Moxie, fingers and face smudged with grease and bouncing around in coveralls, chatters animatedly at her older brother, the family resemblance obvious. She's a few years younger in this memory. It's night, they're in the shop, a cluttered place with bits and pieces of pipes and machinery lying about -- it's lit dimly by candlelight and oil lamps. He's carefully gathering up something wrapped in canvas, she snatches his hat off a hook and drops it on his head before she heads for the door, pausing to scowl at a pile of parts (it's not clear what they're for, only that it's probably a larger machine of some kind).
"Ugh. . . they ain't even gonna dirty their slippers to come get it 'emselves, I'm bettin'."
"'Course not, Wren, fine folk ain't gonna sully their fine reputations by undertakin' manual labour," he returns mildly, following after her. She gives the shipment a kick.
"Selpenny bastards."
"Briana!"
Her brother's admonishment is sharp and instant, and she chirps an apology, though she clearly doesn't mean it at all. They head out into the night, careful to stick to only the main streets, heading into areas that are poorer and poorer, the houses little more than ramshackle huts help up more with luck than solid workmanship.
They knock on a door, and a family lets them in: a man, a woman, and three younger children. The man is missing a leg, and the lot of them have seen better days, their clothes threadbare and bodies thin.
Matty gently lays his bundle before the man and unrolls it -- it's an artificial leg. A real steampunkish one, with gears and tubes and little steam vents and leather straps to help attach it.
He tells them it's something of a prototype, but it should work, and he'll come by for tweaks and adjustments. The man stammers that he'll pay them back, he swears, once he starts earning money again -- Matty waves him off. It's free of charge, besides, the man's helping him, this is really a prototype.
Moxie whispers stage-loud to the woman that that's her brother. It's already obvious what their relation is, but she doesn't care, because she's proud of him and loves him fiercely.
a leg for Jobe
"Ugh. . . they ain't even gonna dirty their slippers to come get it 'emselves, I'm bettin'."
"'Course not, Wren, fine folk ain't gonna sully their fine reputations by undertakin' manual labour," he returns mildly, following after her. She gives the shipment a kick.
"Selpenny bastards."
"Briana!"
Her brother's admonishment is sharp and instant, and she chirps an apology, though she clearly doesn't mean it at all. They head out into the night, careful to stick to only the main streets, heading into areas that are poorer and poorer, the houses little more than ramshackle huts help up more with luck than solid workmanship.
They knock on a door, and a family lets them in: a man, a woman, and three younger children. The man is missing a leg, and the lot of them have seen better days, their clothes threadbare and bodies thin.
Matty gently lays his bundle before the man and unrolls it -- it's an artificial leg. A real steampunkish one, with gears and tubes and little steam vents and leather straps to help attach it.
He tells them it's something of a prototype, but it should work, and he'll come by for tweaks and adjustments. The man stammers that he'll pay them back, he swears, once he starts earning money again -- Matty waves him off. It's free of charge, besides, the man's helping him, this is really a prototype.
Moxie whispers stage-loud to the woman that that's her brother. It's already obvious what their relation is, but she doesn't care, because she's proud of him and loves him fiercely.