Ricky trudged home, listening to the sounds of the street and the heavy ticking of her own mechanisms and trying to focus on that and that alone. She felt...a lot less pleased than she'd thought she would. ...why? she wondered. He pushed me into things I didn't really want to do, he took control of me as soon as he had the chance, and...and he was even going to treat Belle as a...as a thing! If he could be that callous toward his own girlfriend...wasn't she justified in reacting the way she had? It seemed to be the only way to get through to him, anyway...so why did she feel like the...jerk?
She sighed, trying not to think about it, but not really succeeding. For one thing, there was the whole issue of her...implication...that she'd used to get Jeff to leave her to herself. She hadn't liked it much at the time - implying that being wound was a sexual thing was like implying that enjoying a hug from your mom meant you had an Oedipus complex - but she'd wanted to get a chance to escape, and anyway, she hadn't actually lied to him, she'd just let his imagination fill in the blanks...
...but she knew perfectly well that she'd intended to deceive him, all semantics aside, and now it had backfired in a way she would never have expected, and he thought that she'd basically molested his girlfriend. Part of her thought so who cares what that jerk thinks of me? but...it did bother her. And...it could be a problem for Belle, too. After all, she would need to be wound on a regular basis just as Ricky did, and if Jeff thought that that was...that kind of thing, there was no way he would let other people do it - if he even would. She didn't really know that much about his and Belle's relationship. No, this could be...a ser...ious...
She'd been too lost in thought to realize that she was running down until she was nearly out of power - not that there was much she could've done anyway. Making a trip halfway to Belle's house and back, and then having to go back to where she'd hid Belle's master key before heading for home, not to mention the tension of her confrontation with Razor, had worn her out quickly enough that she was really more surprised she hadn't run down before now. But she was still stuck here, and still a good ways from home, and the sun was only just on its way down now...
The clockwork girl stood in place, staring at the scenery and feeling her key slowly re-wind under the power of...whatever it was that powered it, and thinking about how this was exactly what Belle would be stuck with thanks to her lie...no, she couldn't let that happen. She had to clear this up...but she had to get home in order to do that! And who knew how long that would take...
Mr. Mallory was in the middle of making breakfast when he heard soft footsteps behind him. That was a clue that Morgan still wanted to be close to them - she had a knack for moving through the house unheard when she wanted to be by herself. He moved the pan off the burner for the moment and turned to her. "Are you alright, love?" he asked, extending a hand to his daughter. "Did you have a nightmare?"
The green-haired girl came over next to him and clung to his leg. "I...I dunno what it was," she said, her voice a little shaky. "I...I was awake, but I was thinking about the people who were here, and then I s-saw...bad things, soldiers with swords, and a village, and they couldn't defend themselves against the invaders and I think I've been there before and there was...there was-"
She choked, and her father held her a little tighter. "It's okay," he said gently, stroking her forest-green hair. "You're safe. We're safe, honey. It was just a dream..." He trailed off, then frowned. "Wait, there were people here? While we were asleep?" Morgan bit her lip and nodded. She hadn't meant to bring up the visitors, but it was hard not to think about them.
Her father looked down at her, visibly concerned. "Who were they, Morgan? What did they want? Did they say?"
She didn't really want to answer, but she was still a bit shaken, and it felt better to be able to share it with someone. "Th-they..." she stammered, "they w-were...from the government, I think. They..." She shuddered. "They wanted me, daddy! They wanted me to come with them and...and..."
Morgan trailed off, realizing that she was just about to spill her whole secret. She knew her parents cared for her, but they...they would never understand...not the way they thought. She wanted to change the world...they were the kind of people who thought it would be best left alone. How could they understand? They hadn't even really understood why she'd gone out in the Sun...
Mr. Mallory knelt down next to his daughter, feeling worried. Maybe...maybe this was just more of the dream? But if it wasn't...well, he couldn't just hope for the best where his family's safety was concerned. "What did they want you for, Morgan?" he asked. He took her in his arms. "I will not let them hurt you, sweetie, but I need to know what's going on here. What did they say to you?"
