[ The look he gives Verso hovers somewhere between exasperated and fond, an expression Maelle would be singularly familiar with were she to see it, but seeing as all Verso does is find a few broken old crates to lean against, he simply shakes his head and turns back to his work.
Yet as distracting as Verso is, it's only moments before Gustave is deeply absorbed back into his work. He sketches out a design, murmuring to himself, and works sums to find the right dimensions, then takes the pieces of the ignition chamber back into his hand and bends over them, working carefully with a rasp and other tools to improve the size and shape of it.
His fabricated left hand comes in handy a few times; he uses it as a clamp more than once, holding down a large piece of metal or wood so he can work on it without it moving, the light from the lamps around the workbench chasing gleaming patterns in the pictos engraved there in the metal. Thanks to the nature of gestral design, there's quite a lot of blunt force he needs to apply to the various pieces before he can persuade them into his improved versions, and it's not long before the white shirt is sticking slightly to his shoulders with a light sheen of sweat beneath, the waistcoat still snug at his back and ribs.
But there's a good deal of detail work, too, once he's cracked open or bent or widened the pieces he needs to adjust, and in this he really does very nearly forget that someone else is here. He bends close, tools in both hands, tightening hinges and joints and loosening others, carefully building the cannon back up nearly from scratch.
He does, though, occasionally blink out of his workflow, and when that happens he turns almost too quickly, eyes glancing around the workshop until he finds Verso, perched on some stack of cracked and useless furniture or leaning languidly against a wall. Only then do his shoulders relax, only then does he smile and offer some amused comment or question before he turns back to the task at hand.
It's a lot of work, and it takes a long while, but finally he's screwing the pieces carefully back together, the newly rifled cannon barrels waiting patiently to the side. His hair is a little damp with sweat and his head is aching from how intently he'd been peering at the pieces, but there's satisfaction in the set of his shoulders. ]
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Yet as distracting as Verso is, it's only moments before Gustave is deeply absorbed back into his work. He sketches out a design, murmuring to himself, and works sums to find the right dimensions, then takes the pieces of the ignition chamber back into his hand and bends over them, working carefully with a rasp and other tools to improve the size and shape of it.
His fabricated left hand comes in handy a few times; he uses it as a clamp more than once, holding down a large piece of metal or wood so he can work on it without it moving, the light from the lamps around the workbench chasing gleaming patterns in the pictos engraved there in the metal. Thanks to the nature of gestral design, there's quite a lot of blunt force he needs to apply to the various pieces before he can persuade them into his improved versions, and it's not long before the white shirt is sticking slightly to his shoulders with a light sheen of sweat beneath, the waistcoat still snug at his back and ribs.
But there's a good deal of detail work, too, once he's cracked open or bent or widened the pieces he needs to adjust, and in this he really does very nearly forget that someone else is here. He bends close, tools in both hands, tightening hinges and joints and loosening others, carefully building the cannon back up nearly from scratch.
He does, though, occasionally blink out of his workflow, and when that happens he turns almost too quickly, eyes glancing around the workshop until he finds Verso, perched on some stack of cracked and useless furniture or leaning languidly against a wall. Only then do his shoulders relax, only then does he smile and offer some amused comment or question before he turns back to the task at hand.
It's a lot of work, and it takes a long while, but finally he's screwing the pieces carefully back together, the newly rifled cannon barrels waiting patiently to the side. His hair is a little damp with sweat and his head is aching from how intently he'd been peering at the pieces, but there's satisfaction in the set of his shoulders. ]
There. Nearly.