#elsewhere

"Really? So maybe this could be used for something else... I wonder how it'd effect a glaze fire?"

"Oh COME ON! A glaze fire?!? This stink effected a FORGE fire, aim for something why don't you??"

"Glaze fire is important..." She screws down her eyebrows. "But yeah, it probably wouldn't be food-safe..."

"You could probably WELD with this stuff!"

"Hunh. Maybe! Want some to try?"

"Ask a freakin' welder, I'm a blacksmith! WITHOUT EYEBROWS!!!"

Truth to tell, she DOES have eyebrows; just.... charred.

"You still have eyebrows... I mean, they're kinda smoky?"

"It's an aesthetic."

"It screams 'careless'!!!!!"

"I think if you fill them in with a bit of eyeliner, nobody'll notice."

"EYELINER!?!?!?"

"Sure. Black or brown are neutral, but you could do fun colors..."

"Or draw designs!"

Willy sputters then wags a finger at Thistle "Keep your STINK under control, by Tesla's baby-smooth ass!! And maybe just once think about distilling in a triple-wound bronze coil and a carbon filter, why don't ya!?!?"

"A... what now?" She scrambles for some paper to write that down.

"Do you got COTTON in there??" she taps her own ear to indicate "DISTILLING. YOU SPEAK THE ENGLISH?"

"Triple-wound coil...."

"Yeah yeah, distilling."

"...you think you could coil pipe in the forge? Like, if you get some conduit from the hardware store?"

" 'Course." she snorts.

"Could you show me, if I got the pipe? Of.. uh.. a... diameter?"

"HOW to coil? Probably not. Could I do it? Yeah. You figure out the size of the pipe though." a smirk.

"Well, don't want to risk what's left of your eyebrows."

Thistle gets a singed scowl.

"I'm going to get that pipe nice and hot, and shove it right up your...."

"Do you want a bottle of stink?"

"NO I don't want a bottle of the damn stuff!"

"Okay, okay..."

Willy snorts. "Figure it out, Shells."

"I'm tryin'..."

A pause. "Sorry, bout the eyebrows."

"If you're -really- sorry, shave your own off! Or make something that works, any which way. An' figure out how to protect the kids. That carbon filter on the distillation oughta work; did ok by moonshiners." she snorts.

"Ain't that sorry." She smooths her own brows.

"OH! Julius makes wine, I bet he has some useful )(&&%!"

"And the lightbulb flickers!"

"I got work ta do...." she marches back to the door.

"kay..." Thistle sort-of waves, but she's back to scribbling.

Willy swats a few Nevers away as she marches, and after some time, her workshop door slams shut.

Art peeps around the doorway. "Is it over? Hurricane Willy?"

"Hey Art!" A grin.

"She had some good ideas. You wanna smell? It's vile."

"She was certainly ired. I think I can smell it from here."

"Gimmie a sec..." She puts a stopper in the bottle, and lids on the pots.

She pulls her goggles up to sit on her forehead. "Sup?"

"Look at this!" He shoves a rather large duffle bag over into her arms, it's got to weigh twenty pounds

"What's that?" She comes over to see.

He unzips it, and shiny metal gleams from within. "It's an Orion StarSeeker IV, with a 3x Barlow, and 8 millimeter lense, 750 millimeter focal length, equatorial mount and Sirius plossl 25 millimenter eyepiece!" Not realizing that he sounds an awful lot like a Holiday classic character who expounded on his red ryder BB gun... as he unveils the pieces of a telescope!

Blink.. blink.. then - "Oh! Damn!"

"Right? You.... you didn't... you don't know anything about where this came from, do you? And the rest of it all?" Curiously blinking at Thistle.