Well Met at Mechanicsburg 14/? (AU)
Title: Well Met at Mechanicsburg
Authors: khilari and persephone_kore
Summary: AU. Never having concluded Klaus was working for the Other, Barry Heterodyne returns to Mechanicsburg just in time to interrupt the Wulfenbach takeover. As Barry and Klaus tackle Europa's problems and settle into their new responsibilities, Aaronev's plotting sends Tarvek to join Agatha and Gil in a new friendship that may disrupt everyone's plans.
Chapter 14: In Which Spiders Sell Silk for Swords
"Miss DuLac has just entered by the town's northern gate," said Castle Heterodyne.
Barry put down his wrench and the lamp he'd been tinkering with, and pushed back his goggles. "I didn't realise you were watching for her." Possibly this should have occurred to him.
"Of course I was watching for her," said the Castle.
Barry had a vague feeling he should discourage this sort of thing, but he couldn't honestly say he was sorry to know. And for that matter the Castle really was supposed to be watching the incoming traffic in case of anybody who might secretly be Lucrezia. "I'll just go meet her, then."
"You do that," said the Castle.
It sounded just a little bit smug. For once he didn't actually mind.
Donna hadn't made it very far into town by the time Barry reached her, because she was on foot and he cheated. She was also looking around her with interest and rather heavily laden. "Donna," he said, coming up beside her. "The Castle said you were here. I'm glad you came."
"Barry!" She jumped a little, then smiled at him and let go of her hand-cart to take his hands. "I said I would. And I wondered if it was going to when all the gargoyles waved."
He couldn't help laughing at that and then leaned in to kiss her lightly. Their dating relationship had so far consisted mostly of Spark-work and a lot of letters, but she looked so bright-eyed it seemed like the next natural thing to do. "It's good to see you, but why on Earth are you carrying a sword as tall as you are? Can you actually use that?" It was in a back harness, which made it only moderately less awkward to manage.
"Hah. Not well, but it helps discourage brigands anyway."
"Ah. Yes, we're working on that," he said ruefully, "but clearing out stray inventions tends to make things safer about equally for legitimate travellers and robbers at first. Though Mechanicsburg is a rich source of strategic information about brigandage."
Donna snickered. "On a not unrelated note, the sword is ultimately for one of your Jägers. I expect Fane's still on duty, but I thought I might as well bring it along."
Barry blinked. That certainly explained the size and the broad hilt -- it would be a one-handed sword for Fane. "Ah, your letter didn't mention it was a commission, but I should probably have guessed. If you want I can have it delivered to him, or ask Klaus to send him back for a bit, they're not that far at the moment." A grin. "Unless you particularly want to carry it on the way back. Do you want me to take it for now?"
"Would you? It's not as bad for the open road but I could swear it feels heavier in traffic." She shrugged off the harness and let him shoulder it. The sheath alone was beautiful work and from watching her work on the kraken clanks, Barry suspected it was entirely outshone by the blade. "And I'd like to see him handle it for the first time, but I don't know if this is a good time for him to make a special trip."
"He'd hardly mind. But if you prefer I could just take you up. It would take you away from the fair for a bit, of course, but if you're in a hurry to see the sword in his hands," which was only natural, as it was nearly always hard to be patient about a new creation, "it would actually be quicker. You could say hello to Klaus and Adam, meet Agatha...." This was sounding better and better.
Donna looked intrigued. "That does sound nice."
"Great. Let's just get you to your room, first, and work out the plans." Barry had, with some misgivings, invited her to stay in Castle Heterodyne, although he had written that particular letter outside of town and assured her he would be equally happy to arrange a hotel room. Donna had pointed out that the Castle had been chatting to her at the inn before, and as she understood the situation, she couldn't actually stay outside its reach without an inconveniently long trip into town in the morning. Which was true, but having her within the Castle proper gave it more opportunities to do creative and embarrassing things with the floor plan. On the bright side, it liked her.
All the Castle had done with Donna's room this time was to decorate it with, apparently, all the nicest swords it contained. Decorative scabbards, jewel inlaid or enamelled hilts, delicately etched blades -- several centuries and a few continents of swordsmithing art. If you looked closely you could see they were hanging against the wall, rather than from it.
"Oh." Donna stopped beside him in the doorway, and when Barry looked at her she'd gone starry-eyed. "That's magnificent." She pushed her luggage and wares just far enough to be out of the way and began a slow circuit of the walls.
"Well done, Castle," Barry murmured, laying Fane's sword down across a shelf.
Donna glanced back. "This was its idea?"
A rueful grin. "One of the few I've been tempted to claim. I believe my house is trying to seduce you."
She laughed. "I believe we already knew that."
"I know what Sparks like," the Castle said smugly. "And you could have gone ahead and claimed it, you know. I'm not trying to seduce her on my behalf."
"No, no, this was smart," Donna said, darting an amused glance at Barry. "I appreciate knowing you were the one to welcome me with such excellent taste."
"I aim to please," said the Castle, managing to sound even more smug.
Barry resisted the urge to ask it since when. His invitation had been partly on the theory that if he was thinking he might seriously court anyone, she ought to have a good idea early on of what to expect from the Castle; if it actually meant to get along with her, this deserved encouragement. "I think you actually hit 'ecstatic'," he said, as Donna was wandering happily along the walls again.
"Displaying one's finest weapons as part of courtship is traditional," said the Castle. "It's a shame she doesn't have even a small army or we could have displayed them on a battlefield. But I notice she's displaying hers as well."
Donna's eyebrows arched like ruffled feathers at the suggestion that a courtship might be improved by at least a small war, although in all honesty, Barry suspected that conflict had lent a good deal of spice to Bill's adoration of Lucrezia. (Then again that hadn't exactly gone well.) "Feel free to draw Fane's if that was a hint that either of you wants a better look," she said lightly to Barry. "And you can look at the, uh, spider ones too if you want."
"Are you still suspicious that was a joke?" Barry went over and put his arms around her from behind instead. "I should take you straight down to the square where they're setting up."
Donna leaned back against him a little, which was nice, and then said, "All right, yes, I'd like to see. Should I bring anything?"
"Mmm, not the cart yet if we're leaving. Grab something small." It was still full daylight, so the crepuscular participants in the Fair wouldn't be out in force yet.
"You said my customers this time would be rats and spiders--"
"Don't forget the pigeons," Barry put in.
"--They're all small." She opened up a trunk and took out what looked very much like a silverware roll, which she tucked into the crook of her arm, and Barry led her down.
The square was set up with tables, as it would be for any fair, but in this case some of the tables had little ladders leaning against them -- those were the, currently empty, stalls belonging to the mice, who would come all at once and at dusk. The nyar-spiders had racks rather than tables, skeins of silk draped enticingly over them. One spider per rack -- unlike the mice they were solitary, and the males valued tableware partly because it stopped their hungry mates snacking on them. The tables belonging to the pigeons were more varied. Magpies might more traditionally grab shiny things than pigeons, but most pigeons weren't looking to trade. Anything interesting seen from the air would eventually wind up on a table here. The pigeons ran their tables as flocks, and specialised. One was full of lost pocket watches, another of dropped toys. One even had a small selection of what seemed to be bombs, although it was anyone's guess who had dropped them.