It had taken a while for Jon to get out of the house and over to Tim's, on account of her parents needing to use the van this evening for the meet-up. But she'd made it over, and he was ready to go, and they were finally underway. Not exactly to any place in particular; she'd just wanted to be out away from the complications that now seemed even to be encroaching on her home life, and they'd figure out what to do as they went, she guessed.
They were making pretty good time, in any case, and for early evening it was warmer than she'd expected - nice, considering her well-cooled lower half. (She'd brought a jacket, but it never hurt to have amenable weather.) The scenery was pretty nice, too, with the shifting colors of the setting sun muted into differentiated hues of orange by the atmosphere, and enough people around to make the world feel alive without being crowded. It was a nice breather, and her drow-boy companion seemed to be enjoying himself, too.
As they were walking (or, in Jon's case, sliding) along, they came across an interesting sight. A Changed girl, of a type Jon had never seen before, was standing almost completely still in the middle of the sidewalk. She was like a life-sized wind-up doll, complete with a winding key sticking out of her back; its slow turn was the only motion she displayed.
They stopped on either side of her, examining her - noting her diminutive stature, her varicolored hair, her visibly artificial but still relatable appearance. Tim looked her over curiously. "Is...is she awake?" he wondered. The slug-girl frowned. "...I dunno. Her eyes aren't closed. But if she's not asleep, why isn't she moving?"
Tim blinked in surprise. "H-her eyes moved!" he said. The strange doll-girl had shifted her gaze backward, as if she was trying to look at something behind her...or perhaps indicate for them to look?
Jon glanced at her back again, but the only thing she could see was the winding key. "Does she...need to be wound up...d'you think?" she asked. Tim shrugged. "But it's turning, isn't it?" he asked. "And she can move..."
"But the only thing we've seen move is her eyes," Jon said. "Maybe she's not wound enough to do anything else?" She thought about it for a moment. "I'm gonna give it a shot," she said.
The dark elf looked a little nervous, but nodded. "Just...be careful," he said. "Don't wind her too much..." He thought back to the smiley-face alarm clock he'd had as a kid - he loved that thing, but he'd wound it too hard and popped the mainspring right off its anchor point. It hadn't been the end of the world for a clock his mom had got for a dollar at a garage sale (in fact, it'd been the incident that started him off as a tinkerer, trying to figure out how to fix it,) but he hated to think what might happen to a person in an analogous situation.
Jon nodded. Sliding back behind the girl, she planted her foot as firmly against the ground as she could, took hold of the winding key, and tried to wind it - but found that she couldn't force it in the opposite direction from its rotation. That was strange...if she was still just barely running, shouldn't the opposite direction from the spring's unwinding be the direction in which to wind? She tried again, carefully, with no more luck - there seemed to be some kind of lock which prevented it from being forced that way.
"Try the other way, maybe?" Tim suggested. She did - carefully, at first, and then with an increasing amount of heft as she found that the key would freely turn the other way, and that she could feel the tension building in the spring. She was a bit surprised by how much force it required as she wound it further, but she managed alright - as a girl, she was more on the stockily-built side of things, and certainly not some frail waif. Eventually, though, she reached a point where she couldn't move it any further, and she wasn't about to try and force it. Besides, surely this was well and truly enough...
Jon released the key, and it began to rotate the opposite way to how it had been going when they'd arrived...what, had she been winding herself then? Oh, what the hell, she wasn't going to bother trying to figure it out. Besides, the girl was starting to move. She looked around, then turned around to face Jon. "Th-thank you," she said, looking the slug-girl up and down with a curious expression on her face.
"Don't mention it," Jon replied. "Does that happen often?"
Ricky shrugged. "I...don't know," she said. "I'm...still getting the hang of managing it."
Jon nodded. "Well, are you going to be okay?" she asked.
The clockwork girl nodded. "Yes, I'm not too far from home. Um, I have to get going," she said. "Thanks again..."
Jon nodded, and she and Tim watched the strange doll-girl take off. Jon wondered if she was really going to be okay, if it was possible for her to just run down out in public somewhere like that, but...well, she supposed her family was already working on figuring it out.
