weatheredlaw:

terezis:

a fic i do not feel equipped to write but would love to read:

you know how lucretia says she hired angus bc he got too close to figuring out the shape of the bureau of balance’s secrets??? how close could he have gotten to solving that mystery when nobody (including himself) could remember or even conceive of the missing people he set out to find… how hot on their trail was he!! i wanna know. what was the tipping point where lucretia was like “okay FINE let’s kidnap this small child and bring him to the moon and offer him a job i GUESS”

consider: angus mcdonald spots a metal ball falling through the sky. he tracks it (he’s good at this, he’s good at this, is what he keeps telling himself, nose to the ground). he finds the metal ball. no one is around. little angus mcdonald climbs into the ball and hides under the seat. someone climbs in. someone is distracted. someone is swearing and nursing a wound and casting a series of poorly done spells (angus has studied the theory, he knows that a certain, delicate, somatic component is involved, and whoever this is does not have the talent). 

he gets nauseous under the seat, but stays calm. the ball lifts off. he gets the idea that this is a ride that was called, that he missed being discovered by seconds. the ball arrives. his companion climbs out, and someone else comes by and begins humming a song, resetting the the various switches and knobs. 

angus sneezes. 

it’s a sneeze that changes everything. it’s the sneeze that introduces him to avi, that has him being lifted bodily out of the cannonball and carried across the moonbase. angus informs the man that he can walk, thank you very much, and avi sets him down. 

it’s a sneeze that introduces him to the director, a lithe, elegant woman who blinks down at him, then stoops down to inspect him more closely. maybe she sees something, or maybe she is considering precisely how to drop him off the edge of this place. she is hard to read. her eyes are dark and something clouds his thoughts when he tries to inspect her just as closely.

she pulls away. asks him his name.

“angus mcdonald,” he says.

“how did you get here, angus mcdonald?”

he sighs. he tells her the story (telling stories to adults is exhausting). 

“tell me about your family, angus.” 

she sits in her chair and pulls out a metal bracer. “and i’ll tell you a little bit about mine.”