The cry of a child is what drew Merl from his repairs. He was sitting at the main table where it was pushed against the wall so with a swift sweep could located the source of the cry.
Botti had wide eyes, and his hands covered his mouth. He stared at Stranger, and Merl worried for just a moment that something had happened. Then he glanced at Dale, who sat beside them and the boy looked equally shocked but a smile was spreading across his face.
Then Botti was laughing! The boy leapt to his feet and danced around the fire.
"Calm yourself Botti!" Anamira scolded, but it hardly slowed the child and he returned to Stranger to grab her offered hands.
"Fixed System!" Botti cried. The strange words seemed like sweet fruit on the child's tongue.
"Fixed System!"
"Botti!" Merl called sternly, standing.
Botti stopped and bounced on his feet. Dale was laughing now and piped up.
"What an odd name, but really, after so long its better than Stranger."
Merl blinked at that, and exchanged a glance with Anamira, then finally locking eyes with Stranger.
The skeleton rose to her full height, her expression aware in a way he had never seen before. She looked down at him determinedly. It was a look he had never seen on a monster before.
"Stranger?"
"No." she cut in sternly, hands signing along. Both right arms tapped her chest and her red ring eyes glowed. "Fixed System."
Understanding came fast and he nodded. "It is nice to meet you, Fixed System." He smiled.
Fixed System, smiled, seeming to understand his gesture, and nodded.
Her words were accented in a way he couldn't identify, they always were, but it was most noticeable with proper sentences.
"It is nice to meet you, Merl." It was slow, as she focused on mimicking some of the words. But she was proud of herself for it, and Merl was too.
"I don't know if it's the name her curse ate, or a new one, but I'm glad we have it all the same. Stranger is hardly an appropriate name." Merl scoffed at his friend, and leant around Fixed System to glare at her.
"It was a perfectly fine name." No longer being focused on, Fixed System let the children tug her back to the floor.
"And it is not because you chose it that you think that hmm?" she raised a green brow and resumed her knitting.
Merl pouted. "Of course not!"
"I'm sure."
By now Anamira had been abandoned by her three watchers, more excited by Strangers new name. So Merl took it upon himself to wander over and stand behind her shoulder, watching Stranger, Fixed System, the skeleton monster they took in near a month ago be swamped by children calling her name.
"I... I don't know what we'll do with her." He said wearily. He and Anamira had agreed that it would be best to let Stranger stay at least until spring started.
At first Anamira had wanted to take her into Gatehall proper, at the very least to ease their own burden, at the most to take the skeleton to the doctor in town. Human he may be, but the doctor would know better how to care for someone in Strangers condition.
No, she had a name now. He needs to use it. Fixed System, he thought, what an odd name. But he had heard stranger.
In the end Merl hadn't taken her to town, especially in her…. Condition. They had been the ones to find her, it was their responsibility to care for her. He had worried, after seeing how she reacted even to children. Wary and cautious, as if she had never seen anything like them before. And when she had scratched four deep gouges in the kitchen table and had been so distressed by it, becoming self-conscious and hesitant to touch anyone and anything. As if she hadn't been aware of her own strength. He wanted to know, but sometimes he wondered if asking wouldn't just hurt her more.
"We both agreed, once spring comes, take her into town. She can get proper help there." Anamira had stopped knitting and just watched with him. Benahfi, Zuri and Dale where attempting to teach Fixed System their game.
Over the past few weeks however Merl had found the new monster worming her way into their lives. And their hearts. He was a kind man, or thought himself so, but he held no illusions about strangers. You never know who might be passing by, or who might take advantage of kindness. Yet not once could he recall their guest stepping out of line, she even had gone so far as to demand to do chores for them. Even that very first day when he had fed her, Merl could see in her eyes she had wanted more, but hadn't made a single motion to ask.
Fixed System offered no complaint, asked nothing in return for her work, and was astoundingly careful with the children in their care.
