A traveling clockmaker's predicament (closed)

[Red_Tower]

Stood there and watched her climb up and give directions, making a few mental notes on it. He went wide-eyed and straightened up a littled, staring right at her eyes the whole time as she stood in front of him. "Don't say something stupid, don't say something stupid... Whoa, caught it! His mind raced, letting out a quick sigh. "Don't worry about it, I ramble much more than that. But uh, I'm actually a little more lost than that; I don't have a clue where I am..." Bill said as he gazed at her eyes, watched them flash, growing more and more curious about her. For a moment he considered saying something else, but at for a lose for words, he simply glanced around everywhere else for a few moments, but his eyes kept resting on hers.

[Deleted]

The constant eye-contact was as strange and rare as being without an illusion so Kano was only a little put off by it. "Um..Well, beyond the workings of a town and basic rules to follow within any city, I'm pretty useless when comes to what country or even continent we're on. I could lead you down a merchants path, or direct you to the ocean but while I do a lot of traveling I'm no cartographer."

His sudden tension had been odd, and she knew that he had probably seen her eyes change color but as long as he didn't pry she wouldn't say anything. If asked she certainly would, truth was a rare privilege to her and she was more thankful for it than anything when it came to her opinions on what the man had done so far.

[Red_Tower]

"Well that's alright, the best adventures have the most questions." He said with another toothy grin, slowly starting to not continuously stare at her eyes. He glanced around and remembered the mention of the inn, looking it over for a long moment. "Wanna head in there for a bite to eat? And get to know each other better, Gods its been ages..." He asked, thinking the second half of what he said, he had thought. Bill tugged on his coat, dusting it off, and shrugged, deciding to wait instead of saying anything else. "One step at a time, most people are scared off already, and this girl really is fascinating..."

[Deleted]

"Sure," Kano's grin held all the excitement of a child about to pull of a masterful prank with none of the mischievous intention. Her movements were always fast and fluid and the newfound joy at being unable to lie did little to hinder this. The shifter stopped just outside the door, waiting for Bill and preventing the line of sight from breaking. 'Just don't turn around or head around a corner and I won't lie to you, could you do that for someone you only met a little while ago?' Her thoughts remained unsaid and though her eyes flashed again in warning as to what would happen if that precious line were severed she was perfectly happy to simply tear down the illusion on her own instead of it being shattered.

[Red_Tower]

"Great!" He said, following her as quickly as his leg would allow, glad and slightly surprised by the level of joy on her face. No matter the reason, it made him happy, and put him a bit more at ease with the idea of going and sitting down with her and talking more. "So, what thousand and one ways can I mess up? Oh, those are some..." Bill thought for a moment until he got to the door. He could tell she wanted them to go in at the same time, so he slowly limped in behind her, watching the way she moved, before remembering that it could be taken badly to watch like that. "If I didn't know better Billy, I'd say you were a bit of a perv. Oh wait... Shut it, I'm no pervert."

When they entered he saw it wasn't too crowded, they stood around talking for long enough that only people that stayed up to read or drink were still there. Bill guided them towards a table in the back, taking a seat to face the entire inn, but mainly the doors. When the serving maid came around to see what they wanted, he quickly ordered himself a whisky, red wine, and bread. "And you, Kano?"

[Deleted]

"Some black tea and coffee cake would be nice," Kano responded without missing a beat, the waitress simply grinned and walked off returning amazingly fast with their orders. Sipping on the previously boiling water she found it to hot to drink at the moment and placed it to the side, nibbling on the cake instead.

"You spoke of adventure, where do you plan on heading?" She sat opposite Bill in a chair, their food and drink placed on a round wooden table. Testing the tea again she began to drink, the upward curve of her lips no longer revealing teeth, but still serving to relay her cheer at not needing to lie. As far as she was concerned travel with this man was totally feesable, so long as he was fine with the company.

[Red_Tower]

Before he began to reply he started shifting through his bag, looking for something intensely. "Honestly, I don't know. I use to wander a lot, collect herbs and such for my alchemy and make a living selling potions or as a hired hand. Even did a couple magic shows, but never really impressive ones. Point being, I might wander, see if I can figure out where I am, or where to go, but no real aim in mind... Why do you ask?" Bill said to her as he finally found what he was looking for; a small vial of red liquid, which he promptly drained into his wine and stashed the bottle back away.

"Also, can I ask how you got into clock making? It sounds fascinating..." He asked as he quickly drained his wine and took a munch of his bread and a sip of his whisky. "Careful Billy, you don't normally let people see you add to your wine..."

[Deleted]

"Curiosity." Once again Kano mostly ignored the man's odd behavior, simply noticing it but never truly acknowledging it. Placing her tea to the side the shifter began to speak, "I was orphaned rather young, and eventually managed to escape the orphanage at around age 7. I had a group of friends at the time, who had parents but tended to rebel against them, I was at a park when the old man came looking." Kano chuckled bitterly, her grin no longer existent but not replaced by a frown. "He asked us all our 'angle' on the world. Strange question to ask a group of 9 year-olds, isn't it?"

