sprouted from the shop floor, though not as large. It grasped the rum bottle and poured some more into Mat's glass. Then it held the bottle up to Mute, offering to refill her own glass. Mat lifted his drink and this time took a sip.

“So, what do you do for fun around here?”

It didn't seem like a long time. Not to Cosmina. Then again Cosmina wasn't very concerned about the passing of time in general. She'd been here eleven years and had grown from sixteen to twenty seven here. It didn't really seem to make much difference over all. She was older and nobody questioned her now when she drank or when she flirted with them. That was about it. Perhaps it was different for him. Cosmina didn't really know or care.

"Funny, it hasn't seemed that long to me."

Her voice was warm and cheery and she took another drink of her rum. The tiny smirk on Effigy's face during the toast did not go unnoticed. Perhaps he didn't think the heist was as successful as she did? Cosmina thought it went rather well for an impromptu affair. Only one cop dead in a raid like that was a surprisingly good state of affairs. It could have turned out much worse but Cosmina decided not to point that out. She'd save that for later, just in case he decided to get righteous about it. It would be terribly hypocritical of him but that was just about normal for people. Cosmina had seen it time and again. She'd be called on to ruin someone who decried what she did to them when most times she was hired by someone they'd ruined or the loved one of someone they'd ruined.

Watching him utilize his mutation was rather fascinating. It was only used to refill their glasses which Cosmina took advantage of with a smile at the stone servant. However since her mutation played with less physical forces it interested her to watch it. The process was curious and she'd have to ask him to explain it at some other point. For now, he was wondering what she did for fun.

"Watch tv, wander about the town, enjoy conversations with strangers."

Cosmina gave him a wink to accompany the last phrase in that collection. She did it for no other reason to see how he would react. Learning all she could about someone new was an amusing pass time to her.

Mat kept an eye on Mute as he commanded the hand to top up her glass. She smiled at it, seemingly enthralled in the stone bartender. It was a frivolous use of his power, but it always amused Mat to utilise his mutation for mundane tasks. He had been lucky when it came to the power draw. No physical mutations meant that he didn't need to hide for fear of persecution. He blended in. Not only that, his mutation was useful, whether it was for defence, business or just amusement.

All in all, he had drawn a good straw.

The hand placed the bottle back down on the counter. Mat leaned across the counter and clasped hands with the sculpture. He performed a 'secret' handshake with it, again, for his own amusement. Clasp, grip, slap, slap, grab, and shake. With the final gesture, Mat pulled the hand and arm free from the surface, leaving behind no evidence that it had ever been there. Mat had made sure that he kept the duplication process on hold so as not to freeze the sculpture in place, still attached to the source. Somehow, he didn't think Mute would appreciate an inanimate marble hand sticking out of her kitchen bench. With a final manipulation, he made the hand close it's fist into a thumbs-up gesture and held it out for Mute.

“Consider it a gift,” he said with a cheeky grin of his own. Honestly, he didn't care what she did with it.

She listed the things she did for fun, a wink accompanying the part about having conversations with strangers. He couldn't help but chuckle at that. He had to admit, he liked it when she winked at him. For someone who could kill an officer of the law with no qualms, she was rather playful. He wondered about her own mutation, remembering that she had neglected to go into any depth. Maybe she wanted him to figure it out for himself. He remembered her exit from the store, not a sound in her wake.

“So,” he began, taking an educated guess, “you make things quiet, do you?” Her name seemed to corroborate that theory.

A realisation hit him, and he almost smacked himself in the forehead. In hindsight it seemed pretty obvious. Then again, hindsight was a bastard like that.

“Ooooooooooh, I get it. The clocks, you use them to train your mutation, right?”

Bringing him back to her place instead of dumping him somewhere in the city to fend for himself or killing him turned out to be a decent decision on Cosmina’s part. Effigy was in fact rather amusing. He performed one of those silly ‘secret’ handshakes with his manipulated rock hand and then pulled it right out of the counter and presented it to her as a statue of a thumbs up gesture. Cosmina laughed at the handshake and grinned at the sculpture. It would make for an excellent conversation piece for the coffee table. Not only that but it could be a convenient weapon if someone were to ever discover her place of residence. She put her drink down on the counter and accepted the hand. Cosmina then proceeded to walk over to the coffee table and put the hand statue down on its surface just left of center.

“There.”

While she busied herself with that Effigy was quiet. It was only when she returned to the counter that he spoke again. This time it was a guess as to her mutation and a correct one at that. A simple way of saying it but an effective one. Mere moments later he correctly guessed the purpose of her clocks out in the garage. Cosmina smirked and clapped a few times.