And Merl rather liked her company. She may be having a hard time grasping the language, but she persevered. Her humour was quick to rise and he had seen her spare none of them her smile. She was blunt. She seemed entirely unaware of how close to someone was too close. She had no idea how to use a flint. Or wear Basics. And yet she had this glint in her eyes, a hardness he couldn't pin down. This woman would anything if she had to. But not once had he seen that hardness directed at them, and that sealed his care for her.
"Or she could stay here."
Merl looked down. Anamira stared intently at their wards. "We have taking in twice as many children this last year and as we are we will run ourselves into the ground. Taking all the children with us. If we don't find some way to ease the burden then all our work to give these children a safe home will be for nothing. Yes, it's another mouth to feed, a body to clothe, but Fixed System is a good monster. She cares about the children, and I think that if we offer she would stay here with us."
Merl thought over his old friends words. Since the day they built the orphanage it had just been Merl and Anamira. Usually they had no more than five or six children, but things are changing. There is an unspoken tension whispered about by travellers. He can only hope it dies down soon. Now they have twelve children to care for, and barely the resources to keep them healthy, clothed, and fed. And Merl is getting older, past forty now he couldn't trade hard labour for food or fabric like her used to. Not to the extent they needed at least.
"What about her own life? Surely there is someone she misses? Or wants to return to?"
"If there was anyone that she truly wished to return to I have no doubt she would have already done so." Anamira turned her sharp eyes to him. And really, how was he supposed to argue with her?
If Fixed System were to stay with them they would have an extra set (two sets) of hands to work. More eyes to watch, and more opportunities to fill the larder and clothe the children. And, he thought grimly, she would look quite striking should anyone unsavoury come passing by.
"We'll ask. When spring comes, we'll ask."
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Fixed System had been right: the game was just like rock paper scissors. Except much more intense than she had ever played it. Her legs folded under herself and she used all her hands to play. The rounds were fast paced, singing what she assumed were nonsense words before choosing your shape. The winner tapped the loser on the head twice, and the aim was to win three times in a row.
However, it would seem that everyone had decided that she would stay playing, and they would all take turns versing her. Fixed System lost most rounds.
They were left to play for a while, and Fixed System laughed as the kids yelled over the hand game excitedly. Eventually however Anamira called out and Marius, Elias and Jen grudgingly returned to her and resumed their knitting. Merl too called out for the other children to come to him so they can get their chores.
There was a round of grumbling, and what she could only assume where complaints, as Merl doled out work. Some children wandered upstairs to clean floors and make beds, some while others wandered into the kitchen to clean dishes. After all the others were set to work the older human made his way to her.
"Fixed System." He said her name with a sort of gentle pride. He looked odd for a moment, then spoke again, a pleased glint in his eyes. "Fix."
Fixed System blinked, taking a moment to realise what had been said. A shortening of her new name, a nickname? She smiled and laughed at Merl (her friend?) and rose to stand before him. She didn't mind the name.
"Your job is to sweep the floor." The words went over her head but the broom passed to her was enough to understand. Fix huffed jokingly at Merl and swept the broom over his feet until he hopped away.
Then she got to work.
As the day wore on the storm outside grew worse and worse. It shook the doors and windows, and seeped through the walls. Anamira kept everyone away from the doors and windows, and that they stayed either in the main room or kitchen where the fires warmth could reach. Most of the children kept at their chores while the younger ones, like Haliben, Kuri, Botti, Jen and Sophie, stayed under the watchful eyes of Zuri and Anamira by the main rooms fire where they could keep warm.
Fix did any chore Merl asked of her, even taking some from the kids, until there was nothing left to do but wait out the day. Earlier she and Dale had gone upstairs to get the blankets off the beds to bring downstairs, and now she fixed one around the shoulders of Sybil and Botti before retreating into the kitchen with Merl to fix lunch.