"You really weren't kidding," Donna said in wonder, watching a young man and a spider haggle via gestures over the price of a knife and fork. ("Nyar!" declared the spider, pointing one foreleg emphatically at a smaller skein.)
"Told you," Barry said, a little smugly himself this time. "The mice and rats will show up this evening. Are those spider-sized?"
Donna unrolled a half-turn of fabric and extracted the most perfect miniature dagger Barry had ever seen. The sun flashed off it as if she'd taken out a mirror and the nearest forty-eight spider eyes suddenly fixed on her.
...Donna looked slightly daunted as five large spiders started toward her. The sixth hunkered down on his rack and began extruding more silk on the spot.
Barry set his hands on her shoulders. "I understand the Vermin Fair got started when Bob Heterodyne got tired of spiders making off with the silverware."
"...Bob?"
"A lot of us are named by our mothers. It's supposed to keep things interesting." Heterodyne whim wasn't really a recipe for boring, but nor was it actually responsible for Bob's half-siblings being named Slantax and Niffedri. "Anyway, his diary says there is nothing quite like being menaced by a spider wielding a butter knife."
Donna blinked. "I imagine there isn't, but I'm suddenly not sure if I should be providing them with sharper objects."
"Ah, don't worry, we mostly get on and I can always carry a bigger knife than a spider so I win all the dominance posturing. You'd better go closer, though, or they'll try to carry you back to their racks."
"Thanks for the warning." She straightened her shoulders and stepped forward -- carefully -- as the spiders neared her feet. They changed direction and scurried back, waving to get her attention. Donna undid more of her roll and hung it over her arm, approximating a display rack of her own.
People actually made blades for the rats and mice all the time, or reworked the handles of old knives, and traded them for things like useful and surprisingly artistic bits of woodwork. But if anybody had tried to design spider-customised grips before, it was at least a few human generations back and ancient history for the spiders. Barry wasn't entirely sure how she'd managed that one.
At any rate she only squeaked a little when one of the spiders jumped onto her arm for closer inspection, and she sold out of the roll of little knives, in the process making several spiders very happy and earning enough silk to smother in. Barry helped her get it back to her room, where they spread it out on the bed and Donna regarded it in some bemusement. "It's so soft. Even after handling it, I keep half expecting it to be sticky."
"They can control that," Barry explained. "This is based on what would be the structural fibers in a web, although most nyar-spiders produce silk fast enough to just wrap up their prey on the go. If it gives them trouble they'll use the sticky kind." He ran a hand over one gossamer skein, going nearly invisible against the coverlet. That one was fine enough to be see-through in a single layer no matter how tightly it was woven, and he reminded himself that there were many applications for such fabric, including things like scarves and curtains. "It's tougher than it looks."
"I noticed. It looks like it should have fallen apart by now!" Donna petted the same skein. "I'm not sure I quite thought through the implications of trading with spiders."
"Having them run at you, or what to do with the silk? If you don't want to wear spider-silk -- or not all of it -- you won't have any trouble finding someone who does want it."
"Bit of both." She looked up. "If we're going to Castle Wulfenbach, should we get started?"
"Most likely." He picked up the sword, and they headed for his airship.
Barry's airship displayed a gargoyleish face on the bow, with a trilobite on its forehead, and several other trilobites visible from various angles. There was no conceivable way to mistake it for anything but a Heterodyne craft even before going inside and seeing the wide variety of armaments around the edges. It was comfortable even with the guns taking up space (in fact, when not in use they were cushioned) and turned out to be remarkably fast.
Barry slowed it sharply as they approached Castle Wulfenbach, looming in the air and looking even more impossibly huge than from the ground. Great doors rolled open ahead of them, and he glided in to touch down lightly in a hangar.
They disembarked, Barry hauling the sword over one shoulder, and were met by a four-armed man holding a large black notebook. Barry blinked and strode forward with the kind of genuinely glad-to-see-you brilliant smile that had helped win the hearts of most of the continent -- frequently when he and his brother were armed with something more destructive than a giant sword. Donna had believed in it wholeheartedly in her teens and later wondered if it was one of the many exaggerations. It was not. Barry seized the man's free right hand to shake. "Boris! Meet Donna DuLac--" He gestured back to her, although without explanation. "Donna, Boris Dolokhov." He focussed on Boris again. "You look well. How are things?" He paused. "Not that it isn't good to see you, but why are we being met by a librarian?"
"I've been promoted to secretary," said Boris. "At least, it pays more and requires more work, so I assume it was a promotion. Good to see you, Lord Heterodyne." He turned and nodded to Donna. "Miss DuLac."
"Pleased to meet you," Donna said, offering a smile of her own.
"And congratulations," Barry said. "We're here on a combination of business and a social visit -- Donna made a sword for Fane, one of the Jägers, and I thought we'd drop in on friends if they've got time and definitely Agatha since classes should be out."
"Baron Wulfenbach is in his office, the children are in the common room," said Boris. "If you want a Jäger you'll have to ask one of them, I don't keep track of them."
"They can be hard to keep track of," Barry said amiably. "Apparently on leave they wander off and buy weapons from my girlfriend."
"Thankfully not all of them at once," Donna murmured.
"We'll go say hello to Klaus first. I'm sure one of them will turn up."
"This way, my Lord, madam," said Boris, leading them out of the hangar and into the corridors of the ship. Corridors with walls which were mostly plain sheets of metal, and sometimes decorated, and sometimes not there at all leaving them crossing a web of girders on walkways.
Barry was right; a Jäger did turn up, bounding sure-footed and careless across the web of girders. Barry greeted him as Minsk and sent him back off after Fane while they continued to the Baron's office, where he knocked on the doorframe before Boris had the chance to announce him. "Hoy, Klaus."
Klaus abandoned his papers with just enough alacrity to make Donna want to smile. "Well, you sound like you've been back in Mechanicsburg for a while."
Barry looked very slightly fazed. "I suppose I do."
"Thank you, Boris." Klaus turned back for a moment, then handed him a stack of papers, which Boris leafed through briefly and then took away. "I suppose you're not here to help me look over research funding applications. What's going on?"
"Delivering a sword and then intruding on your school, unless that's a problem. Fane should be turning up fairly soon."
"Lessons are out for the day, and I believe Agatha is in the common room rather than the lab today. This may have something to do with a recent delivery of school supplies including rather a lot of paint," said Klaus. "But if you don't want to be chased out by Otilia I think you'd better deliver the sword first."
"What, you don't think she'd want to see it?" Barry asked with a grin. "We'll watch out for the paint." He looked over his shoulder, even though Donna hadn't heard anything, and she turned as well and saw Fane. "Anyway, here we go."
"Hy heard hyu brought der svord," Fane said, to Donna, after giving Barry a quick salute.
"I might have been a little impatient," she said, as Barry unslung the sword and passed it off. Fane took it -- not quite like it weighed nothing, but like it weighed as much as a sword ought to. Good. "It won't feel truly finished until you've tried it."
