Verdy plopped down onto the bed she still thought of as Andrea’s and began tugging her shoes off. Jack lay on the floor, his tail gently thumping his approval at the length of their walk. Feet freed she flicked the shoes under her own bed and wiggled her way off the green-patchwork that matched, but was not identical to the green and black squares that were visible on her own tumultuous nest. She really needed to make her bed sometime soon, books on terrain creation, textbooks and something that looked suspiciously like half a pair of pyjamas all tangled together with her fluffy quilt to make a glorious mess with a hollow where she had emerged like a bleary-eyed morning-breathed butterfly earlier that day.

Turning back to smooth the quilt she had made in case her green-skinned friend popped back for Christmas she sighed wistfully. It had been Andrea’s decision to leave, and even though Verdy had spent a few days combing the streets, asking acquaintances from well before her mansion days- the toothless derelict who was incredibly skilled with a harmonica, people at soup kitchens happy to chat as long as they knew she wasn’t cutting line, and barristers or waitresses from all the coffee shops she knew- still no sign of her roomie. Eventually Verdy had resigned herself to the fact that Andrea wasn’t coming back. It happened, people moved on with their lives, got jobs and apartments and fiancées- she sniffed- and forgot about friends and captains and library-shelf-romps. Still, she had done a fairly good job of distracting herself, and times like these where she missed Andy desperately lessened in frequency and intensity, until they were so few and far between that they sometimes startled her.

Today there was nothing for it, but a nice hot shower, to blast away the gritty feeling from her walk and the sticky feeling in her heart. Would it have been so hard to send a letter to let her know she was doing alright on the outside?

Cafas wandered, he strode, ranged, he was a ranger, a wanderer, strider. He was also spending way too much time likening himself to Tolkien characters. It was just that sort of day. He had been on his way to the danger room, hence the sword on his belt. He flicked his pink fringe out of his eyes. Maybe it was time for a haircut, it had only been some 2 years or so since he had one. His hair was starting to look very scruffy, and he ran through shampoo, conditioner and dye like nobody's business.

Maybe a month or so.

He passed a door he was certain he knew. It was looking slightly ajar. He pushed it gently, it swung open. He poked his head in. There was a certain furry someone curled up in a corner, looking pampered. Good to know his Christmas present was being used. "Oy, Verdy, you in here mate?" Wasn't like her to leave the dog in her room, from memory.

Is that the shower?

He pushed the door in further, strode over to the fur and patted it. "Hows things J? You taking care of her?" He assumed the sound that followed was a yes like sound, and the accompanying leaning into the ear scratch confirmed the affirmative.

Should probably get around to opening the shop up some time this week

The shower like sound went away, the sound of taps that didn't have a metal manipulator 'taking care' of them. Yup now would be the time for another warning. "Might wanna cover up mate! Doors open and everything!"

The shower seemed to do the trick, that and the muffled sounds of an intruder to her room. Jack was making happy-to-see-you-friend noises, so she unhurriedly scrubbed the last of the suds from her skin and grabbed a towel to make herself semi-decent before poking her head out of the bathroom door, releasing clouds of steam as she did so. The pink hair of her alchemist friend met her curious eyes and she smiled at him. Jack seemed to know full well who had paid for his doggy-masseuse, tail thumping approval of the young man across his knee.

“Just be a second.”

He called her mate, heh, Aussies. Thankfully she had had the foresight to bring a bundle of clean clothes into the bathroom, and she scrambled into them as soon as she was semi-dry. Her hair was still dripping down her back as she re-emerged, tousling it with the smaller of her towels. The young man had a familiar shape fastened at his waist, but she doubted it was the same material as the wooden pirate ones she and Andrea had practiced with, that were tucked safely in the bottom draw of her dresser.

“Nice sword.”

Not that she could tell much from the visible hilt, but still, compliments were not lost on men with swords, besides he was more likely to show her if she made a comment.