Ricky felt relieved; that hadn't been too long of a delay, and nothing bad had come of it. The slug-girl was an interesting sight, especially for someone with an interest in the changed, but there would be time to think about that later. Right now, she needed to...take care of things.
When she got home, she was met by her parents, just inside the house. "Ricky!" her mother said, visibly relieved. "Where were you?"
The clockwork girl felt emotion begin to overwhelm her - there wasn't the physical trembling or welling tears that accompanied these feelings in a body of flesh and blood, but some of her internal movements were becoming erratic, and she felt like she was about to burst into tears anyway - but she managed to hold herself together for the moment. "It...it's a...a l-long st-st-story," she stammered. "I'll...tell you later...I gotta do something."
She ran up to her room and grabbed her cell phone off the desk, dialing Razor's number. She hoped he wouldn't notice her name on the caller ID, but to her relief there were a couple short rings and then a click as the line opened. "H-hello," Razor responded, his voice somewhat flat.
"It's...it's not like that," she said. "Being wound. It's nothing like that." It wasn't exactly a normal way to start a phone call, but if he hung up the moment he recognized who it was, she wanted to at least get the point across.
There was a sort of gagging sound, and then he fired back with "THE HELL DID YOU SAY IT WAS, THEN!?"
Ricky wanted to protest that she hadn't said it was, but...again, she had intended for him to get exactly the idea that he did. "I wanted to make sure you didn't touch me," she said, irritated. "Not that that worked..."
There was a suspiciously long and out-of-place pause. "...what are you talking about?" Razor responded, a little too deliberately. The remark had been mostly out of irritation, but based on the careful response, Ricky thought back on it - she hadn't exactly paid much attention to it before, but suddenly the full implications of everything she'd witnessed while he'd thought she was asleep struck her.
He...he was like she had been. He had...an interest...in the changed...and he was afraid of anybody finding out. Suddenly, incredibly, she found herself sympathizing with him. A little, anyway. She knew what it was like...to feel embarassed for being interested on account of what other people might think...to want to share that interest with other people, but to be afraid that they might reject him for it...and he probably had more reason to be afraid of that than she did.
But...he was still being a real problem, and she couldn't just overlook that. Especially not since part of it was her fault. She had an advantage, here, and if she could use it to make things better, well...
...she just hoped she wouldn't mess them up more. She sighed. "I wasn't asleep," she said. "I was just standing still. I saw everything. I know what you were doing, and why."
There was an even longer pause, but she could hear his breathing quicken. Before he thought to hang up, she spoke again. "I won't tell anyone," she said.
She could hear him slowly exhale. "Y-you...won't?" he asked.
"No," she said. "Not...not unless I have to. But...you can't just keep Belle locked up somewhere," she said. She wanted to tell him to send her home, to not touch her, to stay away from her tiny kin, but...as much as she hated to admit it, he might have a point, sort of. Belle didn't have a lot of sense - and even Ricky, who wasn't the sort of person to just absent-mindedly wander out into the Sun, needed people to help her in this form. Maybe...maybe he really could help her...but she wasn't going to let him lock her away to keep her "safe."
"And...and stop being a jerk to the mermaid," she said. "She...she has enough problems!"
"So, what, you called to blackmail me?" Razor said, an undercurrent of anger in his too-calm voice. Ricky huffed. "I called because I didn't want you beating people up for winding up Belle when she needs it!" she said, wishing her voice didn't get so high when she got worked up. "And this is the only way to get any sense through your head! I don't like doing this!"
She trailed off, already feeling a bit bad for her outburst. It wasn't that she thought he didn't deserve it, it was just...it didn't feel right for her to be so mad. She sighed. "I...I'm sorry I hit you," she said, and hung up.
Her feelings thoroughly muddled, she sighed, sat down on the bed, and pulled out the two master keys - the large one, hers, and the small one - Belle's. These...these were a problem. She wanted to lock them away in a safe in a box in the back of the attic where nobody would ever find them, but...honestly, if anybody had any idea they existed, her house would be the first place they'd look. No, she'd have to entrust them to someone else for safekeeping. She already had a pretty good idea who...she just wished sundown would hurry up and come so Anne could come over...