“Congratulations you figured it out!” the smirk became a grin for a moment or two, “That’s what the clocks are for. I like having precise control of my abilities and over the years that set up has helped me learn such control.”

Effigy could ask further questions if he wanted. Cosmina wouldn’t give him all the details of her power. He wasn’t a partner on a mission or a vital associate so he didn’t need to know. The fewer the people that knew entirely what she was capable of and her limitations the better. She’d come a long way since the early days. Cosmina had trained furiously to stretch the amount of time she could hold a silence. The fact that she could seemingly go no further than thirty minutes before silence became soft noise was infuriating to Cosmina at times. Other people could throw energy, command lightning, and toss fireballs seemingly without end. Cosmina on the other hand was stuck with a mere hour of power and half of that at half strength. Still, it served its purposes so she couldn’t complain too much.

Cosmina considered Effigy for a moment. She had her guesses as to his abilities from what she’d seen. It wasn’t enough to be certain as to the specifics but a general guess she could make.

“And yourself? Some sort of duplication and animation of inanimate materials?”

She could guess duplication because none of the places she’d seen him use to create his golems had been marred. If he was simply reshaping what was there then the floor of that store likely wouldn’t have been enough to make the two marble men he’d crafted. Animation was a dead giveaway since the things were capable of movement. Cosmina only said inanimate materials because she hadn’t seen him work with living tissue as of yet. He might be able to for all she knew. If that was the case then he’d be a powerful ally to have. If not, well he still had his uses if the duplication angle held true.

As she clapped for his correct guess, Mat grinned and took a deep bow. It sounded like an interesting mutation, and one that he could imagine being useful for the woman. If she was what he thought she was. Which, more and more, she seemed to be.

What crime could not be performed in complete and utter silence?

She mentioned that she liked to have precise control of her powers and Mat could only nod in agreement. Once the initial shock of discovering he was a mutant had worn down, Mat had spent his waking hours practising, making sure he had total control. And when you were a person who avoided sleep at all costs, as he had been, there were a lot of hours in the day to train.

He wandered over to the couch and slumped himself into it, the soft cushions welcoming his weary body. It almost felt like he was physically merging with the sofa, it was so comfortable. It had been some time since Mat was this comfortable.

Curious about her mutation, Mat was hesitant to ask Mute directly about it. In his experience, some mutants were touchy about explaining their powers, either out of shame, or paranoia, or any number of reasons. Mute didn't seem like a woman who was ashamed of her powers, but she did strike him as someone who wasn't prepared to give out all the answers. And Mat had learned that sometimes, the best way to learn about somebody else was to surrender something about yourself.

She took a guess at Mat's own ability, having already seen it twice now.

“Got it in one,” he answered with a grin. “I would've said I made stuff out of stuff, but I like the way you said it better.” Play the dullard, and chances were you would be underestimated. A lesson Mat had learned on the streets. “I can only duplicate basic materials, stone, metals, that kind of thing. Nothing complex, like plastics and that. And I can't duplicate anything living, so no wood or flesh.”

He rapped his knuckles on the glass table in front of him. This time he created miniature replicas of a man and a woman in formal clothes, only a couple inches high. From a distance they looked very simple, shaped just enough to differentiate the differing genders. At a closer glance though, one could see just how much detail they actually held. The creases and folds of the woman's flowing dress, tiny earrings on tiny ears, her hair pulled back tightly. The man, a barely protruding beard, a bow tie and cuff links complementing his tuxedo. With simple variations in the levels and dimensions of the glass, Mat could create tiny details that made his art as superb as it was.

“I know exactly what you mean, about wanting total precision. I devoted all my time getting the level of detail I wanted right. You should have seen some of my early sculptures.” He gave a mock shudder. He then made the glass couple grasp hands. With a bow and a curtsey, they began to waltz around the table, circling the stone hand. Mat watched them, a proud smile on his face. They were his creations, his art. His masterpieces. “Learning how to animate them was a whole other set of problems to figure out.”

His eyes left the sculptures and found Mute's.

“So how quiet can you actually make things?”

With a challenging grin, he begin to sing, loudly and badly. The first song that came to mind.

“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream!” He was curious to see just how her power worked. “Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily...”

He planned to keep this going a while. If she wanted this cacophony to end, she would have to use her ability.

“Life is but a dreeeeeeaaaaam!”

Or kill him.

