#the clockwork god's apprentice

[vestige-nan]

The Clockwork God’s Apprentice: Ch 6

Summary: Snippets of the vestige being Sotha Sil’s apprentice before  the vestige became the vestige, because being Seht’s apprentice is the  dream.  

Fun stuff:  As always, vestige is gender neutral and not described,  however they are a psijic.

The clockwork god's apprentice watched him carefully with something akin to reverence. They must have let their nixad out to wander because he was not interrupting the apprentice's intense concentration. The god set a tiny gear in with a click before quickly retracting his brass fingers. In a miracle, the skeevaton rolled to life and the god's apprentice broke out into a huge, beaming smile. They followed the sporadic fabricant with their eyes as it darted this way and that, speeding off through the dark corners of the god's room.

"Can I let it out?" They asked, tearing their attention from the creature to match the god's ruby eyes.

"You wish to cause mischief among the psijics?" The god could already anticipate the psijic's relicmaster in his routine stumbling across the fabricant in the dark, mistaking it for something of greater import, and chasing after the creature in what could be described as "a wild guar chase".

His apprentice's smile shifted to something scampish in nature; something innocently guilty. An expression that seemed familiar from a past long, long gone. They must have been able to anticipate exactly what he had.

The god, despite himself, said, "Do as you wish."

His apprentice brightened even more at the god's acquiescence, their eyes twinkling like starlight. They began to corner the skeevaton as the god's gaze was glued to his apprentice. Seht had found himself doing more and more to make his apprentice smile; he noticed it objectively. He was going to return to his city soon—he must. Perhaps his attempts to delight his apprentice were a gauche apology born of past mistakes of abandoning those he cared about for his work, though he was certain his apprentice wouldn't need one. More likely, he wanted his apprentice to think of him fondly and anticipate his return, and that didn't have as clear of an answer for any question regarding it.

His apprentice gently lowered the frightened skeevaton onto the portal's dais. When the skeevaton vanished in an aerosol magic, his apprentice then returned to the clockwork god's side. The action left the god with a muted warmth.

"You don't wish to follow the creature?" He said, though he could see there was a question in his apprentice's eyes.

"I would get blamed for the skeevaton if I was around it." They said, hopping up on the god's desk and leisurely kicking their feet absently.

"You are to blame for it."

"Yeah, but Glenadir doesn't know that." They grinned.

"He will reason it out."

"Really?" His apprentice exhaled, pulling a knee to their chest and leaning their head against it. "Will he believe me if I say it's an accident?"

Ruby eyes flickered with the lightest touch of amusement. "You would have your god—who can devise the future—scry for whether you can lie to your superiors?"

Their smile widened in that scampish fashion again, "What else should I ask you?"

The god tilted his head at a slight angle. "Perhaps what was on your mind as you watched me work."

The god's apprentice looked at him in surprise for a moment, but it quickly subsided as they lowered their leg and leaned toward the god. "Can you feel in your fingertips?"

The god stretched one of his brass hands, metallic fingers oscillating in movement. Even after so much time with his apprentice, they still occasionally asked the questions he anticipated the least. "Yes, but not the way that you feel."

In an action even less anticipated, the god's apprentice took his bronze fingers into their own. To say the god was surprised would be wrong, surprise wasn't a luxury he could enjoy. However, the warmth of his apprentice's palm against the cool of his brass was enough to bring the god as close to surprise as one could. In a moment of oddity, the god was transfixed with the feel of his apprentices fingers, the feather-light touch of warmth as they examined his hand.

They looked up at him, "Is it like the fabricants?" They were studying him purely analytically. They didn't understand the intimacy touching him; of him allowing them to touch him. The clockwork god chose not to tell them.

"Similar," He answered. "But not quite."

"You're not warm." They separated his fingers and looked at them more closely. Seht gently tapped his brass fingers against theirs, and their eyes were drawn to the god's body. "How much of you is flesh and how much is metal?"

"I am more metal than flesh, and more animus than metal."

