#baronyofthesilverwolf

"Huh. Yeah, ok. What do they do?"

"...nuthin'. They're just... we were supposed to be making vases..."

"There's a hole in the back of the hat, you can stick flowers in'm..."

Her spirals dim, fading to an ashy color. "But yeah, they don't do anything."

She flicks through a few more photos... little ceramic houses, festooned with clay flowers and glazed in bright colors... bowls shaped like fallen leaves, in brilliant oranges and reds on the inside, but dusty brown on the back,,,

"You make these before or after your Dream Dance?

"Before."

"Oh, well, there ya go." Willy nods "Look, these are nice pieces; I kinda like the gnomes. They don't do nothin' 'cause you weren't Fae when you made 'em. Betcha you make stuff now, you could learn to make 'em do things if you wanted."

"I made Binky before my Dream Dance..."

"Binky?"

"Uh, he might be in the garden..."

"Let's see 'im."

"We can check. Yeah." She starts towards the garden. Her entourage of around a half-dozen Neverlanders zips ahead.

Willy tromps along after.

As the two nockers enter the garden, Thistle calls out. "Bink?"

("Bink!' the Nevers echo! "Bink bink bink" in a sing-song)

"Bink?" A small gnome, one that looks very similar to the ones in the pictures that Thistle shared, pokes his pointy-hatted head out from under the azaleas.

"That's me! That is not YOU, silly fliers." He shakes a wee fist up at them, but without any real rancor.

"Hey Bink." A shy smile for the chimera.

"Huh." Willy hunkers down to take a closer look.

"You made him before your Dance.... did he start moving and talking before it, too?"

"That's what Gwen said. He... I was supposed to destroy some greenware, to make slip. Bad pieces."

"Yeah?"

"Bink is NOT bad pieces." A little stomp.

He turns around in a circle for Willy to admire him, plain fired clay, unpainted, but detailed. His hat perhaps a bit crooked, but she even put a buckle on the belt, and are those laces on his boots?

"See, when I was a kid I made up stories..."

"Not made up, TRUE."

Insistent.

"We had adventures!"

A brief smile. "We did, yeah."

"Before the Cold Man filled your head with lies where the rainbows should be."

"So, like.. Bink came alive. The others didn't. I didn't do anything different with him, just sneaking the box out from the classroom..."

"Gwen helped."

"That's because Bink is special. I remembered." He looks proud.

"Bink's special." She agrees.

"Shit, see? You -already- MADE somethin', and not nothin'! A sentient chimera? That's furkin' high-level shit!"

"It wasn't on purpose..."

"And I don't know how I did it."

"Bink HAS purpose. I am friend-shaped!"

"And I watch the garden. It needed a friend."

Willy blinks comically at the younger nocker. "So what?? You DID it! Take credit for the damn work!!"

"but I don't know how I did it!"

"Isn't it enough that you did?" Bink tilts his head curiously.

"Maybe I didn't do it? I made the clay form, sure..."

"You did it." Willy says firmly.

"An' yeah, I get that you want to know -how-. Sometimes you just gotta accept that you'll never know -how.-"

"But that don't gotta stop ya from tryin' again."

"I'm not gong to waste everyone's resources just playing around..."

A look up at Thistle, and he wrings the top of his cap. "Bink is wasted?"