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When she was a young girl, living in the quaint village she called her home, Fartooth stared off into the horizon at the huge metal beast over the horizon, yearning to go there and become a Knight like the ones in her stories. It was only when she finally arrived in Kawalerielki that she saw it as a goliath of the modern world it really was, which felt so alien to a village girl who had only ever known rolling grassy plains and wooden buildings her entire life.
Rhodes Island was no different. It was everything foreign to her given flesh, making her walk miles to see the sky and taking the things she's familiar with and twisting them into another unrecognizable form. One thing that could escape this was her village's blacksmith, where instead of the rustic building, conditioned by the cold air of the Kazimierz wilderness was this iron coffin which holds such heat that scorches your skin and lingers within the walls and surfaces.
But despite how unbearably hot the room is, something resides inside which she can’t resist and so, with a deep breath, she opens the door and steps inside the furnace.
This workshop of the landship isn’t too large compared to the one she occasionally accompanies Wild Mane to for Justice Knight’s repairs so a few steps in she finds the object of her desires; one operator Blemishine also known as Maria Nearl, her girlfriend.
She doesn’t move any further into the room, happy enough to just cast her gaze over towards the forge where Blemishine and a Forte, Vulcan maybe? Are huddled together. From what she can make out the Forte is heating something in the forge while the Kuranta waves her hands around, obviously excitedly babbling about something she wishes she could hear firsthand.
After a while the Forte pulls a red hot bar of metal out of the furnace, her head turning to look at Blemishine only to pause, her eyes looking back the Kuranta’s large form to land on her and just a moment later Blemishine looks over her shoulder, eyes lighting up.
Cover’s blown. She blushes, hands unconsciously moving up to her cloak as she begins her walk over to the other women.
But she doesn’t get very far as Blemishine breaks out into a sprint, closing the distance between them in a matter of seconds to come to a grinding stop just in front of her.
“Justyna! You got off early. How was the mission?”
“It went well. The hostiles came towards us single file so it went quicker than we expected.” Her hand tightens around her cloak to resist the urge to avert her eyes from the puppy-like look of adoration on Blemishine’s face.
“As expected. The Fartooth Knight has defeated much stronger foes in the Major so they didn’t stand a chance.” The ex-commercial knight’s enthusiasm makes Fartooth’s heart flutter, their individual experiences with the Major making them hit harder.
“That’s right. Now we can spend some time together.” She takes Blemishine’s larger hand in hers and looks up, mirroring the kuranta’s joy though as she looks at the other girl’s features she does notice a note of nervousness for a brief moment.
“Y-yeah! Shall we head to a dorm? I’m not on shift at the moment, I just swung by to see what Vulcan’s doing so I’d just need to tell her, then-”
“No need for that.” Vulcan appears at Blemishine’s side and nonchalantly swings some black box into her stomach. “Don’t forget this.”
“Ah, right. Thanks Vulcan.” Blemishine quickly recovers and looks gratefully to the Forte who stoically nods her head before turning to Fartooth.
“Operator Fartooth.” Vulcan nods her head at her.
“Hello Operator Vulcan.” And Fartooth bows in return.
“Your girlfriend talks a lot about you.”
“H-hey, Vulcan-!” Blemishine whips around.
“She tends to talk a lot about things she likes. I enjoy listening.” She exclaims, reveling in Blemishine’s blush. Vulcan on the otherhand’s expression doesn’t change, remaining stony except for a knowing look she gives her before walking back to her forge.
“Well, uh, shall we go?” Blemishine asks, lingering signs of embarrassment evident on her face. She thinks she’d like to stay and admire the Kuranta in her natural habitat but she’d rather they head somewhere that wasn’t so hot.
“Sure. This should be a good time. Shifts have yet to change so it should be quiet.” The Doctor keeps a rigid schedule that barely ever changes and with her, Ashlock and Wild Mane usually covering shifts in the factory she’s long since memorized the schedule.
“Excellent! Let me just put this away then we can head to the usual dorm.” Blemishine sings, pulling off her apron which Fartooth doesn’t mind staying on. She did look surprisingly good in it, her light, soft features contrasting with its ruggedness but dragging soot through the landship wouldn’t be good.