"A Spark ting?" he asked, drawing it and admiring the blade. Klaus craned his neck to admire it too, rather than demanding a Jäger not test a new sword in his office.
"Hmm, my teacher was not a Spark but was very firm on the subject of commissions. But maybe, because I often feel I'm still holding Spark-work in my mind until it's been tested."
"Not actually unusual," said Klaus. "But it's convenient that your version of tested doesn't mean blown up."
"That would make a terrible sword," said Donna, and got a smile from Klaus and a sharp bark of laughter from Fane.
Fane flicked a glance around the room, checking he had space, and then dropped into a fighting stance, launching into a series of sword exercises. The sword moved easily, flashing and darting despite its huge size, beautifully balanced. Klaus watched like he was taking notes, leaning his elbows on his desk. When Fane was done he slid it into the sheath and looped it over his shoulder. "Now Hy pay hyu und hyu get beck to hyu visit," he said, smiling. "Thenk hyu for bringing it."
"You're very welcome." And watching him with the sword was deeply satisfying.
Fane counted out her fee, saluted Barry again, and departed jauntily. "Well," Barry said, "we can go see Agatha now without outraging anyone, presumably. Klaus, I will come back and help with those if you save some until after the Vermin Fair. By the way, do you want anything?"
"Airship grade silk is always welcome," said Klaus. "As is the offer to help with the paperwork."
"I'll see what I can do." Barry led the way out of the office and to the school, where they were met at the entrance by a towering, unbelievably perfect winged clank in flowing muslin confined by a large wraparound apron. Somehow knowing there was a Muse turned out not to be quite adequate preparation for seeing one. Especially in a colorfully paint-splotched apron. "Good afternoon, Madame Otilia. This is Donna DuLac. May we come in?"
There was a delighted shriek from beyond Otilia. "Uncle Barry!"
Otilia put out a hand to stop the little blonde girl attempting to dart past her. "It is not good manners to throw yourself at guests, Agatha," she said. "Especially when you have paint on your hands."
Agatha looked down at her hands and sighed. "Yes, Madame Otilia. Hello, Uncle Barry. Hello... um... I'm Agatha Heterodyne and I have no idea who you are."
"This is Donna," said Barry. "Er, Miss DuLac."
"Oh! The nice lady you and Adam have been writing to." Agatha looked up at Donna. "I probably shouldn't shake hands, huh?"
Donna bent down to look at the displayed hands, which were indeed thoroughly coated with paint, as was Agatha's protective smock. "I think yours are drying," she said. "And I could always wash before I handle anything that needs to stay paint-free."
Agatha broke into a delighted grin and offered her hand; Donna took it. Only some of the paint came off.
Otilia stepped aside. "Agatha can show you into the common room, or, if you'd prefer, one of the empty classrooms. I'm afraid we don't have a visitors' room."
"The common room's fine," Barry said. "Agatha, will you introduce Donna and your friends?"
"Sure!" Agatha led the way deeper into the school, to a large room that did not look particularly like anywhere Donna had ever been in her life, but reminded her warmly of home and her own childhood anyway, because it was swarming with children of all ages in various stages of mess, although presumably in this case they weren't all some variety of cousin. Agatha made a beeline for, surprisingly, two boys who had to be a few years older than she was. "Hey Gil, Tarvek, Uncle Barry brought his girlfriend."
...Definitely reminded her of home.
The boys looked up from their paintings, and the red-haired one stood up and wiped his hand carefully clean on his smock before offering it. The other, brown-haired at least where he hadn't run his hand through his hair and left a spiky blue streak, stayed sitting on the floor but said, "Hello," a little gruffly, and smiled at Barry.
"Prince Tarvek Sturmvoraus," Agatha said, more formally, "this is Donna DuLac." She waited barely long enough for them to shake hands and then tugged Donna down to the other boy. Donna smiled at the discovery that Barry had already joined him on the floor to inspect the paintings, and sat down as well. "And this is Gil Holzfäller."
"Pleased to meet you," said Tarvek, sitting down in front of an attempt at a portrait of Otilia. He'd done rather a nice job of the texture on the wings, even if he hadn't quite got the proportions right, and he'd certainly mixed the colours himself (they were rather more muted than the bright shades in the pots). Gil had apparently gone with the bright colours, and his paper was full of pictures of brightly coloured animals in equally bright clothes -- including a fox cub wearing spectacles remarkably like Tarvek's and a red-gold kitten with somewhat startlingly large green eyes.
"I'm collecting handprints from everybody, right now," Agatha explained. She certainly was. She had one sheet full of overlapping ones and two more with a mostly neat array and only a few splotches, still partially filled. "But I'm not sure I can get Madame Otilia's."
"I'm really not sure you should," said Tarvek. "Her joints fit together tightly, but getting paint in them still wouldn't be the best idea."
"She washes them," Agatha argued. "They have to be pretty well sealed."
"Probably best to skip, actually," said Barry. "They are, but they're still moving parts. Water evaporates; paint sticks to things and dries, and I'm not sure she'd especially want to deal with turpentine in there either."
"Oh, well..." Agatha frowned. "Maybe I'll ask her if she'd do it with a glove. Miss Donna, do you want to come meet everybody else?"
"Ah -- yes, thank you." Donna got back up and Agatha proceeded to take her around the room, starting with "my cousin, Theopholous DuMedd" and continuing through quite literally everybody -- all the students and a few teachers, including Lilith and Adam Clay. Donna rather suspected she’d have met nearly everyone eventually by staying where they were, as children kept coming by to speak to Barry for some time after they got back.
Gil pulled over another sheet of paper and started brushing bright green paint onto it. "Are you really dating Agatha's uncle?" he asked.
"He said she was," said Agatha.
"Yes," said Donna, smiling alternately at all three of them and finishing on Gil. "I don't blame you for being surprised; I still am too."
"I didn't think that was supposed to surprise people," Agatha said doubtfully. "Are you sure you're doing it right?"
Donna swallowed a laugh. "I didn't say that well. I visited Mechanicsburg because your father and uncle are... famously admirable, for helping a lot of people. I wasn't actually expecting to meet him."
"Oh. How come you did?"
"The Castle decided to introduce us." Donna opted against trying to explain the details.
"Oh," said Gil. "It thinks I should marry Agatha, too."
"Really?" said Tarvek, giving Gil a startled look. "Why?"
"Why not?" said Gil, looking defensive.
"But I mean, you're not..." Tarvek trailed off. "I thought the Castle would make a big deal out of family and things, considering what it is. That's all."
"Castle Heterodyne is intensely concerned with the Heterodyne succession," Barry explained. "Its attitude toward politics is, shall we say, undiplomatic and it considers war a particularly entertaining form of courtship. It rates Gil as a devoted friend and likely to turn out to be a Spark."
"Oh," said Tarvek, looking thoughtful and, oddly, a bit concerned. "That's certainly true." Then, when Gil gave him a puzzled look, he rolled his eyes at him and looked more cheerful. "I don't know why you think you won't be a Spark, it's pretty obvious."
Gil flushed. "Everybody says there's no way to tell if you don't have a family history of it."
