Building a House [Open - Training Thread]

[Lucas D. Hargrave]

DAY 2

Lucas woke up surprisingly sore. Shuffling out of the house they had appropriated (no one was living in it, perfectly alright) Lucas made his way towards the new house, unsurprised to see his sister already hard at work. He grabbed the protein bar (it wasn't like pastries grew on trees or something) and quickly stepped forwards to lend a hand.

They fell into an easy, quiet routine, hammering and sawing and generally making a racket that would give away their position to anyone with ears. Perhaps people had noticed the noise yesterday but had been unwilling to come near but today a small crowd - he felt their ki, tiny candles in the dark, so easily snuffed - was watching them, not obviously, of course, but with something approaching curiosity.

Lucas ignored them. If he paid attention to them for too long, well, that'd lead his thoughts on a rather unproductive path. Focus, diligence, concentration, discipline - those would be what would let him exist as a member of society rather than as its... aberrant, dangerous interloper. Not that he particularly minded being an aberrant, dangerous interloper but even the part of him that kept rolling the dice and suggesting odds at how many people he could eviscerate in three minutes thought it prudent to be able to merge seamlessly with the crowd. It was, after all, an important skill to learn, no less than that of fighting.

In the interim, he made do with intimidation though.

[Lucas D. Hargrave]

"Whooops," someone said.

Since it wasn't him by process of elimination, it could only be his sister-become-architect. Not exactly the sort of sound he wanted to hear: it suggested, in broad terms, that he'd be much better off knocking down the walls they had just spent all of yesterday building and starting over.

Not a pleasant sort of sound in other words.

Lucas didn't sigh. He did wipe his dirty hands on the front of his pants and get up. Things cracked in his knees and spine; he wasn't old yet but apparently he wasn't young either anymore and his body was protesting the awkward postures that building a house seemed to entail on a pretty much routine basis.

"Problem?" he asked.

His sister mumbled something which, despite his ability to read lips (sort of, reading lips was an imprecise science, half guesswork and a quarter intuition) he didn't quite catch. He waited for her to repeat herself.

"The bricks aren't dry yet."

"Um?" He asked.

She sighed. "Sorry bro, but we have to wait a few days for the bricks to dry off, you're not... mad, right?"

As Lucas had never once recalled getting angry in his life the question was somewhat ridiculous. Nonetheless he shook his head when it became clear that Cecilia wanted an actual answer instead of some stolid silence.

"Great! We'll, just finish some quick things and then meet up in a few days, how does that sound?"

[Lucas D. Hargrave]

"Sounds like we will meet up in a few days," Lucas said, absolutely serious.

His sister still gave him a straight right to his shoulder that he nearly interpreted as an unprovoked attack before realizing that it was friendly gesture. Interpreting everything in terms of battle was unproductive, occasionally. Very occasionally. Even if she was 'just punching his shoulder' his battle reflexes were an important element of-.

"You're obsessing over your thinking patterns again, aren't you?" She asked, looking guilty.

Lucas started. He hadn't thought he would be quite so... obvious. That was a liability. More cues, more bluffs, more facades - he needed to be able to meld seamlessly into not only a crowd but also an opponent's already existing beliefs. Most thought that that which they did not know posed a much greater threat than that which they did.

One of the few things people got right.

He picked up the tools they had already been working on. "So what are the 'few things' that we should be doing?"

[Lucas D. Hargrave]

As it turned out, not much. There was really only so much that could be prepared beforehand, and as they hadn't built the house to be framed with wood, all that needed to be done, in essence, was prepare the area for the roof and tentatively identify the locations of where walls would be put in and flooring laid down.

It was, of course, still exhausting work, just not... as exhausting as it could have been, that's all.

They were finished with the preparations far before noon, braked to lunch and then worked for a few more hours until Lucas felt the pains from the day before come back with a vengeance despite it being comparatively much lighter work overall and decided that if he couldn't even handle this amount of work he was stinting on his training. No doubt it was due to his period of convalescence after the disastrous meeting with the two sibling androids - he was getting weak. That was unacceptable.

When they finally finished he accepted a tentative hug, still confused as to why the usual handshake seemed to be 'too cold' for the scenario and then wished his sister luck (and vice versa) before seeing each other off.

Time, as it were, to call it a day.

[Lucas D. Hargrave]

Epilogue

Houses were no longer merely 'houses.' They were lines and curves, stress points and vulnerabilities, strengths and weaknesses. He could tell where a bricklayer had been hasty, where a solid punch would send the whole edifice crumbling, when and how the foundation would first start to rot and crack. If he had such instincts to put such knowledge to constructive use he could probably start a renovation company, get people to make what little they had last just that much longer even in the most trying of circumstances.

But.

Lucas' fingers itched every time they came near a window. The need to just smash it seemed, at times, unbearable. Oddly so. He had never reacted so strongly to such impetuses before and here he was, unable to concentrate due to the presence of what was essentially an architectural whimsy. Doors seemed to invite him to tear them apart, not out of rage, but because they were obvious entry points protected by the flimsiest of materials.

He wanted to destroy and destroy and destroy and never look back.

For another, that might have been an indication that they were starting to go insane. Lucas however, didn't find the new impulses either disconcerting or disturbing.

He merely added them to the list. Humans had always had that effect on him, after all.

[Genkishi]

Lucas D. Hargrave gains 500 PL.