She took another sip of the bitter tea before continuing, "He wound up choosing me, and until about a year ago I was his apprentice. At the time I was more focused on survival then what I was going to do as a job so there was little choice in the matter but I'm perfectly fine with it." Her grin returned and she pulled what looked like a metal bird from one of her inner coat pockets. "Here's what I made that got me out from under the old man," A few paper cards with holes punched in them she placed by her contraption. "It plays as many different tunes as can be made with a music box, but there are far more complicated metal gimmicks out there."

[Red_Tower]

"Brilliant! Incredible workmanship on this." Bill said as he lowered his head to be eye level with the bird machine. He looked at it from different angles, getting out of his hair and slowly walking around the table, keeping his head lowered. He nearly shoved his face into Keno's chest before realizing what side of the table he was on, giving a quick cough before moving to sit back down. "Remarkable... I'll be honest, you've really captured my attention, maybe a little too much, but I don't really mind. Kind of alone right now, and the company is nice, and you make for very interesting company." He said, gazing into her eyes now and again, not quite so obsessively any more.

He took another bite of his food and drained the rest of his drink, ordering another glass of wine though. While waiting for the drink in the practically empty inn, he let out a sigh, before realizing he had. "Er, sorry, not sure why I did that... But, if it isn't too rude of me, I just keep noticing... You have very unique eyes..."

[Deleted]

Having not been quite facing him, her shoulder would have gotten him first. Still Kano grinned in response to the compliment on her skill. "Nice to know I'm not boring," Her slightly lopsided grin remained as she chuckled a bit. The tea was long gone, and she only occasionally bit into the bread like cake in front of her.

"Is it that they're yellow, or perhaps they remind you of a cat's, or have you simply figured out what the trick was?"

[Red_Tower]

"The first two... And that they're quite stunning... So then they have something to do with the whole thing outside?" He said oddly quietly, glancing around for a moment. "What's going on Billy? This feels like its going to well, I haven't scared her off, nothing I've done has seemed to even perturb her. Maybe you're getting better at talking? We'll see..."

The server came back with his glass of wine, and once again he searched for a bottled, found one, and poured it. This time, however, when he drank the mixture his eyes glazed over gray for just a moment, before he focused again on Kano, grinning.

[Deleted]

The waitress placed the wine in front of Bill and asked if Kano wanted more tea. With a shake of the shifter's head the woman was off to deal with the few drunkards and readers still awake. It took a lot of restraint not to cringe as a drunk puked on the poor woman before being kicked out but Kano managed.

"Mhm.. You ever heard of the powers of the eye?" Kano blinked, not too surprised by color change, considering. 'There are only so many with these things, no one left with mine though. Eyes of stone, disappearance, attention, and...Um, oh that's right, fate. Eyes of deception... Not fun.' She picked up the bird and spread it's wings, inspecting each gear individually while she left Bill to think. Finding nothing in need of repair she closed the wings and put it back down. 'I may have just messed up there...I really don't want to wind up explaining it..'

[Red_Tower]

"Hm..." Bill let out, thinking carefully. "Alright, let's think this through. 'Powers of the eye', have I heard of something like that before? I think I've heard of something similar... So some form of inborn ability, manifested in the eyes, and her's at least seems to create illusions... Safe to assume there are other forms of it, right? Right..." He cleared his throat, then again, and again, before finally opening his mouth to speak. "I-" He stopped, thinking again.
"Make sure you know your options. Say yes, and you'll have to pretend you know all about it, in a place you know nothing. Say no, and create an awkward situation where you make her have to explain something that could be sensitive. Say something in the middle, and come out alive? Oh, I paused when I was about to speak, that's not good, is it..." Finally he sat up a little better and adjusted his coat, before finally speaking again. "I think I've heard of something like it before, I assume that's how you were able to make the illusion earlier?" He said, debating again if he should say more, but leaving it at that, hoping that he hadn't just screwed up their evening.

[Deleted]

Glad she didn't have to dive so deeply into the matter she grinned. "Yes, there are some that would require the person with the ability to do something to stop it. As you saw earlier mine shattered with no input from me on the matter, for mine the line of sight and physical contact are very important. So long as people can see me it is prevented from fully activating. I'm rather glad you shattered it actually, been a while since I had company that didn't want to kill me for my eyes," Her grin was a little bitter again, but she was still happy with the situation.

'I have to thank you some-time for being someone who pays some attention to the oddest of old texts and rumors..' Her grin lightened again as she pushed some of the cards to Bill and gestured to a small slot on the bird's chest, "Do you want to try it?" Even if he inserted the card backwards it would be fine, and the notes would simply be played in reverse order as such was the design of the machine. If he didn't that was fine too, Kano would simply pocket it again and they could continue talking.

[Red_Tower]

"An interesting ability... And I'm glad too, not a whole lot of people tend to talk to me." Bill said with a smile, before being offered to play a tune on her mechanical bird. "I would love to!" He said brightly, quickly glancing over the cards on the table, hovering his hand over them with his eyes closed before snatching one up. "Let's try this one..." He muttered, looking at the card for a moment before inserting it, quickly pulling it out and flipping it around. "It was backwards..." He inserted the card back into the machine; backwards.