"I don't know about that," Donna said thoughtfully. "My family has quite a few Sparks and a number of people who aren't as well. I can't say we can make truly reliable predictions, but sometimes everybody expects a particular child to be a Spark years before breakthrough."
"Gil is trying to figure out how to build a dragon clank that's big enough to ride and can really fly," Barry told her.
"Oh, yes, that would probably do it."
Gil grinned. "Well, I might be," he said. "Especially since Tarvek pretty certainly is and my wing designs are loads better than his."
"They were not," said Tarvek.
"They are," said Gil. "Just because you still don't understand how they can work..."
"I understand that your calculations are off if you expect those joints to hold..."
"Lessons got a lot more interesting once I got into their classes," Agatha confided. "I need a better mechanical background before I can evaluate their designs properly though."
Donna raised her eyebrows. "You're four and in classes with...." She took the higher end of her estimate to be tactful. "Eight-year-olds?"
"They're seven," said Agatha. "And yes. Once I learned to read and write all the languages the little kid lessons got kind of boring."
"The curriculum's somewhat flexible anyway," Barry put in. "Different families have highly varied approaches to how they start off. Agatha started off in the preparatory classes, essentially, and once she'd mastered the tools to move on...." He ruffled Agatha's hair affectionately and glanced in mild surprise at the flecks of orange paint on his hand. "We actually moved her to an earlier level first, but discovered she was paying more attention to her friends' work than her own."
"It was more interesting," said Agatha patiently.
Donna smiled at her. "Why do I suspect that means they were more interesting?"
"That too!" Agatha agreed cheerfully.
Gil and Tarvek broke off from their increasingly involved argument about wings to smile at her. "I think we need a bat," said Gil, still looking rather distracted.
"...What?" Donna asked.
"Oh, for the wing structure," Agatha said, apparently having no trouble following this line of reasoning.
"I'm not sure Klaus has bats on board," said Barry. "There may be a book on them here, or if not, I can draw you a diagram."
Agatha handed him a piece of paper and a paintbrush, which was not quite what Donna thought of as diagram material. "I'll go and look!"
"Okay," said Barry, as Agatha ran off, "I'm not sure whether to take this as a challenge or look for a pen."
"I kind of want to see this," Donna said.
Barry grinned at her, dipped the very tip of his brush, and started painting. "Tarvek's getting pretty good precision, actually."
Tarvek smiled at him and shuffled over to get a look at the diagram as it was painted. Gil came over too, kneeling up to look down at it.
Barry started mixing greys; Tarvek hastily offered his selection, and Barry thanked him warmly and began picking out shadows in what was less a diagram than a moderately realistic skeleton.
"It looks like a hand," Tarvek said after a few minutes. "With really long fingers."
"It essentially is one. Not as versatile as ours, but then again... we can't use ours to fly."
"We were copying the smaller dragon's wings, but it's much simpler than this," said Gil.
"I don't think it needs to be this complex," said Tarvek. "Just scaling up wasn't working, but we don't need anywhere near this much rotation in the joints and it would leave the elbow weak."
"Bats don't come apart at the elbows," said Gil.
"Are you planning to essentially build the entire supporting muscular structure, though?" Barry asked.
"No," said Tarvek. "We'd be better off just strengthening the joint even if it loses flexibility."
Gil sighed and then nodded. "Okay. We need to figure out how to make it fly at all before trying to make it really manoeuvrable," he admitted, then his eyes brightened. "We can leave that for the second prototype."
Agatha returned at this point. "I found bat books, but I couldn't bring them without having a bath in turpentine," she reported, possibly quoting a librarian. "Ooh, that looks like a hand."
"Your uncle says it is," said Tarvek. "Only we probably aren't using that design. Sorry."
"Oh, well, then you don't need the books for now anyway."
"We can still use bits of it. But we can probably manage without the books," said Gil.
After several more minutes of comparative wing anatomy, Barry pulled Agatha close against his side, heedless of the paint, and kissed the top of her head. "This has been fun," he said, "but Donna and I are supposed to meet some mice this evening. I'll visit again soon."
Agatha stood up and flung her arms around him. "Have fun! Don't get married or anything without me!"
Gil had picked up a paintbrush to attempt his own diagram, and Tarvek looked up halfway through taking it from him with a frustrated huff. "Goodbye," he said, wiping off the paintbrush where Gil had shoved it into the pot. "It was nice seeing you, and thank you for the diagram."
"Thank you," Gil echoed. "Have fun meeting mice."
"I hope to," said Donna.
Barry patted Agatha on the back. "You're very welcome, thank you all for the conversation, and Agatha, we're not rushing into anything but if I have a wedding I will wait until you have time to come." He stood up and brushed at his hands, then went to find the turpentine before they left.
They arrived back in Mechanicsburg in the early evening, to find the pigeons yawning at lamplit and half empty tables, while the previously untenanted tables were now occupied by rats or mice and filled with strangely elaborate wood carvings. One table, empty of wares, had a big sign in careful letters "CLOCKWORK REPAIRED", and a group of mice with tiny tools spread out around them standing on it. A lot of the mice wore belts, with knives or swords hanging from them, some wore harnesses with pouches and tools. A few wore tiny hats, or cloaks made out of scraps of fabric.
Barry had mentioned they were smart. Donna nonetheless hadn't quite expected literate. She browsed for a few minutes, feeling as if she'd walked into a very odd fairytale, and then went up to get her cart.
Haggling with a mouse was harder than with a spider, and a bit less mathematical. But her eye was caught by a sculpture of water, a cataract in white wood, with the grain worked into the design so that it almost looked alive and flowing, only to have stopped in a single moment. The fact that if you looked closely you could figure out it was emerging from a drainpipe didn't actually make much difference.
The artistic mouse picked out a knife suitable for woodcarving and all three flea combs (she'd debated whether this might be offensive, but made a few anyway), and as far as she could tell everyone ended the evening content. Barry walked her back to her room after dinner and helped wind the spider-silk off her bed.
When Barry turned to leave, after clearing her bed, he turned the door handle and then stopped, frowning. "Castle?"
"You could at least kiss her," said the Castle, sounding vaguely despairing.
Barry covered his eyes. "Unlock the door and I'll think about it."
There was a click and then a "Hmmm?" noise.
Barry tested the door, apparently suspicious; it opened this time, and he looked back at Donna. She gave up and giggled. "I could go for a kiss goodnight. The first one was very nice."
The walls made an encouraging sound.
"You know, I should look at the statistics, but I think there's a reason a lot of Heterodynes meet their eventual spouses outside of town," Barry said conversationally. Donna wasn't entirely sure which of them he was talking to, although he came over and took her hand as he spoke.
"If your house makes a habit of commenting the entire time, I think I'm impressed that your family manages to maintain the line at all," said Donna. "Would it be premature to invite you to visit me next time?"
Barry put his arms around her; she leaned into him. "Hmmm, I don't think so."
"Remember whose doing it was the two of you met," said the Castle.
"And I appreciate the introduction," Donna said, awkward as it had been at the time, "but if you keep this up I'll be embarrassed and laughing too hard to get a kiss at all."
At which point Barry did kiss her, and for several seconds Donna entirely forgot they had an audience.