Fartooth watches after Blemishine as she runs to put her apron away, taking in a true Kuranta’s gallop when her eyes gravitate to the box as Blemishine puts it on a table for a brief moment to hang up her apron. The fact that Blemishine had something in and of itself wasn’t strange, she’s shown her plenty of weapons and armor that she’s made, however what strikes her as odd is that very little of them fit the shape of the box which she's never seen before either.
When Blemishine comes back, she pushes her curiosity over the box out of her mind and falls into step beside her. As they walk she asks what she learned today, launching Blemishine into gushing about all the techniques Vulcan taught her. Occasionally Fartooth throws in a question or a comment in response, not knowledgeable enough to converse with her but that wasn’t a problem for either of them.
The dorm is empty when they reach it, decorated with all sorts of Kazimierz furniture, allegedly, she still finds it curious about all of this being Kazimierz furniture when it’s not what she would associate with Kazimierz furniture. Nevertheless she, Blemishine and a lot of Kazimierz operators like it and the Doctor ensured the bookcases would be full of novels on Knights which makes it the perfect place to snuggle into her girlfriend’s side and read about a shared interest of theirs.
“Want to continue reading from where we left off yesterday?” She strides across the dormitory over to the bookcase, her eyes trained on the aforementioned book.
“That.. would be nice but I want to show you something first.” Her finger stops pulling out the book as she looks back at Blemishine, eyeing her curiously before walking away from the bookcase, the book snapping back into place.
“Is it that box you have there?”
“Y-yeah.” She laughs, blushing.
When Fartooth stops in front of her the Kuranta holds the box out. Orange eyes flit down to the black case, a fine eyebrow rising before Fartooth looks up to her girlfriend’s face.
“It’s one of your creations, isn’t it?” She says, fondly remembering all the things that Blemishine has gushed to her about and how much of an amazing experience it is to sit next to her as she talks about, for example, a claymore she made while it lays across her lap, the blade glistening.
“Yes it is. I’m.. not quite sure about it but I think it turned out really well..” Blemishine gently moves the box in her hands as she says this, looking down at it in a way that’s not quite Maria Nearl.
She’s normally more confident and proud of her creations, if not clearly disappointed if one turned out being subpar but the bashfulness here is.. Cute but unfamiliar.
“I don’t remember you showing me one in a box like this. They’re normally in scabbards.” If not then it was usually because it was some sort of hammer, spear or axe.
“Yeah, well…” Her golden eyes stare off into the distance, thinking for a moment or two before turning down to Fartooth, smiling nervously. “Want to guess what it is?”
“Okay. I’ll have an easier time guessing this than you think.” Fighting in the underground arenas, the Major and becoming a Rhodes Operator has given her a lot of knowledge about different weapons and that’s without mentioning her really passionate blacksmith girlfriend.
“I’m not thinking anything.” Blemishine laughs. “Just.. it’s not one of the normal things.”
That makes her quirk an eyebrow. She doesn’t know what normal counts for when it comes to Blemishine. She makes weapons and armor of all kinds and creates certain components for more complex things for operators or r&d projects. It’s quite a broad range of options.
“Is it a stiletto knife?” The box wasn’t long enough for even a short sword but assuming it was a weapon of some kind like it typically was this was the only real answer.
“No. It’s not.”
“No?” She knits her eyebrows together. “Is it a wrench?”
“A wrench?” Blemishine repeats, tilting her head.
“Or another kind of tool? For the engineering department.” Back to her previous logic, if it wasn’t in a scabbard then perhaps it wasn’t a weapon but something else similar to it.
“Oh, well no it’s not a tool.” Blemishine says amusedly, a fond smile on her face.
“Not a tool. Hm.” She glares at the box now, throwing all ideas of that category away and thinking about weapons again but a bit more outside the box.
After a minute she looks back up. “Is it a staff like Absinthes?”
“No but I could make staffs, couldn’t I?” Blemishine suddenly lights up at that, making Fartooth smile despite the fact that it was yet another bust.
“If none of that.. A sort of javelin?” Blemishine shakes her head. “Throwing knives?” Another shake of the head. “A barrel of some sort?” As she thought it wasn’t that. “It’s not a component for another Operator’s gadget or required for an r&d project is it?”
