it's a question of not letting what we've built up crumble to dust
Fragile
Like a baby in your arms
Be gentle with me
I'd never willingly
Do you harm
I can see it in my mind's eye: the cracked tile floor, scratched and abraded from dragging equipment across the tiles, the spills of reagents, burn marks when things didn't quite go together as planned. Spots leached of all color when eye dissolution bubbled off the autoclavery.
Apologies
Are all you seem to get from me
But just like a child
You make me smile
When you care for me
And you know
I see it, I see it clearly: the walls, upstairs and down, covered in whatever we could find: copper, riveted steel, scraped hide, experiments in clockwork that didn't work, experiments in flesh we couldn't let continue, and everything, all of it, put to use.
Patchwork. Odd symbol of my soul. But I see it, I see it clearly.
It's a question of lust
It's a question of trust
It's a question of not letting
What we've built up
Crumble to dust
It is all of these things and more
That keep us together
Furniture? That doesn't come in as clear, but I'd take a stab at it and say...metal too, where it's not interesting twisted vines we found, somewhere; leftover gears and plush velvet cushions; machine parts draped in satin.
Independence
Is still important for us though (we realise)
It's easy to make
The stupid mistake
Of letting go (do you know what I mean)
And over everything, tucked in, sometimes straight, sometimes angled, shopping prims, vending prims, little squares of touchable commerce. Hanging sometimes, riveted on others, changeable displays on occasion, organized disorganization. Every single copper plate and pop rivet and bit of exotic wood, brought back from travels to strange lands, leather stretched over wires, muscle pulsing on its own attached to some strange power source, experiment in progress for no apparent reason...
I see it.
My weaknesses
You know each and every one (it frightens me)
But I need to drink
More than you seem to think
Before I'm anyone's
And you know
We're changing the shop. Rather completely.
When we're finished it will have the same shape, and it will have our objects, but...very little else is going to be recognizeable.
Which may be part of why we're doing it. We are more than we were. We are more than we seem. And our shop should reflect this.
It's a question of lust
It's a question of trust
It's a question of not letting
What we've built up
Crumble to dust
It is all of these things and more
That keep us together
The house is going to be changing too, but the shop first. The shop first, and then the house.
Maybe the house on stilts...ooh....and we wouldn't have to take it up and put it down, if true, we could just...have events under it, underneath the house proper. I'd have to go through and remake the house entirely, save as many prims as I could, but...
Ooh. I could do this.
Kiss me goodbye
When I'm on my own
But you know that I'd
Rather be home
Change. Change is necessary. War has been declared upon the House of Orr and this time, I feel like fighting back with art and whimsy. Confusion to my enemies, always, but more than that, to war properly, I must war from the centerpoint, where things are still.
And my soul is patchwork, and where's the center of a patchwork? The thread that binds it.
It's a question of lust
It's a question of trust
It's a question of not letting
What we've built up
Crumble to dust
It is all of these things and more
That keep us together
My thread, my center? My loves. Those who love me, those I love, those are my thread, my fixed center, my binding cord, my strength. I pull on one and they all draw in. And from this patchwork place I will fight, and I do not intend to lose.
We are here and we are strong and we will remain when our enemies are long gone. Reviresco--we will rise again. We cannot be brought down to stay. We eat life with shining teeth and we offer praise and distraction to those against us, and we move on, strewing flowers and razors in our wake.
They cannot sever the thing already cut to ribbons. But these ribbons have been plaited back together with expert hands. One hand fisted, one open hand over it, one graceful bow--we have accepted the challenge.
Come at us. But be prepared. Change or be changed, and the deeper one goes, the more one will alter. We are a house of shifters, after all. Come too close, no form remains fixed.
We are ready for you.
(Lyrics are Depeche Mode's "A Question of Lust".)
Like a baby in your arms
Be gentle with me
I'd never willingly
Do you harm
I can see it in my mind's eye: the cracked tile floor, scratched and abraded from dragging equipment across the tiles, the spills of reagents, burn marks when things didn't quite go together as planned. Spots leached of all color when eye dissolution bubbled off the autoclavery.
Apologies
Are all you seem to get from me
But just like a child
You make me smile
When you care for me
And you know
I see it, I see it clearly: the walls, upstairs and down, covered in whatever we could find: copper, riveted steel, scraped hide, experiments in clockwork that didn't work, experiments in flesh we couldn't let continue, and everything, all of it, put to use.
Patchwork. Odd symbol of my soul. But I see it, I see it clearly.