...Maybe that explained it.
Authors: khilari and persephone_kore
Summary: AU. Never having concluded Klaus was working for the Other, Barry Heterodyne returns to Mechanicsburg just in time to interrupt the Wulfenbach takeover. As Barry and Klaus tackle Europa's problems and settle into their new responsibilities, Aaronev's plotting sends Tarvek to join Agatha and Gil in a new friendship that may disrupt everyone's plans.
Chapter 14: In Which Spiders Sell Silk for Swords
"Miss DuLac has just entered by the town's northern gate," said Castle Heterodyne.
Barry put down his wrench and the lamp he'd been tinkering with, and pushed back his goggles. "I didn't realise you were watching for her." Possibly this should have occurred to him.
"Of course I was watching for her," said the Castle.
Barry had a vague feeling he should discourage this sort of thing, but he couldn't honestly say he was sorry to know. And for that matter the Castle really was supposed to be watching the incoming traffic in case of anybody who might secretly be Lucrezia. "I'll just go meet her, then."
"You do that," said the Castle.
It sounded just a little bit smug. For once he didn't actually mind.
Donna hadn't made it very far into town by the time Barry reached her, because she was on foot and he cheated. She was also looking around her with interest and rather heavily laden. "Donna," he said, coming up beside her. "The Castle said you were here. I'm glad you came."
"Barry!" She jumped a little, then smiled at him and let go of her hand-cart to take his hands. "I said I would. And I wondered if it was going to when all the gargoyles waved."
He couldn't help laughing at that and then leaned in to kiss her lightly. Their dating relationship had so far consisted mostly of Spark-work and a lot of letters, but she looked so bright-eyed it seemed like the next natural thing to do. "It's good to see you, but why on Earth are you carrying a sword as tall as you are? Can you actually use that?" It was in a back harness, which made it only moderately less awkward to manage.
"Hah. Not well, but it helps discourage brigands anyway."
"Ah. Yes, we're working on that," he said ruefully, "but clearing out stray inventions tends to make things safer about equally for legitimate travellers and robbers at first. Though Mechanicsburg is a rich source of strategic information about brigandage."
Donna snickered. "On a not unrelated note, the sword is ultimately for one of your Jägers. I expect Fane's still on duty, but I thought I might as well bring it along."
Barry blinked. That certainly explained the size and the broad hilt -- it would be a one-handed sword for Fane. "Ah, your letter didn't mention it was a commission, but I should probably have guessed. If you want I can have it delivered to him, or ask Klaus to send him back for a bit, they're not that far at the moment." A grin. "Unless you particularly want to carry it on the way back. Do you want me to take it for now?"
"Would you? It's not as bad for the open road but I could swear it feels heavier in traffic." She shrugged off the harness and let him shoulder it. The sheath alone was beautiful work and from watching her work on the kraken clanks, Barry suspected it was entirely outshone by the blade. "And I'd like to see him handle it for the first time, but I don't know if this is a good time for him to make a special trip."
"He'd hardly mind. But if you prefer I could just take you up. It would take you away from the fair for a bit, of course, but if you're in a hurry to see the sword in his hands," which was only natural, as it was nearly always hard to be patient about a new creation, "it would actually be quicker. You could say hello to Klaus and Adam, meet Agatha...." This was sounding better and better.
Donna looked intrigued. "That does sound nice."
"Great. Let's just get you to your room, first, and work out the plans." Barry had, with some misgivings, invited her to stay in Castle Heterodyne, although he had written that particular letter outside of town and assured her he would be equally happy to arrange a hotel room. Donna had pointed out that the Castle had been chatting to her at the inn before, and as she understood the situation, she couldn't actually stay outside its reach without an inconveniently long trip into town in the morning. Which was true, but having her within the Castle proper gave it more opportunities to do creative and embarrassing things with the floor plan. On the bright side, it liked her.
All the Castle had done with Donna's room this time was to decorate it with, apparently, all the nicest swords it contained. Decorative scabbards, jewel inlaid or enamelled hilts, delicately etched blades -- several centuries and a few continents of swordsmithing art. If you looked closely you could see they were hanging against the wall, rather than from it.
"Oh." Donna stopped beside him in the doorway, and when Barry looked at her she'd gone starry-eyed. "That's magnificent." She pushed her luggage and wares just far enough to be out of the way and began a slow circuit of the walls.
"Well done, Castle," Barry murmured, laying Fane's sword down across a shelf.
Donna glanced back. "This was its idea?"
A rueful grin. "One of the few I've been tempted to claim. I believe my house is trying to seduce you."
She laughed. "I believe we already knew that."
"I know what Sparks like," the Castle said smugly. "And you could have gone ahead and claimed it, you know. I'm not trying to seduce her on my behalf."
"No, no, this was smart," Donna said, darting an amused glance at Barry. "I appreciate knowing you were the one to welcome me with such excellent taste."
"I aim to please," said the Castle, managing to sound even more smug.
Barry resisted the urge to ask it since when. His invitation had been partly on the theory that if he was thinking he might seriously court anyone, she ought to have a good idea early on of what to expect from the Castle; if it actually meant to get along with her, this deserved encouragement. "I think you actually hit 'ecstatic'," he said, as Donna was wandering happily along the walls again.
"Displaying one's finest weapons as part of courtship is traditional," said the Castle. "It's a shame she doesn't have even a small army or we could have displayed them on a battlefield. But I notice she's displaying hers as well."
Donna's eyebrows arched like ruffled feathers at the suggestion that a courtship might be improved by at least a small war, although in all honesty, Barry suspected that conflict had lent a good deal of spice to Bill's adoration of Lucrezia. (Then again that hadn't exactly gone well.) "Feel free to draw Fane's if that was a hint that either of you wants a better look," she said lightly to Barry. "And you can look at the, uh, spider ones too if you want."
"Are you still suspicious that was a joke?" Barry went over and put his arms around her from behind instead. "I should take you straight down to the square where they're setting up."
Donna leaned back against him a little, which was nice, and then said, "All right, yes, I'd like to see. Should I bring anything?"
"Mmm, not the cart yet if we're leaving. Grab something small." It was still full daylight, so the crepuscular participants in the Fair wouldn't be out in force yet.
"You said my customers this time would be rats and spiders--"
"Don't forget the pigeons," Barry put in.
"--They're all small." She opened up a trunk and took out what looked very much like a silverware roll, which she tucked into the crook of her arm, and Barry led her down.
The square was set up with tables, as it would be for any fair, but in this case some of the tables had little ladders leaning against them -- those were the, currently empty, stalls belonging to the mice, who would come all at once and at dusk. The nyar-spiders had racks rather than tables, skeins of silk draped enticingly over them. One spider per rack -- unlike the mice they were solitary, and the males valued tableware partly because it stopped their hungry mates snacking on them. The tables belonging to the pigeons were more varied. Magpies might more traditionally grab shiny things than pigeons, but most pigeons weren't looking to trade. Anything interesting seen from the air would eventually wind up on a table here. The pigeons ran their tables as flocks, and specialised. One was full of lost pocket watches, another of dropped toys. One even had a small selection of what seemed to be bombs, although it was anyone's guess who had dropped them.