Cafas watched his green and black haired... what was she? Oh stuff it, person; come out of the bathroom. She was, thankfully, fully dressed, he knew how awkward being naked in front of people was, hack, even just semi naked. Ah look, there was the comment. It always got a comment, from everyone, ever. Well, okay not everyone. "Thanks, made it myself." He drew it from it's scabbard, gave it a couple of well practiced swirls, for show (There was, after all, a nice looking girl in the room.) and offered Verdigris the hilt, holding it by the blade. "Not my usual one, it's heavier, blunter and far more straight edged than my baby." It was, in fact, a dummy version of the one he had given Calley, short the inlay, on his that was made using copper, it was more common.

Giving people swords is going to get you killed... Oh wait no that's not possible is it... The whole metal thing...

Cafas assumed she knew nothing of swords in reality, that it had been a blind compliment given as a nicety between two people in an uncertain sort of zone between strangers and friends. He hoped the compliment was blind, actually, cos otherwise she was, the blade wasn't exactly sharp, and it had some rather unsightly scarring from where his hammer blow had slipped. He hadn't bothered to knock it out, he'd simply discarded the practically complete sword and kept going.

Hope I'm not making a mistake in using this, Calley can be pretty, well, weird.

Verdigris took the offered sword after a miniscule moment of hesitation, he had been swinging it around a second ago and she was fond of her fingers, and inspected it. Heavy, check, blunt, well it wasn’t sharp/I], straight edged… well it was a sword, not a cutlass, she knew that much from her pirate research. The finish on the blade wasn’t as shiny as she expected, especially not from a metal-mutant, and the squiggles of orangey metal throughout were more squiggly than flowing rivulets of colour, still it was pretty impressive for something hand-made by someone as young as her pink-topped friend.

“You made this? Wow.”

She shrugged the sword’s appearance off, it was not his regular sword, he said so himself, which meant it was either for show or practicing. Her bet was on practicing, as having a heavier practice sword would surely make swinging the real one a lot easier and faster, while the bluntness could reduce the number of trips needed to Doc Prof by his sparring partner.

“I didn’t know the mansion had a forge, or is it mutation-made?”

Either way the piece must have taken hours, despite its less than glamorous appearance. She really needed to take up a hobby, without a job she had far too much free time, and although the matching quilts on each bed were testament to her emerging skill with knitting needles, there were bound to be other things she could try, a musical instrument perhaps.

Her hesitation was clear, but most who were offered swords hesitated, and if they didn't, there was probably a very bad reason, and you should not be handing them a sword. Still, she did take it, and seemed to inspect it a moment. "You'd think sword's in general would be heavier but they're really not, that one's about 10 pounds, and that's really only because I widened it from what it used to be, part of the reason the blade isn't sharp."

Though still not light, lessons hard learned.

Cafas arched an eyebrow as the girl mentioned forges and the mansion. He wondered if people knew exactly what hard light simulations were capable of. "The danger room comes in handy for that." He nodded to the blade "Had that been made by mutation it would be a solid piece of flawless metal, and not have tooling marks on it everywhere." Some people, not knowing things that hadn't been common knowledge for several hundred years.

Silly people

"So what, you like swords?"

The sword was much heavier than the wooden ones she’d played with before, but not as heavy as she had expected from the rippling muscles on every man-with-a-sword in movies she had seen. She took a sneaky peek at Cafas’ biceps and was not disappointed, man-with-a-sword had muscles. Man-with-a-sword also had a boyfriend, as was common knowledge around the mansion, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t look.

Widened… did that make it a broadsword? She wasn’t sure, but made a mental note to google it later, rather than look silly in front of her friend. Perhaps she would even take a trip to the library and borrow a book or two on swords, learn some things. The danger room, ah yes, that room in which she had once attended a wedding, which stayed locked and inaccessible to the general mansion populace. She had been cooped up in her room too long, Cafas was an X-man? An x-man who’s mutation made perfect objects, not those with obvious craftsmanship signifiers, of course.

Did she like swords? Well, duh. Did anyone not like swords? Unless they had been impaled by one, or perhaps seen one in the hands of someone truly evil, actually there were probably lots of people who didn’t like swords.

