fin // three // ave clayton

Take that mask off. You have such a beautiful face.

Slowly, a slender, soot-covered hand pushes the corner of the welding mask over and away from the face it covers. Two green eyes drift upwards from their focus on the workbench, to the person the voice is coming from. Even with the dark tint of the mask's eyeholes, bright shadows of the sparks those eyes had watched so carefully still flash behind them.

That's better.

A larger, rougher hand reaches towards that face, and gently runs one thumb along the striking curve of a cheekbone, tracing the pale skin down to an innocently pointed chin. The green eyes drop back down to the ground, revealing a hint of glitter carefully applied to each eyelid. It's the only sparkle her face holds now. Her pink lips press together silently, the force of her small, round teeth grinding behind them. Reluctantly complying, she tilts her head up with the force of his fingers and allows him to trace the strange splattered birthmark on the underside of her chin. Purple as a bruise, though it'll never fade like her bruises do. 

Don't be scared.

But of course she is. She's always been scared. Her face is a curse, and now her body has caught up in maturity, she sees her form as even more of a liability. She wishes she could be above physicality, like the sparks that fly up from the work table as she perfects the machine she has been passionately working on for so long, or the electric energy that will make it move when she's finished. It's a scorpion - or will be, when she finishes welding the tail onto the exoskeleton. She wants to submit it to the mayor as a muttation prototype. One day it will deal in all the venom she was never able to muster herself.

A workshop is no place for a pretty lady like you.

She was eleven when she first realised she preferred the black soot of hard work to the black ink of mascara. Her hands, though dexterous, were never made for the delicate pencil lines and brush strokes that composed a face. She felt more comfortable with a soldering iron in her hand than a lipstick tube. Right now she'd like nothing more than to pull the mask back over her face, like she always has, and get back to her project. Or maybe to listen to that always-whispering violent streak and burn his hand away from her throat first of all.

Do your parents know you're here?

Of course, it's only when she gets stuck in situations like this that she wishes her parents cared more about her present passions than they do about her future prospects. With such a large family, the couple had a right to be afraid of the untimely kidnapping and subsequent death of any of their babies. With her, however, it was always more than this. They treat her like a quail's egg, a tiny delicate thing that could break and be destroyed forever with one move. Her beautiful face, far more beautiful than any of her siblings', though they never show any signs of jealousy, sometimes even seems more important than her life as a whole, should she be the one that's taken from them.

Give me a smile.

Her mother wishes the girl would agree to more than just her hair being occasionally straightened with a crafted ceramic iron. The woman longs to braid it, and decorate the rest of her living doll to match. She wants her daughter to have a face that breaks hearts. The daughter wishes she had more of a heart to break faces, should the time come for it.

I said, smile for me.

Her father just wishes she had chosen a hobby that was less dangerous, and less ambitious, than giant robotics. He had never been an aspirational man - at least his wife had that. But the girl had big dreams, and the big mind needed to realise them. He was proud of her, no matter that he couldn't see past the insanity of her determination. She has the capacity to see that, too. When she succeeds, which she's sure she will, it'll be for him as much as it is for her. It'll be for her mother, as well, although she doesn't feel as much need to prove anything to a woman who won't have anything proved to her. The girl isn't one to fight battles that can't be won. 

Don't you know what happens to girls who don't do as they're told?

She refuses to let her lip tremble. She has never known true fear - not yet, anyway - and she knows that fact. This isn't anything to fear. This is simply something to tolerate. In front of her lie a host of potential weapons, most of which are too scientifically disguised to be noticed by her harasser. The mask comes down again, ignoring the threat and knocking the hand away from her long, blemished neck. Once again, she allows her mind to refocus acutely on her construction task. A hand, now regloved and without a hint of a shake, grips the torch again firmly. She doesn't speak - speak and she loses, actions are more powerful. She doesn't look at him - the fear may not be in her lip or her fingers but behind the visor it is most certainly in her shining eyes. Instead, she lets the torch flare to life, relishing its heat on her chest, her upper arms. 

And she is safe.