"You really weren't kidding," Donna said in wonder, watching a young man and a spider haggle via gestures over the price of a knife and fork. ("Nyar!" declared the spider, pointing one foreleg emphatically at a smaller skein.)
"Told you," Barry said, a little smugly himself this time. "The mice and rats will show up this evening. Are those spider-sized?"
Donna unrolled a half-turn of fabric and extracted the most perfect miniature dagger Barry had ever seen. The sun flashed off it as if she'd taken out a mirror and the nearest forty-eight spider eyes suddenly fixed on her.
...Donna looked slightly daunted as five large spiders started toward her. The sixth hunkered down on his rack and began extruding more silk on the spot.
Barry set his hands on her shoulders. "I understand the Vermin Fair got started when Bob Heterodyne got tired of spiders making off with the silverware."
"...Bob?"
"A lot of us are named by our mothers. It's supposed to keep things interesting." Heterodyne whim wasn't really a recipe for boring, but nor was it actually responsible for Bob's half-siblings being named Slantax and Niffedri. "Anyway, his diary says there is nothing quite like being menaced by a spider wielding a butter knife."
Donna blinked. "I imagine there isn't, but I'm suddenly not sure if I should be providing them with sharper objects."
"Ah, don't worry, we mostly get on and I can always carry a bigger knife than a spider so I win all the dominance posturing. You'd better go closer, though, or they'll try to carry you back to their racks."
"Thanks for the warning." She straightened her shoulders and stepped forward -- carefully -- as the spiders neared her feet. They changed direction and scurried back, waving to get her attention. Donna undid more of her roll and hung it over her arm, approximating a display rack of her own.
People actually made blades for the rats and mice all the time, or reworked the handles of old knives, and traded them for things like useful and surprisingly artistic bits of woodwork. But if anybody had tried to design spider-customised grips before, it was at least a few human generations back and ancient history for the spiders. Barry wasn't entirely sure how she'd managed that one.
At any rate she only squeaked a little when one of the spiders jumped onto her arm for closer inspection, and she sold out of the roll of little knives, in the process making several spiders very happy and earning enough silk to smother in. Barry helped her get it back to her room, where they spread it out on the bed and Donna regarded it in some bemusement. "It's so soft. Even after handling it, I keep half expecting it to be sticky."
"They can control that," Barry explained. "This is based on what would be the structural fibers in a web, although most nyar-spiders produce silk fast enough to just wrap up their prey on the go. If it gives them trouble they'll use the sticky kind." He ran a hand over one gossamer skein, going nearly invisible against the coverlet. That one was fine enough to be see-through in a single layer no matter how tightly it was woven, and he reminded himself that there were many applications for such fabric, including things like scarves and curtains. "It's tougher than it looks."
"I noticed. It looks like it should have fallen apart by now!" Donna petted the same skein. "I'm not sure I quite thought through the implications of trading with spiders."
"Having them run at you, or what to do with the silk? If you don't want to wear spider-silk -- or not all of it -- you won't have any trouble finding someone who does want it."
"Bit of both." She looked up. "If we're going to Castle Wulfenbach, should we get started?"
"Most likely." He picked up the sword, and they headed for his airship.
Barry's airship displayed a gargoyleish face on the bow, with a trilobite on its forehead, and several other trilobites visible from various angles. There was no conceivable way to mistake it for anything but a Heterodyne craft even before going inside and seeing the wide variety of armaments around the edges. It was comfortable even with the guns taking up space (in fact, when not in use they were cushioned) and turned out to be remarkably fast.
Barry slowed it sharply as they approached Castle Wulfenbach, looming in the air and looking even more impossibly huge than from the ground. Great doors rolled open ahead of them, and he glided in to touch down lightly in a hangar.
They disembarked, Barry hauling the sword over one shoulder, and were met by a four-armed man holding a large black notebook. Barry blinked and strode forward with the kind of genuinely glad-to-see-you brilliant smile that had helped win the hearts of most of the continent -- frequently when he and his brother were armed with something more destructive than a giant sword. Donna had believed in it wholeheartedly in her teens and later wondered if it was one of the many exaggerations. It was not. Barry seized the man's free right hand to shake. "Boris! Meet Donna DuLac--" He gestured back to her, although without explanation. "Donna, Boris Dolokhov." He focussed on Boris again. "You look well. How are things?" He paused. "Not that it isn't good to see you, but why are we being met by a librarian?"
"I've been promoted to secretary," said Boris. "At least, it pays more and requires more work, so I assume it was a promotion. Good to see you, Lord Heterodyne." He turned and nodded to Donna. "Miss DuLac."
"Pleased to meet you," Donna said, offering a smile of her own.
"And congratulations," Barry said. "We're here on a combination of business and a social visit -- Donna made a sword for Fane, one of the Jägers, and I thought we'd drop in on friends if they've got time and definitely Agatha since classes should be out."
"Baron Wulfenbach is in his office, the children are in the common room," said Boris. "If you want a Jäger you'll have to ask one of them, I don't keep track of them."
"They can be hard to keep track of," Barry said amiably. "Apparently on leave they wander off and buy weapons from my girlfriend."
"Thankfully not all of them at once," Donna murmured.
"We'll go say hello to Klaus first. I'm sure one of them will turn up."
"This way, my Lord, madam," said Boris, leading them out of the hangar and into the corridors of the ship. Corridors with walls which were mostly plain sheets of metal, and sometimes decorated, and sometimes not there at all leaving them crossing a web of girders on walkways.
Barry was right; a Jäger did turn up, bounding sure-footed and careless across the web of girders. Barry greeted him as Minsk and sent him back off after Fane while they continued to the Baron's office, where he knocked on the doorframe before Boris had the chance to announce him. "Hoy, Klaus."
Klaus abandoned his papers with just enough alacrity to make Donna want to smile. "Well, you sound like you've been back in Mechanicsburg for a while."
Barry looked very slightly fazed. "I suppose I do."
"Thank you, Boris." Klaus turned back for a moment, then handed him a stack of papers, which Boris leafed through briefly and then took away. "I suppose you're not here to help me look over research funding applications. What's going on?"
"Delivering a sword and then intruding on your school, unless that's a problem. Fane should be turning up fairly soon."
"Lessons are out for the day, and I believe Agatha is in the common room rather than the lab today. This may have something to do with a recent delivery of school supplies including rather a lot of paint," said Klaus. "But if you don't want to be chased out by Otilia I think you'd better deliver the sword first."
"What, you don't think she'd want to see it?" Barry asked with a grin. "We'll watch out for the paint." He looked over his shoulder, even though Donna hadn't heard anything, and she turned as well and saw Fane. "Anyway, here we go."
"Hy heard hyu brought der svord," Fane said, to Donna, after giving Barry a quick salute.
"I might have been a little impatient," she said, as Barry unslung the sword and passed it off. Fane took it -- not quite like it weighed nothing, but like it weighed as much as a sword ought to. Good. "It won't feel truly finished until you've tried it."
"A Spark ting?" he asked, drawing it and admiring the blade. Klaus craned his neck to admire it too, rather than demanding a Jäger not test a new sword in his office.