“Shiny, sharp and generally bad-ass. I certainly do, don’t know much about them though.”

Ah, people who liked the characteristics swords had without actually knowing anything of the individual types. Him, when he was 10. "Well you know I have a whole shop full of them, swords, axes, maces, all your fully functional and replica weapons. I do armour as well, though it's pretty hard to make because of how intricate it is. Ever tried melting a perfect piece of chain-mail out of a solid brick of steel?" Of course she hadn't she didn't have his mutation, stupid question.

Stupid person asking it...

"Well let me tell you, it does not work very well, too many small pieces, I always end up having it fall apart because I wasn't focusing hard enough. I managed it once, passed out from exertion." It was true, chain-mail was just beyond difficult to make, and it was what everyone wanted. Sure he could still make it easier than anyone else but it was still so hard as to be not worth the time.

Or the headache.

Cafas briefly considered opening the store for her, but he wanted to train, not go point at the sharps for the girly. He fished in his back pocket for a moment. He pulled out something shiny and new looking, then three more. He passed them to the girl. "The address is on the big key, fell free to drop in some time, I barely open up, don't know why I have the place but for storage. The big one opens the garage, I'm n with a mechanic, haven't seen him in a while."

Maybe she has more important things to do? Also is that the only keys?

Cafas only listened to the first thought. "Oh, you probably have work or something don't you..."?

A shop? He had a shop full of all things sharp and shiny? How exciting! She would have to visit it once she came into a little more money. The letting-you-go package from her last job had almost run out, despite the nature of the mansion’s food and board. Where did they get the money anyway? Donations perhaps, from guilty parents, or concerned citizens, or citizens concerned with keeping all mutants out of the ‘normal’ education system. Regardless, she needed some more green stuff before she started spending it on shiny stuff.

Now he was asking her a question, an unfair one in her opinion, had anyone other than Cafas ever done such a thing? Once she had looped together a whole bunch of the circles from the key-rings her mutation had ‘found’ to make something she had called chain-mail in her mind, but bringing that up now seemed a little silly and immature.

When put like that, chain-mail sounded much too hard to bother with, despite the apparent fluidity it provided and its general bad-assery. No matter the final price, surely passing out on the job was considered too high risk. After a seconds hesitation he pulled out and offered her a set of keys and permission to just turn up. Trust acquired! She could go and look at the shinies whenever she wanted, huzzah. Of course she would be responsible, but the thought of that many pointy objects in one place gave her slight chills.

“Ah, actually I don’t. They downsized a while back, and apparently the intern receptionist was an affordable loss.”

She crinkled her nose. They had handled it nicely, given her a larger-than-usual pay packet to ease her way out and she did understand. Still, it wasn’t her favourite moment to think about, and as such she usually didn’t.

“I learned a lot though, and I’ll be way better at my next job for it, so I guess it’s not all bad news. How about you? Enough people want swords that you could make a living?”

There was something totally right about mutants using their powers in their day-to-day jobs, being effective and efficient. Personal gain without the evil used by some mutants to get it, without pain or loss to anyone else.

Awkward moment when you inquire about someone's job when they've been let go. Smooth silver tongued Cafas, real smooth. He covered it up by completely ignoring it, and all the awkwardness associated. He focused instead on the neglected and wilting white daisies growing in terracotta pots, cracked and chipped, worn with age, their filling of brown soil dappled with green lichen feeding the sad flowers, yet to be given fresh life by the warm airs of a new Spring, though they were bathed in its light where they hung upon the window sill.

Were it that Springs light upon the sill were enough to rid the world of the traumas of a hard winter.

The awkwardness was broken by a question of his business levels. Now he thought about it, he was in one of those markets that was largely not called for by the general populace. and yet he could not escape from the amount of customers he did seem to get. Mostly Nerds, if he was honest, or collectors. He wasn't complaining, however it would have been nice to be in his business a thousand years earlier (though the opportunity had not bee afforded to him)

I'd have been a rich trader, the new upper class of merchant hated by all.