Merl was already setting up the ingredients to make it. Already on the centre table was a large mixing bowl and a jug filled with water as well as a cloth package that Fix knew to contain the last of their dried cheese. Fix took her place on the opposite side of the high table to the fire and began slicing the cheese with one of the two small knives kept in the kitchen.
Over the past weeks Fix has spent a lot of her time in the kitchen with Merl trying to learn her words. After that first day of Merl working and her sitting and repeating words Fix had offered to help. Since then Merl had taught her to cook. She wasn't that good, and still often needed instruction, hesitant to mess anything up, but it reminded her of Toriel and Papyrus, so dove right in. Merl still walked her though new and old words as they worked, but Fix was still terrible at it. She was learning though. Very slowly.
Merl thumped one of the larger jars onto the table and unwound its cloth lid. Inside Fix knew there was a flour of some kind, but she had a feeling it wasn't wheat. Beside it was one of their smallest jars, which held salt. Merl only used the salt for making bread and Fix learnt quickly that it was quite precious.
Lunch today was simple, warm bread and cheese. Fix would offer to knead the dough but after the first time she had tried she now held a healthy disgust for the process (it took hours to extract from the cracks in her hand bones). The dough itself is much simpler than Fix had thought bread was. No yeast or butter (neither of which Fix has seen here), just flour, salt and water. Sometimes Fix saw him putting milk in the mixture (if they had any) but not this time. After the dough was worked he split it in two and made two thick disks. At first Fix had been fascinated when Merl slapped the bread he had made right into the raised kitchen hearth beside the fire. Now she was used to the process, and just reminded herself to check it occasionally (the heat of the fire not bothering her as much as it did Merl).
They passed the time with teaching her more of the language.
"I clean floor."
"Almost. 'I cleaned the floor'. Like that."
"You repair clothes."
"Yes! That's very good."
"Small Merl word is dirt!"
"It wouldn't be 'dirt' if you weren't so stubborn about it! And I am not small, you are just tall!"
They didn't bother with the tables for lunch (they never did) and just ate it around the hearth. The bread didn't rise, so it was dense and filling, and the cheese was sharp and salty. It was all washed down with water in wooden cups. The only issue was tiny Haliben fussing and refusing to eat his torn up bread, but Merl swiftly convinced the young monster with practised ease.
The rest of the day was spent in relative quiet, no one straying far from the main room. The only ones that did were the humans when they needed to use the bathroom. Something Fix was eternally grateful for, with her being a monster now she didn't really need to use a toilet anymore. It had been odd when she first realised, then she saw what passed at the orphanage as a toilet and nearly fainted with relief. A pit style outhouse that was a fair distance from the house. Fix didn't even want to think what it was like in the summer.
But they still needed it, and Fix wasn't going to let anyone go out into the blizzard alone. Of all the humans it was poor Marius that went out at least three times, growing more reluctant with each one.
The wind only bothered her for a moment when she stepped out, before she felt that same brimming irritation (and a little fear) snap through her bones and her feet connecting solidly with the ground. She made sure to walk close to Marius (as much good as it did with her thin bones) and kept the blanket tucked around him through the walk each time. And when they returned Fix would bundle him close to the fire and comb ice from his hair with her claws before it melted down his neck.
By the time dinner had passed and it was nearing time for bed the wind had died down slightly, the worst of the storm passing. It seemed to be a unanimous decision that all the children would sleep downstairs around the fire tonight just in case. The youngest ones and Marius seem especially pleased with the plan and wasted no time huddling close and drifting off. Fix wasn't feeling particularly tired yet, and encouraged Anamira to go sleep in her own bed, while she and Merl kept the fire going and an eye on the kids for a while more.
In the end Fix had been chosen as a bed and pillow by Bottie, Jen and Zurri, so decided it was best if she just slept out in the main room. Laying back on the wooden floor and half smothered in human and monster children Fix thinks that she may not get much sleep. No matter how much she wanted to sprawl out in ways that would disturb the children, she stayed still, and slept.