"Hmm, my teacher was not a Spark but was very firm on the subject of commissions. But maybe, because I often feel I'm still holding Spark-work in my mind until it's been tested."
"Not actually unusual," said Klaus. "But it's convenient that your version of tested doesn't mean blown up."
"That would make a terrible sword," said Donna, and got a smile from Klaus and a sharp bark of laughter from Fane.
Fane flicked a glance around the room, checking he had space, and then dropped into a fighting stance, launching into a series of sword exercises. The sword moved easily, flashing and darting despite its huge size, beautifully balanced. Klaus watched like he was taking notes, leaning his elbows on his desk. When Fane was done he slid it into the sheath and looped it over his shoulder. "Now Hy pay hyu und hyu get beck to hyu visit," he said, smiling. "Thenk hyu for bringing it."
"You're very welcome." And watching him with the sword was deeply satisfying.
Fane counted out her fee, saluted Barry again, and departed jauntily. "Well," Barry said, "we can go see Agatha now without outraging anyone, presumably. Klaus, I will come back and help with those if you save some until after the Vermin Fair. By the way, do you want anything?"
"Airship grade silk is always welcome," said Klaus. "As is the offer to help with the paperwork."
"I'll see what I can do." Barry led the way out of the office and to the school, where they were met at the entrance by a towering, unbelievably perfect winged clank in flowing muslin confined by a large wraparound apron. Somehow knowing there was a Muse turned out not to be quite adequate preparation for seeing one. Especially in a colorfully paint-splotched apron. "Good afternoon, Madame Otilia. This is Donna DuLac. May we come in?"
There was a delighted shriek from beyond Otilia. "Uncle Barry!"
Otilia put out a hand to stop the little blonde girl attempting to dart past her. "It is not good manners to throw yourself at guests, Agatha," she said. "Especially when you have paint on your hands."
Agatha looked down at her hands and sighed. "Yes, Madame Otilia. Hello, Uncle Barry. Hello... um... I'm Agatha Heterodyne and I have no idea who you are."
"This is Donna," said Barry. "Er, Miss DuLac."
"Oh! The nice lady you and Adam have been writing to." Agatha looked up at Donna. "I probably shouldn't shake hands, huh?"
Donna bent down to look at the displayed hands, which were indeed thoroughly coated with paint, as was Agatha's protective smock. "I think yours are drying," she said. "And I could always wash before I handle anything that needs to stay paint-free."
Agatha broke into a delighted grin and offered her hand; Donna took it. Only some of the paint came off.
Otilia stepped aside. "Agatha can show you into the common room, or, if you'd prefer, one of the empty classrooms. I'm afraid we don't have a visitors' room."
"The common room's fine," Barry said. "Agatha, will you introduce Donna and your friends?"
"Sure!" Agatha led the way deeper into the school, to a large room that did not look particularly like anywhere Donna had ever been in her life, but reminded her warmly of home and her own childhood anyway, because it was swarming with children of all ages in various stages of mess, although presumably in this case they weren't all some variety of cousin. Agatha made a beeline for, surprisingly, two boys who had to be a few years older than she was. "Hey Gil, Tarvek, Uncle Barry brought his girlfriend."
...Definitely reminded her of home.
The boys looked up from their paintings, and the red-haired one stood up and wiped his hand carefully clean on his smock before offering it. The other, brown-haired at least where he hadn't run his hand through his hair and left a spiky blue streak, stayed sitting on the floor but said, "Hello," a little gruffly, and smiled at Barry.
"Prince Tarvek Sturmvoraus," Agatha said, more formally, "this is Donna DuLac." She waited barely long enough for them to shake hands and then tugged Donna down to the other boy. Donna smiled at the discovery that Barry had already joined him on the floor to inspect the paintings, and sat down as well. "And this is Gil Holzfäller."
"Pleased to meet you," said Tarvek, sitting down in front of an attempt at a portrait of Otilia. He'd done rather a nice job of the texture on the wings, even if he hadn't quite got the proportions right, and he'd certainly mixed the colours himself (they were rather more muted than the bright shades in the pots). Gil had apparently gone with the bright colours, and his paper was full of pictures of brightly coloured animals in equally bright clothes -- including a fox cub wearing spectacles remarkably like Tarvek's and a red-gold kitten with somewhat startlingly large green eyes.
"I'm collecting handprints from everybody, right now," Agatha explained. She certainly was. She had one sheet full of overlapping ones and two more with a mostly neat array and only a few splotches, still partially filled. "But I'm not sure I can get Madame Otilia's."
"I'm really not sure you should," said Tarvek. "Her joints fit together tightly, but getting paint in them still wouldn't be the best idea."
"She washes them," Agatha argued. "They have to be pretty well sealed."
"Probably best to skip, actually," said Barry. "They are, but they're still moving parts. Water evaporates; paint sticks to things and dries, and I'm not sure she'd especially want to deal with turpentine in there either."
"Oh, well..." Agatha frowned. "Maybe I'll ask her if she'd do it with a glove. Miss Donna, do you want to come meet everybody else?"
"Ah -- yes, thank you." Donna got back up and Agatha proceeded to take her around the room, starting with "my cousin, Theopholous DuMedd" and continuing through quite literally everybody -- all the students and a few teachers, including Lilith and Adam Clay. Donna rather suspected she’d have met nearly everyone eventually by staying where they were, as children kept coming by to speak to Barry for some time after they got back.
Gil pulled over another sheet of paper and started brushing bright green paint onto it. "Are you really dating Agatha's uncle?" he asked.
"He said she was," said Agatha.
"Yes," said Donna, smiling alternately at all three of them and finishing on Gil. "I don't blame you for being surprised; I still am too."
"I didn't think that was supposed to surprise people," Agatha said doubtfully. "Are you sure you're doing it right?"
Donna swallowed a laugh. "I didn't say that well. I visited Mechanicsburg because your father and uncle are... famously admirable, for helping a lot of people. I wasn't actually expecting to meet him."
"Oh. How come you did?"
"The Castle decided to introduce us." Donna opted against trying to explain the details.
"Oh," said Gil. "It thinks I should marry Agatha, too."
"Really?" said Tarvek, giving Gil a startled look. "Why?"
"Why not?" said Gil, looking defensive.
"But I mean, you're not..." Tarvek trailed off. "I thought the Castle would make a big deal out of family and things, considering what it is. That's all."
"Castle Heterodyne is intensely concerned with the Heterodyne succession," Barry explained. "Its attitude toward politics is, shall we say, undiplomatic and it considers war a particularly entertaining form of courtship. It rates Gil as a devoted friend and likely to turn out to be a Spark."
"Oh," said Tarvek, looking thoughtful and, oddly, a bit concerned. "That's certainly true." Then, when Gil gave him a puzzled look, he rolled his eyes at him and looked more cheerful. "I don't know why you think you won't be a Spark, it's pretty obvious."
Gil flushed. "Everybody says there's no way to tell if you don't have a family history of it."