It's a question of lust
It's a question of trust
It's a question of not letting
What we've built up
Crumble to dust
It is all of these things and more
That keep us together
Furniture? That doesn't come in as clear, but I'd take a stab at it and say...metal too, where it's not interesting twisted vines we found, somewhere; leftover gears and plush velvet cushions; machine parts draped in satin.
Independence
Is still important for us though (we realise)
It's easy to make
The stupid mistake
Of letting go (do you know what I mean)
And over everything, tucked in, sometimes straight, sometimes angled, shopping prims, vending prims, little squares of touchable commerce. Hanging sometimes, riveted on others, changeable displays on occasion, organized disorganization. Every single copper plate and pop rivet and bit of exotic wood, brought back from travels to strange lands, leather stretched over wires, muscle pulsing on its own attached to some strange power source, experiment in progress for no apparent reason...
I see it.
My weaknesses
You know each and every one (it frightens me)
But I need to drink
More than you seem to think
Before I'm anyone's
And you know
We're changing the shop. Rather completely.
When we're finished it will have the same shape, and it will have our objects, but...very little else is going to be recognizeable.
Which may be part of why we're doing it. We are more than we were. We are more than we seem. And our shop should reflect this.
It's a question of lust
It's a question of trust
It's a question of not letting
What we've built up
Crumble to dust
It is all of these things and more
That keep us together
The house is going to be changing too, but the shop first. The shop first, and then the house.
Maybe the house on stilts...ooh....and we wouldn't have to take it up and put it down, if true, we could just...have events under it, underneath the house proper. I'd have to go through and remake the house entirely, save as many prims as I could, but...
Ooh. I could do this.
Kiss me goodbye
When I'm on my own
But you know that I'd
Rather be home
Change. Change is necessary. War has been declared upon the House of Orr and this time, I feel like fighting back with art and whimsy. Confusion to my enemies, always, but more than that, to war properly, I must war from the centerpoint, where things are still.
And my soul is patchwork, and where's the center of a patchwork? The thread that binds it.
It's a question of lust
It's a question of trust
It's a question of not letting
What we've built up
Crumble to dust
It is all of these things and more
That keep us together
My thread, my center? My loves. Those who love me, those I love, those are my thread, my fixed center, my binding cord, my strength. I pull on one and they all draw in. And from this patchwork place I will fight, and I do not intend to lose.
We are here and we are strong and we will remain when our enemies are long gone. Reviresco--we will rise again. We cannot be brought down to stay. We eat life with shining teeth and we offer praise and distraction to those against us, and we move on, strewing flowers and razors in our wake.
They cannot sever the thing already cut to ribbons. But these ribbons have been plaited back together with expert hands. One hand fisted, one open hand over it, one graceful bow--we have accepted the challenge.
Come at us. But be prepared. Change or be changed, and the deeper one goes, the more one will alter. We are a house of shifters, after all. Come too close, no form remains fixed.
We are ready for you.
(Lyrics are Depeche Mode's "A Question of Lust".)
Comments
Thank you, Doctor. It is more than metaphoric, but it's in the nature of a private little war--I don't intend to change one iota of how I'm behaving, and I don't intend to publically embarrass the declaring party.
I'm fairly confident of who's going to win, but this could be pure hubris--we'll see.
Laughter she's still attuned to, after all this time.
She shakes her head of lime-green hair, lips quirking in a half-smile.
"It's all very well to laugh," she murmurs, half-aloud, half-sent back along pathways she still knows. "Remember who said goodbye first, though."
Voice calls from the base of the stairs, her partner in change. "What was that?"
She laughs a bit, herself, tossing the small hammer in the air, catching it. "Nothing," she calls out, then bends in close, tracing a pattern on the wall, breathing her words against it, too faint for anyone earthly to hear.
"You ever get back here, you should say hi," she says, her words traveling the path back, along the pattern. Her smile widens. "Have a cup of tea..."
She turns her attention to her task, selecting a copper rivet this time, wondering if she can talk Lady Darkling out of a small tin of her...special tea blend.
Not that I wish to speak for him. The worst is over for you, but I will never be free of his legacy. If only I could...
*Eyes glaze over as he starts to whistle a familiar tune to himself. He pulls down his goggles and snaps on his rubber gloves. He bolts towards the laboratory access switch as the Spark submerges his burdens for at least the length of another experiment*
If so, the both of us should be very, very strong after the trials of the year past.
*smiles ruefully, then realizes she needs more rivets. And possibly more sheet metal. And where did she put the copper-bound ivory squares...?*