They brightened inquisitively at the god's comment, "Is that how you can feel? Through magic or your deific abilities?"

"Among other things."

"How appropriately vague for the father of mysteries." They said, as if they weren't the creature the god had chosen to reveal his mysteries to. "Are... Are your organs...?"

"Reconstructed? Mostly."

They looked at him in awe, not as an acolyte to their god but as an artist to a masterpiece. "Fascinating! Do they function like a mortal's would?"

"No," He responded, and he didn't like how his apprentice looked disappointed after.

"Your heart doesn't beat?" They asked as they tore their eyes from his body to look him in the eyes. The god could see a sudden realization cross his apprentice's expression as his ruby eyes met theirs of starlight, they realized they weren't studying an artifact but instead a cognizant being. They furrowed their brow as they were torn between alternatives, and the god could predict them: satiate their curiosity or respect personal boundaries.

The god relieved his apprentice of their dilemma, "Would you like to hear for yourself?"

Their eyes of starlight widened in astonishment, before they nodded their head. The god didn't move, so they scooted closer to the god. They tentatively placed their ear against his chest. Their frame was small in comparison to the god, as nearly all tamrielans were. Their gentle motions were soft. They smelled of sea salt and dwarven oil. The god's hand came above the back of their head, out of their sight, unable to decide whether to caress his brass fingers against their crown or to just let them be. His indecision chose for him.

His apprentice pulled away from him and beamed in that scampish way again. "Your heart sounds like a clock."

They were still close to him. They hadn't scooted away. The god held his hand behind his back. "That wasn't intentional."

They laughed, and their laughter was a melody of magic. Perhaps he didn't seek their delight only for their fondness, but also because he liked to see them happy.

[vestige-nan]

The Clockwork God’s Apprentice: Ch 4

Summary: Snippets of the vestige being Sotha Sil's apprentice before the vestige became the vestige, because being Seht's apprentice is the dream.  

Fun stuff: kena means scholar in dark elvish, i'm not just slapping a name on the vestige ,':D. As always, vestige is gender neutral and not described, however they are a psijic.

The clockwork god liked to observe his apprentice work, perhaps more than his apprentice liked to observe him—which wasn't inconsiderable. Their approach to problem solving was unique, and even though Seht was able to anticipate their decisions more every day, he still found it somewhat transfixing. Their fingers moved clumsily to an unobservant eye, but their craftsmanship was never stunted or broken. Through irregularity and an organized chaos that only a god could follow, the vestige consistently proved their own competence and ingenuity. And when they failed, the clockwork god's apprentice was filled with even more vigor to try again.

Every mistake was exciting to his apprentice; a new avenue for discovery with every failure. It was a quality the god envied: that excitement. It was a hateless, melancholy envy, both muted and solemn, the envy a shackled prisoner feels for the birds who sing in the sunlight.

"What is your world like?" His apprentice asked, not taking their eyes from their work. The clockwork god was watching them from behind. Their nixad fabricant wasn't with them, they seemed to let the creature explore as it pleased. The apprentice's graceless attempts at coalescing two copper parts wasn't going as they planned, however the god knew that they would solve their own riddle in short time.

Sotha Sil and his apprentice didn't always talk as they worked, but they talked just enough for the god. It was likely this was because his apprentice only ever talked about things of importance. Idle talk wasn't in their nature. It wasn't as if others have attempted to make idle talk with the god of mysteries, but with comfort for many came idle talk. His apprentice was comfortable with the god, but they had never broached conversation without an objective in mind; without a weighty question needing answer.

"It is Nirn, but perfect." The clockwork god answered.

Their fingers stumbled and their brow creased ever so slightly. They didn't like his answer. "What does that mean?"

"It is as I said."

They chewed their bottom lip as they always did when they wanted answers. With their hands still focused, they asked, "What does it look like?"

"It is small enough to fit in this room."

"What?!" They nearly dropped what they were doing, whipping their star-blown eyes towards the clockwork god.

Brass fingers turned their head back toward their work, "Focus, kena."