It turned out that she was right about his mutation. He put it in such a way that made it sound like he was lacking wits. However then he went and proved that he had some form of intellect by listing off what he could and couldn’t use in terms that no one of small intellect would use. Cosmina had to applaud him for trying to sound like a fool. Fools were often overlooked and underestimated. That meant that they had a distinct advantage in some cases. It hadn’t worked because she was used to such things. Why Cosmina had even played the part herself once or twice. Nothing complex or living. That likely meant he was constrained to natural materials. There might be a few manmade things he could use but by and large he probably couldn’t handle them.

Cosmina watched him as he sat on the couch and rapped on the glass table in front of him. The figures he produced were incredibly detailed and very beautiful as they danced around the table. While he watched the figures she watched him. He looked proud. Whatever else could be said about him he obviously enjoyed using his ability to create such things. They were rather pretty to look at. He could probably make a decent amount of money selling such things. If he dedicated himself to making and selling such trinkets then he could probably be off of the street in no time. He looked back at her and asked her just how quiet her power could go. That was something of a silly question but she would allow it.

As if to force her to use her ability he began to sing. It was loud. It was bad. It made Cosmina want to wince. She didn’t though. Instead she pondered what to do. She could certainly use her powers to stop him. That was one way to cease the cacophonous racket and demonstrate just how very quiet she could make things. Then again she could always just kiss him. That had done wonders for his compliance at the store and it had simply been a kiss on the cheek. Just how much more of an effect would she have if she kissed him on the lips, she wondered? Maybe another time. For now Cosmina decided to humor him. Without batting an eyelash she focused her abilities on him and stopped the sound emanating from him. The precious silence returned and Cosmina walked over to Effigy.

“Perfect silence.”

He wouldn’t hear her but since she was in front of him he could see her mouth move. It was merely to illustrate the point that not only could he no longer contaminate the air with his subpar singing and neither could he hear a thing either. After a moment she released the canceling effect. She continued to stand in front of him, leaning in closer.

“You know, I could have just kissed you. I imagine that would have worked just as well.”

It was with a chuckle that Cosmina took another drink of her rum. Effigy was fun to tease.

“...merrily, merrily, life is but a...Hey!”

Everything went quiet. Not just quiet, dead silent. As though every sound in the room had been removed. As though he had just gone deaf. He grinned, and turned his head in various directions, trying to catch a snippet of sound. He tried to resume the song, but not even his own voice reached his ears. Not one bit of his fabulous performance.

He laughed silent laughter, still trying to wrap his mind around the absolute silence. Mute, the name now seeming so very appropriate, walked over to him. Her lips moved, but Mat couldn't make heads or tails of what she was saying. Eventually, she released her ability and sound came rushing back into the world.

He had to admit, it was a cool power. Useful, and with great potential for amusement. Never again, would one have to stand the incessant yipping of some tiny dog. Never again, would one have to listen to someone else's crap. Arguments would be a thing of the past. After all, how can one win a debate when stripped of the ability to retort? And karaoke nights? God, the fun he could have...

She leaned in closer to Mat, and mentioned that there were other ways she could have shut him up.

The corners of his mouth lifted into yet another grin. He leaned forward himself, until there were only mere inches between their faces. He stared into her gorgeous brown eyes, then let his gaze wander down to her lips. He slowly leaned in closer, until he could feel her breath on his face.

“Maybe...” He suddenly pulled back, and settled into the couch, stretching an arm across the back of the sofa. “Then again, maybe not?” he replied, before whistling the song he had previously been singing. She was teasing him. That was fine, Mat had no objections to that. He could tease as well. And he had already promised himself not to let himself be caught off-guard by this woman again. Fool him once, shame on her.

Fool him twice...

Watching him react to her ability only fueled her amusement. Watching him try to continue singing only to stop and then try speaking was probably the high point in Cosmina's opinion. Eventually he laughed though. His response to her taunt afterward marked him down as a very fun toy. He'd leaned in so close to her that anyone observing the scene would have thought they would have been kissing in a matter of seconds. Instead he merely grinned and said that maybe he would have and maybe he wouldn't have. Cosmina grinned in response.

This toy learned. That meant he'd be fun for much longer than those one trick toys she'd played with in the past. They only did one thing and broke quickly. Effigy seemed like he knew more than one trick and would be fun to play with for a lot longer. So few were the people in her line of business that she'd met who could take a little teasing. So with a smirk she sat down on the couch as well, right beside him within the reach of that arm he'd slung across the back of her couch.

