Tea for Sarah

[arlenarkenstone]

With Thorn gone for a few days the furnaces are quiet and cold. Arlen doesn't like it that way, because he likes the heat and there is a kind of life and energy to the lab with his assistant around. It might not just be the furnaces and the glassblowing. It's kind of nice to work with somebody else again, and Arlen had forgotten that.
But he still has Aodhan. The teapot likes it in the lab and likes being used to make tea, and it has gotten very good at keeping out from underfoot. Probably it likes Thorn too.
When he knows Sarah is coming to visit, Arlen clears a space at one end of one of the big tables and sets Aodhan and some cups on tiles there. The cups are kind of chipped from him and Thorn using them around the lab but they are clean, and the tiles are scratched and marked up because they're the heat-resistant kind that they use around the glassworks to set super hot metal and glass on. It is not a pretty table that he has set up but it is the best he can do. The whole lab is one huge room big enough to be an auditorium and the traditional furnace takes up a lot of one end of it and Arlen looks very small sitting alone at one end of a table in the far corner, huddled up and waiting with his hands under his arms to keep warm. Not that it's all that cold but it seems like it is by contrast.

Comments

[sarah-branigan.livejournal.com]

Sarah arrives after checking with Arlen via PINpoint that it was a good time. She is dressed in her usual style of clothing, a dress appropriate for cooler weather. She has a plate of tea cakes with her, little frosted squares decorated to look like presents.

She didn't expect his lab to be so big. She stands by the door and looks around before spotting Arlen all the way at the other end. "Hello, Arlen. This lab is so impressive!" She walks towards him, mindful of anything in her way, her heels clicking on the ground. She's completely lost her Western accent, sounding like her old self.

[arlenarkenstone.livejournal.com]

You could fit at least five of Schreber's labs inside this place. Part of it is because the main furnace is almost as big as Schreber's lab all by itself. The electric one beside it is not very much bigger than a regular stove. There's also a glass box about five feet high and four feet wide, with glass pipes and wires leading to a complicated small glass lump in the center. It might be a heart. It's not finished so it is not quite the right shape or big enough yet.

Everything is kind of cleaned up right now since there is nothing being made. Arlen gets up though and takes a few steps away and gestures to the really solid bench next to the table. "Thank you. It was simply the room that best suited my current needs." He is still not sure if she was LOLed or just being in character for her costume.

[sarah-branigan.livejournal.com]

Since no one questioned her accent, Sarah has no idea she was talking funny. She does remember pouring people drinks, however, which strikes her as an odd thing to have done, but she doesn't dwell too much on it.

Sarah pauses on her way over, attention caught by the glass box and its pipes and wires inside. "Is... is that going to be Professor Crumrin's heart?" She asks, pointing to the glass mass in the center.

"Oh... sorry, these are for tea." She sets the cakes onto the table and then sits down on the bench. "Thank you for having me here. I imagine it's somehat different when you're working."

[arlenarkenstone.livejournal.com]

He thought it was a little weird but he thought her costume was too so that's okay. Probably he has a light accent just from being from another world. He sounds like one of those bookish people who might have spent a lot of time in New England or maybe real England.

"Part of it. It's not completed yet, and there will be a testing process to make sure it works efficiently." He has one a lot like it! He sits down after she has because that is gentlemanly and he pours the tea for her. When he sets the teapot down it hops in place a little because it recognizes Sarah and is happy to see her!

"It is... Thorn is a very good worker, very industrious. The furnaces make it much warmer." And brighter, and more homey feeling with someone else around. He's feeling kind of lonely without his assistant but he doesn't really know it.

[sarah-branigan.livejournal.com]

The people closest to Sarah who would have noticed were also LOLed. Perhaps if she runs into John or that handsome vampire again, she'll learn about her accent.

"How will you test it? Oh, thank you." She picks up her cup and gives the teapot a smile. "Hello again, little one." She doesn't try to pet it in case it is hot.

"I see. I'm glad Thorn is working out for you as an assistant. It must be a lot of work for the two of you."

[arlenarkenstone.livejournal.com]

"There will be an extensive testing process, running... fluids through it, something of the same viscosity as his blood." He looks at the little cakes and very delicately picks one up. He does not bother wearing his gloves in the lab. "He has the manual dexterity I lack, and he is... of an artistic bent..." Thorn reminds him just a little bit of Einrich in some ways. "He has learned glass blowing very quickly, and what we are doing is especially delicate work. We made much of this as practice." He gestures at the chemistry equipment that fills a couple of the tables. Beakers and alembics and retorts and pipes and tubes and vials of glass. There was a lot of practice.

The teapot hops again and wriggles and settles down on the hotplate.

[sarah-branigan.livejournal.com]

She looks over the equipment again as he explains. She's had enough familiarity with Schreber's lab to know what most of the items on the tables. Briefly, she wonders where Daniel gets all his equipment, and if he needs any more.

"Thorn is a student at my school," she comments after another sip of tea. "I don't see him often but I know he takes very seriously whatever he puts his mind to."