"There's no real lack of business to be honest, I have trouble keeping up with it at times, and it takes me about five seconds to turn a piece of solid steel into a weapon. Training and being social take a fair bit of time." He in fact had a customer due at his store some time that week, though he didn't know when, and at that point didn't remember at all. "I actually meant to open the store this week, but I just never seem to get around to it. Honestly I'm considering just hiring myself a clerk, and maybe someone to do my damn taxes, the government aren't fond of evasion."

After an Austennian moment pondering the dying daisies she was attempting to grow on the windowsill (a dismal attempt since her florist friend was absent, and that reminded her she should probably water them…) she changed the subject and he returned to the conversation. Apparently business in the sword making trade was pretty good, who’d have thought? Good enough, in fact, that he was barely on top of it, although that might have been due to all the time spent with a certain cat-boy she had heard about.

“You taking resumes? I think I’ve almost got the hang of official forms”

True story, although numbers weren’t necessarily her strong point they always seemed to make sense and balance themselves out eventually with minimal prodding or boredom, there was something totally satisfying about income and expenses columns lining up in the positive. Stock take and filing came easier to her and despite the minimal contact between herself and the clients of the labs she was fairly confident in her people skills, nothing a week or two in retail couldn’t brush her up on.

“I might not know a heap about swords, but the paperwork side can’t be that different business to business.”

Plus that gave her an excuse to peek at the shinies for slightly longer than might be acceptable for a friend dropping in, keys and all. Perhaps she might even see something that took her fancy and be able to set it aside until she had the dollars to make it her own.

Idly she wondered if he had business cards, she had recently received an email that seemed borderline spamlike, which offered a deal on bulk orders of more than one hundred business cards and she had played around on their designer sofware for an hour or so, but had no reason to print them off so chickened out at the ‘pay now’ screen.

“Anything other than taxes and basic paperwork need doing?”

If there was anything related to smithing that she would be in charge of she would have to do some serious research, or learn quickly on the job. Neither option was particularly offensive to her, in fact she found the idea of doing something other than knitting and occupying herself walking Jack or with homework rather exciting.

She wanted the job? Really? Heck she was trying to sell him on the idea. People actually WANTED that sort of work? He was doing his darnedest to not do it! Well he hated to seem to eager (though she really didn't seem to mind) so he put on a good show of considering it. It would be nice, and he might at least get some use out of it. And some money, though not a great deal he imagined. Wasn't too bad though he made several thousand dollars a month as it was.

Does mean I need to pay her...

He looked back at the girl. "How do you feel about $25 an hour, just need the paper work and the whole opening the store thing done. though feel free to organise the place or whatever if you want." He thought for a moment longer. "I'll hook some internet up in the place, there's already a computer, and I think there's like, one of those hours logging things, I'll set the code up for you, it had instructions, just put in two five eight one. The code to the alarm is seven three zero nine four, if you don't put that in it'll go off, and it's really annoying." More maths in his head. "And 20% of whatever you sell" It sounded fair to him.

Thank god I don't have to go do that.

She didn’t want to seem desperate, but the thought of having a purpose, even if it was something as simple as opening up shop each morning, made her rather excited. Still, jumping up and down about 25 an hour, reasonable as it was, might have changed his mind about his potential employee, so she simply smiled and nodded.

Suddenly numbers! Thousands of them! Or, at least that’s what it felt like. She scrabbled for a pen she knew was on her bedside table whilst listening intently to the numbers. She was fairly sure she remembered the first set, so she scribbled down the second as he spoke them then the first with a question mark next to them. Her palm wasn’t the best of notepads, but it was the best she could do given his speedy recital when she didn’t want the alarm going off and startling the mechanic they shared the building with, no point in upsetting potential friends.

“That sounds reasonable.”

Paid on commission, an incentive to help him be as efficient in handling as many orders as possible with optimum customer satisfaction and chance of return business. All sounded good, and she had the keys and codes already, all that was really left to ask was one thing.

“When would you like me to start?”