"I don't know about that," Donna said thoughtfully. "My family has quite a few Sparks and a number of people who aren't as well. I can't say we can make truly reliable predictions, but sometimes everybody expects a particular child to be a Spark years before breakthrough."
"Gil is trying to figure out how to build a dragon clank that's big enough to ride and can really fly," Barry told her.
"Oh, yes, that would probably do it."
Gil grinned. "Well, I might be," he said. "Especially since Tarvek pretty certainly is and my wing designs are loads better than his."
"They were not," said Tarvek.
"They are," said Gil. "Just because you still don't understand how they can work..."
"I understand that your calculations are off if you expect those joints to hold..."
"Lessons got a lot more interesting once I got into their classes," Agatha confided. "I need a better mechanical background before I can evaluate their designs properly though."
Donna raised her eyebrows. "You're four and in classes with...." She took the higher end of her estimate to be tactful. "Eight-year-olds?"
"They're seven," said Agatha. "And yes. Once I learned to read and write all the languages the little kid lessons got kind of boring."
"The curriculum's somewhat flexible anyway," Barry put in. "Different families have highly varied approaches to how they start off. Agatha started off in the preparatory classes, essentially, and once she'd mastered the tools to move on...." He ruffled Agatha's hair affectionately and glanced in mild surprise at the flecks of orange paint on his hand. "We actually moved her to an earlier level first, but discovered she was paying more attention to her friends' work than her own."
"It was more interesting," said Agatha patiently.
Donna smiled at her. "Why do I suspect that means they were more interesting?"
"That too!" Agatha agreed cheerfully.
Gil and Tarvek broke off from their increasingly involved argument about wings to smile at her. "I think we need a bat," said Gil, still looking rather distracted.
"...What?" Donna asked.
"Oh, for the wing structure," Agatha said, apparently having no trouble following this line of reasoning.
"I'm not sure Klaus has bats on board," said Barry. "There may be a book on them here, or if not, I can draw you a diagram."
Agatha handed him a piece of paper and a paintbrush, which was not quite what Donna thought of as diagram material. "I'll go and look!"
"Okay," said Barry, as Agatha ran off, "I'm not sure whether to take this as a challenge or look for a pen."
"I kind of want to see this," Donna said.
Barry grinned at her, dipped the very tip of his brush, and started painting. "Tarvek's getting pretty good precision, actually."
Tarvek smiled at him and shuffled over to get a look at the diagram as it was painted. Gil came over too, kneeling up to look down at it.
Barry started mixing greys; Tarvek hastily offered his selection, and Barry thanked him warmly and began picking out shadows in what was less a diagram than a moderately realistic skeleton.
"It looks like a hand," Tarvek said after a few minutes. "With really long fingers."
"It essentially is one. Not as versatile as ours, but then again... we can't use ours to fly."
"We were copying the smaller dragon's wings, but it's much simpler than this," said Gil.
"I don't think it needs to be this complex," said Tarvek. "Just scaling up wasn't working, but we don't need anywhere near this much rotation in the joints and it would leave the elbow weak."
"Bats don't come apart at the elbows," said Gil.
"Are you planning to essentially build the entire supporting muscular structure, though?" Barry asked.
"No," said Tarvek. "We'd be better off just strengthening the joint even if it loses flexibility."
Gil sighed and then nodded. "Okay. We need to figure out how to make it fly at all before trying to make it really manoeuvrable," he admitted, then his eyes brightened. "We can leave that for the second prototype."
Agatha returned at this point. "I found bat books, but I couldn't bring them without having a bath in turpentine," she reported, possibly quoting a librarian. "Ooh, that looks like a hand."
"Your uncle says it is," said Tarvek. "Only we probably aren't using that design. Sorry."
"Oh, well, then you don't need the books for now anyway."
"We can still use bits of it. But we can probably manage without the books," said Gil.
After several more minutes of comparative wing anatomy, Barry pulled Agatha close against his side, heedless of the paint, and kissed the top of her head. "This has been fun," he said, "but Donna and I are supposed to meet some mice this evening. I'll visit again soon."
Agatha stood up and flung her arms around him. "Have fun! Don't get married or anything without me!"
Gil had picked up a paintbrush to attempt his own diagram, and Tarvek looked up halfway through taking it from him with a frustrated huff. "Goodbye," he said, wiping off the paintbrush where Gil had shoved it into the pot. "It was nice seeing you, and thank you for the diagram."
"Thank you," Gil echoed. "Have fun meeting mice."
"I hope to," said Donna.
Barry patted Agatha on the back. "You're very welcome, thank you all for the conversation, and Agatha, we're not rushing into anything but if I have a wedding I will wait until you have time to come." He stood up and brushed at his hands, then went to find the turpentine before they left.
They arrived back in Mechanicsburg in the early evening, to find the pigeons yawning at lamplit and half empty tables, while the previously untenanted tables were now occupied by rats or mice and filled with strangely elaborate wood carvings. One table, empty of wares, had a big sign in careful letters "CLOCKWORK REPAIRED", and a group of mice with tiny tools spread out around them standing on it. A lot of the mice wore belts, with knives or swords hanging from them, some wore harnesses with pouches and tools. A few wore tiny hats, or cloaks made out of scraps of fabric.
Barry had mentioned they were smart. Donna nonetheless hadn't quite expected literate. She browsed for a few minutes, feeling as if she'd walked into a very odd fairytale, and then went up to get her cart.
Haggling with a mouse was harder than with a spider, and a bit less mathematical. But her eye was caught by a sculpture of water, a cataract in white wood, with the grain worked into the design so that it almost looked alive and flowing, only to have stopped in a single moment. The fact that if you looked closely you could figure out it was emerging from a drainpipe didn't actually make much difference.
The artistic mouse picked out a knife suitable for woodcarving and all three flea combs (she'd debated whether this might be offensive, but made a few anyway), and as far as she could tell everyone ended the evening content. Barry walked her back to her room after dinner and helped wind the spider-silk off her bed.
When Barry turned to leave, after clearing her bed, he turned the door handle and then stopped, frowning. "Castle?"
"You could at least kiss her," said the Castle, sounding vaguely despairing.
Barry covered his eyes. "Unlock the door and I'll think about it."
There was a click and then a "Hmmm?" noise.
Barry tested the door, apparently suspicious; it opened this time, and he looked back at Donna. She gave up and giggled. "I could go for a kiss goodnight. The first one was very nice."
The walls made an encouraging sound.
"You know, I should look at the statistics, but I think there's a reason a lot of Heterodynes meet their eventual spouses outside of town," Barry said conversationally. Donna wasn't entirely sure which of them he was talking to, although he came over and took her hand as he spoke.
"If your house makes a habit of commenting the entire time, I think I'm impressed that your family manages to maintain the line at all," said Donna. "Would it be premature to invite you to visit me next time?"
Barry put his arms around her; she leaned into him. "Hmmm, I don't think so."
"Remember whose doing it was the two of you met," said the Castle.
"And I appreciate the introduction," Donna said, awkward as it had been at the time, "but if you keep this up I'll be embarrassed and laughing too hard to get a kiss at all."
At which point Barry did kiss her, and for several seconds Donna entirely forgot they had an audience.
...Maybe that explained it.