Cosmina focused her gaze on the fellow mutant beside her. Where to take the conversation now? There were so many things she could say or do. Which one to choose? She took another mouthful of liquor while she decided.

"So, job? Hobbies? Certainly I should get to know my new roommate better. No matter how long or short his stay might be."

If he stayed this amusing then Cosmina might be tempted to keep him around after the police gave up their search. If he proved himself to be profitable then she may just not let him leave. If neither held true then he'd be better off dead. It would be a pity if it came to that. Cosmina was enjoying his company and it would be a pain to hunt him down again after he came back to life. She had a theory that people didn't come back in the same place they were buried. Otherwise she would have found her father by now. Either that or they simply took a very long time to come back. It would be a pain to wait for someone as amusing as Effigy to crop up again but doable. Her security was more important than her amusement.

She grinned and sat on the sofa next to him. Close. The temptation to drop his arm down from its perch and around her shoulders was great, but he resisted. To give in now would mean that he had lost the game. Patience was a virtue, after all. He lifted his forgotten drink to his lips and emptied the glass. Patience when it came to drinking, that had never been a strong suit.

Mute had her eyes on him, as if she were trying to figure out what to say or ask him. After a moment she asked if he had any jobs or hobbies. He nodded towards the sculptures that continued to dance around the table.

“My job pretty much is my hobby. I make a bunch of those and sell them on the streets. I can make enough to support myself pretty easily. Though, truth be told, I could probably sell them for more,” he said with a shrug.

He tended to let the buyer name their own price. Money wasn't a great concern of Mat's, save for having enough to eat and to buy his regular supply of caffeine pills. And being flexible on the price allowed Mat to sell more sculptures than if he was stubborn about it.

Mat glanced over towards the kitchen counter, where the liquor bottle still resided. He considered making another golem to go fetch it, but decided against it. If he kept making them, soon the place would be full of statues and sculptures. Placing his empty glass on the table in front of him, Mat broke the connection to his dancing glass people, leaving them frozen in mid-dance. He stood and wandered over to the counter to retrieve the bottle. He returned to his seat, twisted the lid off, and filled his glass. Then he held it out to see if Mute wanted a top up.

“What about you? Any hobbies or interests that keep you busy?” He didn't ask about what she did for a job. He could guess well enough. And if his suspicions were correct, then there wasn't a whole lot of wisdom in being nosy.

The fact that Mute had called him her roommate did not escape Mat's notice. He smiled, but deep down he wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that. It had been a while since he had stayed in one place for any great amount of time. Since the fire Mat had made a habit of not spending any more than a few days in a single location. He wondered just how long Mute expected him to stay here.

“So, roommate, huh? You planning on keeping me, are you?” he asked with a cheeky grin.

So his hobby and his job were one and the same? Well that made things easy. It also explained the looks he gave his works. Effigy seemed to love his works after some fashion. Not smart but he hadn't had cause to learn that Cosmina supposed. Loving something was simply put the best way to lose that thing. Cosmina had loved her father and she'd lost him. She'd loved her mother and her mother had locked her up in their house and seen to it that she hadn't gotten to see sun for around two years or so. Anyone she'd cared about after that fashion had disappointed her in some fashion. It was safer not to love.

"You are quite talented at it."

It was foolish of him to sell them below cost. His creations could quite easily sell for a lot of coin. If he was diligent he could probably have enough to start renting a store to sell them within a month. It made no sense to her at all. What could be greater than money? There was very little that couldn't be done if one had enough money. Anything that couldn't be done without it probably wasn't worth it. If she'd had enough money she could have saved her father. Knowing as she now did that he was either alive somewhere and waiting for her to find him or waiting to return to life it wasn't such a large problem anymore. However money was still incredibly important. He wouldn't have had to die in the first place if they'd had it. Dying was painful after all.

"My hobbies or interests? I like meeting new people, rollercoasters, and flying."

Effigy asked about her statement of him being her roommate and for his sake she decided to clarify. After all, she couldn't have him leaving and getting picked up by the police. It was a gamble to leave him alive at all but one she was willing to take as long as he was interesting and/or profitable.

"The police will be looking for us. Going to ground is advised and if you're here then I know you won't be found!"

Her voice was chirpy and betrayed nothing of her true motivations for wanting to keep him there. Let Effigy believe she was besotted with him or something. After all that talking Cosmina finally took the refill that he offered. The rum was starting to go to her head somewhat but not enough to compromise her yet. She sat, smiling placidly at Effigy, wondering what his response to her perfectly rational statement would be.