There’s something about the way she stares into her reflection. Alice hasn’t paid too much attention to it over the years, but the bruiser of a creature doesn’t look like she’s aged all that much. The grey around her muzzle, in her face, it was all grey that had been there since she was born. There’s a posturing to her body, dignified and striking, that’s always been there as well. She’s not a slouch. No, with all of these workings inside her, Alice has always been a creature that holds herself in the upmost stature and structure. Head up, chest out, confidence radiating from her grey frame.
When the wind shifts, she can smell him. It’s the same as it’s always been. Though they may not have the bond of those imprinted, Alice knows more about Hawthorn than she does about herself. She knows how the man works and how his mind works, and she’s attached to the very patterns and beautiful quirks of his mind are. Though she’d never told anyone, let alone the medicine man himself, she’d felt more for him than she had for anyone she could recall. Ever. That was simply the way things were in the mind of the clockwork angel—you never could tell what she was thinking.
She knows he’s been around. Alice can tell Hawthorne’s scent apart from that of the wind at a distance that seemed… that seemed like it was too much. Maybe that was why she didn’t believe herself. A part of the clockwork angel knew that Seamus had been passively searching for the medicine man, that he would believe her if she said he was close by. There’s something about the creature of rust and tinkerings that always knows when this man is close. Maybe it was the fact that they’d escaped the end of the world together, and that they’d taken care of what was left afterword. The gypsy bond was something different, something that couldn’t be matched by anyone.
Yes, when she catches his scent she turns. There’s something in her fiery amber eyes that ignites, blazing with a certain glimmer that comes when she’s almost, just barely, not quite a real creature once more. Bones fused by flesh and blood not long rods and coils welded and jointed with screws and bits of stable material… real. Her tail wags, and she bounds forward, forgetting for a moment how horrifying her state may appear.
He’s already speaking, and the words are music to her ears. The slow melting of that ticking system of gears that left her entire body running, the automaton becomes more and more animated. “Didn’t take the brunt of it.” Her speech pattern is the same as it’s always been, words that don’t necessarily flow but come forth none the less. There’s enough there to say what she needs. “I dismembered it… Delya and I did.” She credits the Russian dancer here too, nodding gently. Hawthorne didn’t necessarily need all the gory details of the awful day. No. She would spare him. It showed in the way she stood and the way that there were those very… very human reactions in her today. Something had happened. She didn’t much want to talk about it, not yet.
“You’ve come back.” Three words, but there’s so much weight on her tongue. Though it’s a strip of leather in her mouth, it feels heavy. So heavy, hard to move, and yet… and yet here she is. And here is Hawthorne. After all this time, here’s Hawthorne. The clockwork angel couldn’t trade that for anything in the world. Though there’s not a lot of surface emotion in the way she speaks, there’s something that the man should realize and know. It’s hard to see things in Alice, but once you know how her insides ticked she was a hard one to forget.
alice
the clockwork angel
all we've got is this family unbroke |