"… And I'm sure he is a perfectly nice guy when he's not pretending to be one of the Nobs, but kisth'keih he was looking at me in this thing like a piece of meat, and really you know, I've been there before in my life – you know what it's like, you were their captive too… I don't even want to think what they did to you – and all I could think about was stabbing him in the eye…"
Harmon nodded mutely at the torrent of words, not looking up from the mass of wires, fuses and resistors currently laid bare on the workbench before him; the mechadendrites he'd recently had installed delicately teasing the device into its component parts so he could better see the structure of it. While one of his core processor threads was indeed dedicated to following the "conversation" such as it was, he'd long ago realised the girl would take unkindly to any attempts to resolve her angst in a logical fashion and so he only needed to spare enough cycles to be able to make appreciative gestures at the appropriate pauses and give the appearance of listening. Not for the first time he found himself wondering at the sheer illogic of human thought process; especially, it seemed, those belonging to the female of the species.
"… I mean being that I am Mister S's protégé I know that I get a lot of latitude, hnh, he does like to remind me of it almost every day, but I really don't think the Lord-Captain would appreciate me stabbing one of his guests in the eye. Not that he can talk. Bel'at. I swear all of them get an obscene amount of enjoyment seeing me plastered into these ridiculous get-ups. Don't get me wrong the Lady Cerise is lovely and I really do appreciate that she is taking her time to help me learn how to be a Lady so I can better perform the tasks given to me by Mister S but by the God-Emperor's shrivelled left nut does it have to be in such… such… ARGH!"
From the corner of his eye Harmon noted the flurry of skirts as she wheeled about in frustration, picking up the hems of the dress and shaking them before dropping them to brush on the ground around her feet again. He paused the parts of his brain controlling the mechadendrites, freezing them in place so he could look up from the work to make eye contact with Ophelia and cock his head at an angle precisely calculated to convey his mute sympathy. It was a risky gesture; he knew the girl to be prone to outbursts of violence should she feel she was being mocked or belittled in any way, but on this occasion it seemed to pay off. She caught his gaze and stopped her pacing, an unwitting smile tugging at the corners of her lips. A giggle escaped her as she gestured from her finely-clad form to his own battered robes.
"Hmph… hehe. Maybe we should swap… I think black would suit you better anyway…" The giggles bubbled up further, only to stop with a gasp as she wrinkled her nose in amusement and the stitches that marred her pale skin pulled at the fresh wound they held shut "Bel'at, ow. Oh. That hurt. Harmon, you're an arse"
Sorry. The one-shouldered half-shrug was coupled with a vaguely apologetic expression that could be considered to be a smile. At least it was the simulacra of one. But Ophelia responded positively, a brilliant smile spreading across her face in response. She turned once more and placed her hands on the bench beyond the border of his work-space, pushing herself up and perching carefully on the edge, her feet dangling a few inches off the floor. They swung idly, her bare heels bouncing off the cupboard facing with low ringing tones. Harmon returned his processing power back to the mechadendrites and resumed his work in the fragile innards of the machine.
"… I want to be even half as good at what I'm supposed to do as Mister S. I really do. And I know, I know. Part of that is learning how to move openly in Noble circles, and not want to tear out their vital organs to feed to the fleshlings. No fleshlings here for a start. But…" She heaved a great sigh, looking down at herself as the inhalation made the already-boosted landscape of her cleavage swell even further "… I may be wearing more clothing, so why do I feel more exposed than I was back on Mirronagh? Everything's designed to push and shove and plump and… I'm on display. I feel like a piece of meat… I thought that would stop once I'd gotten away from that place…"
The unexpectedly plaintive tone to her voice gave Harmon pause. He took a snapshot of the work still laid out before him as he withdrew his mechadendrites and turned his full attention to the girl. She sat slumped; her feet still now, the perfectly-set mass of curls her hair had been teased into now disarrayed and falling into her face, concealing her eyes from his view. She seemed diminished in some way, and he realised how much her energy, the fierce wildness she put up was both a defence mechanism and a way of claiming her space in the world by filling a room with her presence. In its absence he saw her frailty; a small girl lost in the infinite void.
This new development put him at a loss. They'd long settled into a well-established pattern. Ophelia would crawl into his workshop via the ship's air vent system through a grating that he left loosened for this purpose. He would greet her and ask to what he owed the pleasure of her company, which would be the opening for her to launch into the rapid-fire stream-of-consciousness rant about whatever topic had vexed her for the day. He would listen as he worked, making sure to appropriately recognise her need for validation and eventually the torrent would slow, leaving her at peace and generally in what he assumed was a good mood given the tone of her responses. But this response, this was something else. For a fraction of a nano-second he was frozen as he rifled through his memories, trying to establish what particular approach this unexpected outcome would require. Files he'd long put away under the heading "Human Emotional Responses" were finally pulled out of deep storage.
A small warning bell chimed in the back of his brain as he decided on his course of action. Unexpected physical contact often elicited a violent response from her, which was logical given what he knew of her early life. But the memories he'd retrieved indicated physical comfort to often be a method of resolving unexpected displays of negative emotion that weren't anger, especially in human females, so tentatively he reached out and placed his remaining hand on her shoulder. Detachedly he noticed how warm her bare skin was compared to his own and decreased the vascular contraction to his arm, allowing more blood to flood down to his hand and warm his fingers.
For a few moments he stood motionless, awaiting the inevitable explosion of hostility and physical violence. None was forthcoming, which in and of itself was highly irregular and caused another faint warning subroutine to trill in his system. He silenced the alarm and resolved to continue with the action, as the result was at the very least not negative, if not overwhelmingly positive. Lifting his other arm, he stepped closer and placed both limbs around the girl's tiny shoulders, gingerly patting the middle of her back with the flat of his palm.
At first she stiffened. Harmon could detect the raise in heart rate and paused respiration that signified a heightening of the fight-or-flight response that she was considering how to respond from to this escalation. But as he stood there, by increments she relaxed once more, first leaning into the embrace before raising her own arms to shyly wrap them around his waist. He remained still apart from the hand continuing to pat her back, waiting patiently.
After three point four minutes he felt Ophelia's hands fall away from his waist and she pulled herself back slightly. Taking his cue he released her shoulders and stepped back, giving her a measure of space as she straightened and pushed her hair away from her cheeks. He noticed the flush on her skin, the reddening of her eyes but could detect no traces of lacrimal fluid either on the red fabric of his robes or causing failure in the carefully-applied cosmetics on her face. She put her hands to her cheeks then dropped down from the bench's edge without a word, heading for the still-open air vent on the far side of his workshop. He simply turned to watch her, curious now.
At the grate she paused, one hand resting on the wall as she gathered her skirt up with the other and pulled it away from her ankles and feet to give herself better range of movement. She seemed to think for a moment before half-turning and looking back over her shoulder, the sombre expression replaced now with the feral, toothed grin he'd become familiar with over the months of what he supposed he could refer to as their friendship.
"Don't you dare, EVER, say a word to anyone about what happened here tonight."
Harmon raised a curious eyebrow and gestured pointedly to the red cloth tied around his throat with the ruined stump of his missing hand. Ophelia laughed once more, the feral grin disappearing into a sweeter and much more genuine smile before she slipped back into the vent, reaching out to grab the grate and pull it shut as she disappeared lithely into the darkness.
Despite himself, Harmon felt the tugging of a smile of his own beginning to curl his mouth as the whispering sounds of her dress in the vent confines were swallowed by the ever-present background susurration of the ventilation system. Every time he figured he'd found the most efficient, logical way to categorise the girl she managed to surprise him yet again. He supposed one day he'd just have to stop trying.