“I’m not going to bore you with that.” Blemishine laughs.
“Of course not. I wouldn’t be bored if you showed me.” She shoots back, taking the shock that erupts on Blemishine’s face as a small victory after all these failures.
“I’ll have to think about that then.” Blemishine rubs the back of her neck. “Do you want to see it?”
“Sure but,” she gently takes the box from Blemishine, finding its weight distributed along its length but not filling out its width. “Do I not get any hints?”
“I can give you some but I’m too excited to wait if I’m honest.” She’s practically buzzing, with excitement sure but there’s enough nervous tint to her features that to say that’s all it is would be wrong in Fartooth’s eyes.
“I’m excited too. I’m curious what it is, if it’s not any of the things I thought of.” She looks up at Blemishine with a smug smile, seeing a blush coating her girlfriend’s face before she turns back to the black box.
Moving the box in her hands one last time, she gingerly pulls the lid off and her eyes shoot wide open. Inside the box is a silver flute, professionally made and entirely unlike the ones that she whittles, it’s much more intricate and beautiful. Her hands shake as she picks it up, finding the flute to be far too light, so much so that she could drop it. Thankfully Blemishine takes the box from her, holding it under her arm awkwardly as Fartooth’s eyes roam over the flute, turning it over in her hands and looking it up and down. There are no scratches where the knife has nicked or brushed against it. The surface is entirely flawless, straight and narrow.
She stops when her eyes find dashes of color on it. Painted on three rectangular bumps are red, green and yellow, her colors. It sticks out against the silver, marking it as unmistakably hers and as she pulls it closer to her face she can see where the brushes go a bit too far from the rectangles in an effort to make sure not a single bit of silver remained on them and where the shades are stronger, layered on and where they are dull.
“Um. So.. what do you think? I’ve never worked on something like this before and some bits aren’t my specialty but-”
“I love it.” Fartooth interrupts, reaching up to brush a tear out of her eye but her gauntlet makes it difficult.
“Justyna..” Blemishine gently brushes her hand aside and brushes the tear away herself while cupping the Liberi’s face, making Fartooth look up at her bashfully.
“It’s beautiful. Did you paint it too?”
Blemishine looks down at her with those pure golden eyes, softening more every second. “I did, though it’s not the best. I wanted to make it as perfect for you as I could.”
“Maria.. Thank you.” She pulls the flute close to her heart, smiling up at Blemishine before gently reaching up to wrap her hand around the back of her neck, gently pulling the taller girl down, the taller girl lowering her head.
Fartooth leans forwards, standing on the edge of her boots to lift herself up and capture Maria’s lips with her own. Blemishine herself gently grabs her waist, holding her up and melting into the kiss.
It ends not long after it begins with Blemishine helping her girlfriend down to her feet, letting go of her when her feet are flat on the floor then takes a step back, watching as Fartooth holds the flute out in front of her, looking down at the instrument fondly.
“I feel like I should give you something in return for this.”
“It’s fine! I’m just happy you like it.” Blemishine mutters, her heart warmed by the sight in front of her.
“No. It’s too special. I have to show you how much it means to me.” She glowers at the taller girl, her hands tightening around the flute which feels like too much to do to such a heartfelt gift.
“Then… maybe a song? One to me?” Blemishine says, gently taking her hand. It makes Fartooth’s eyes go wide then soften when she realizes she’s referring to her songs back home.
“I’m not sure if I can play this.” She laughs out of the nerves spawned from her racing heart.
“It may take a little getting used to but I know you can.” She says, squeezing her hand. “And I enjoy watching you anyway Justyna.”
“Okay. I can do that then.” She beams at Blemishine. Unconsciously her fingers slide to their positions on the flute.
Blemishine eagerly leads her to the nearby sofa, sitting them down. She gives her hand one last squeeze before pulling hers back and looks down at her in fond anticipation, making Fartooth puff her chest out and pull the flute up, feeling how the flute feels in her grip then blows into it, testing the noise. Beside her Blemishine laughs happily, making Fartooth’s lips curl up.
They share one last look, joy and adoration clear on their faces, before Fartooth takes a deep breath and begins her serenade to Maria.