Fifth Floor Common Room, Monday Afternoon

[soniaroadsqueen]

It had required moving some furniture around in order to create the space necessary, but Ringo had managed to lay down a big white sheet on the floor and pin its corners with some large boxes. She'd even had boxes left over, and those were stacked near the edge of the area she'd blocked off.

Most of the boxes were open, too, and revealed their contents to be hundreds of tiny different bits of metal. Ringo had asked Ume to send her AT parts, and Ume had delivered in spades. She had enough pieces here to put together dozens pairs. Sometimes, apparently, little sisters were good for something after all!

Of course so many boxes had taken a lot of work to get up to the fifth floor, and she hoped no one had been annoyed as she had painstakingly moved one box at a time from the lobby.

Now Ringo was sitting in the middle of that white sheet, her smile matched by some happy humming as her hands rapidly swapped out small screwdrivers for tiny wrenches and the pile of precisely-machined metal in front of her began to take shape.

Every so often some screw or gear would slip from her fingers, and she'd have to put down what she had so far and find it. Fortunately, the sheet was very, very clean, and practically nothing blended in against it. So soon enough she'd be back to humming and assembling, and she was almost done with the first unit.

[Open!]

Comments

[that_oldsaying]

Alluka looked at her feet.

"I don't know?" she said, a bit uncertainly. "There's no number on my boots."

Her feet were pretty tiny though, she knew that.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Well, we can find out!" Ringo scrambled around and opened one of the still-sealed boxes behind her. She ripped it open and started pulling out differently-sized boots.

"Let's see if one of these will fit!"

[that_oldsaying]

"Okay!" Alluka chirped and carefully set Bubbles on the couch so that she could pick her way around Ringo's metal things without disturbing them.

"Wow!" she said, once she got closer. "You have so many sizes!"

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Yep," Ringo nodded. "I got a bunch so that I could make sure we had some that would fit anyone."

[that_oldsaying]

"Are you going to have everyone use them?" Alluka asked, picking up one boot that was obviously way too big for her. She giggled. "Not this one!"

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Well, as many people as want them," Ringo admitted with a slight flush. "I mean, I want people to love them as much as I do!"

[that_oldsaying]

Alluka set the wrong boot down and picked up one that was much closer looking in size and began wriggling her foot into it.

"I want to love it!" she insisted. "But I have to try first!"

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo laughed. "Well, I'm sure when you try it, that you'll love it."

Which she actually meant. Ringo couldn't imagine people not loving ATs.

[that_oldsaying]

"Not this one either," Alluka said, giggling as she picked out the boot that was just a bit smaller than the last one to try on.

"But this one works!"

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Awesome!"

She reached out. "Let me see it, and I'll make a note of the size. Then I can put a pair together for you." A very basic pair, since Alluka didn't seem to even have a lot of physical training to fall back on, but it would be a start!

[that_oldsaying]

Alluka handed the boot over to Ringo and then knelt to adjust her sock.

Basic pair was probably for the best.

"Yay! I'm so excited!"

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Me too!" Ringo agreed with a laugh.

"I bet you'll have a ton of fun."

[that_oldsaying]

Alluka carefully took a seat by Ringo.

"What does each part do?"

[soniaroadsqueen]

Yay! Curiosity about AT parts!

"Well, this one," Ringo said, holding up an assembly of gears, "is the transmission. It lets you control the balance of speed and power that the motor sends to the wheel."

"And this is the motor."

"And a disk brake, so you can slow down and stop."

[that_oldsaying]

That all seemed like it made some sort of sense, though it also seemed silly to need too many parts. Then again, tea parties were simple too, and they had a lot of pieces as well.

Alluka bobbed her head to show she was (sorta) following along. "And all the littler parts are to hold it all together?"

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Right. Screws and gears and everything."

Ringo grinned. "It's not so complicated, after all, right?"

[that_oldsaying]

Alluka giggled.

"It doesn't sound too hard, when you put it this way."

[soniaroadsqueen]

"It's all about looking at it from the right perspective," Ringo agreed in amusement. "Though, I guess that actually doing it might be a biiiit more complicated than just explaining it."

[that_oldsaying]

"Because all the little pieces are fiddly?" Alluka asked.

They looked fiddly. Like they were plotting their escape at any moment.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Fiddly is a good word for them," Ringo agreed with a snicker of amusement. "They all have to be just-so, and being off by a little bit can throw off performance during a run."