The god's apprentice moved their fingers slowly, not focused in the slightest. "How do people live there?"

"How do you think?"

"They must be shrunk down, right?" They asked.

"In the simplest of senses, yes." He answered.

"Fascinating." To his apprentice's credit, they truly tried to continue working, however slow and distracted they may be. Sotha Sil could see the gears turning past their eyes as his apprentice must have been attempting to puzzle out even a broad idea of how the mechanics and magicka would work in tandem to create such a thing. They, like so many others, wouldn't be able to understand it fully. "Once your there, what does it look like?"

The god paused to ensure his answer would satisfy his self. "It is an oasis of bronze and copper. Trees fashioned from wire and cord. Bushes crafted from alloy and plate. Lakes of oil and a sky of clockwork. Fabricants of flesh and gear roam fields of gold, and in the center lies the Brass Fortress: a culmination of my greatest craft and the workmanship of apostles dedicated to learning all there is. It is Nirn, but perfect."

The god's apprenticed seemed torn between captivated wonder and... an expression that could have been any number of things, and though the clockwork god could have discerned it, he didn't. "What makes it perfect where Nirn isn't?" There was no accusation or anger in his apprentice's tone, only genuine curiosity.

"It is the redemption of Tamriel. The unification of competing forces. The destruction of the Daedra."

"And that's why you created it?" They paused there fingers a brief moment.

"No." The god said, "I create it because I must."

His apprentice stopped their work, this time thoughtfully. After a breath of silence, they turned toward the clockwork god. As he looked into their eyes of stars and questions, he saw their future in them, their soul, their very impression on the Mundus. However, in that moment, his apprentice saw something in his own eyes. Whatever it was, and Sotha Sil purposefully didn't dwell on what it was, it was enough to make his apprentice’s eyes dilate in concern, their brow slightly creased. They wanted to say something to him, but they knew not to, and Seht was grateful for it. Instead they turned around and continued their work, quicker and more focused than before.

"Doesn't Arteaum have all of those things?" They asked, still focused.

"Nearly." The god replied. "That is why I spend time working here, among other things."

His apprentice continued to work, almost finished with their coalescing having solved their own mystery, before a wide, playful smile grew across their face. "Am I "among other things"?"

"Yes." The clockwork god said, plainly. Had it not been for his apprentice, he would have returned to the clockwork city long before then.

They finished merging their two copper parts, and their smile as they turned to the god was a bird's song in the golden rays of sunlight. "I like working with you, too."

[vestige-nan]

The Clockwork God’s Apprentice: Ch 2

Summary: Snippets of the vestige being Sotha Sil's apprentice before the vestige became the vestige, because being Seht's apprentice is the dream.  

Fun stuff: Vestige is gender neutral and not described, however they are a psijic. Also, sorry to anyone who’s waiting for the next chapter of the thorn in my side, the pebble in my shoe; instead I just wrote this tomfoolery.

The psijic, or Seht's new apprentice, watched his work carefully with captivated eyes. His nimble mechanical fingers, the celerity in his engineering, the clicking and gearing of a contraption being put together; all of it seemed to be absorbed by the apprentice even as ruby eyes briefly glided to the unaware apprentice. The clockwork god had instructed many apprentices, and though he was choosy with who he allowed to accompany him, they all shared a common attributed: curiosity.

Curiosity was, Sotha Sil concluded, the only valid motive to entreat him. Those who sought to learn under him without this trait were at best motivated by veneration (a trait, in all his "godhood", he had difficulty addressing) and at worst motivated by malice.

Most, if not all, of the clockwork god's apprentices had earned their place at his side. Proven themselves with monumental discoveries and an in depth knowledge of the known sciences of Tamriel and beyond, all of that before dedicated persistence in following him.

His current apprentice was not this way.

"Bring tempered brass and a regulus to me." The god commanded.

Quick to respond, the apprentice hopped off their stool and quickly rushed to where the god's components were located.

They may not have spent hundreds of years in rigorous study learning the systematic laws of this world like his other apprentices, but that didn't mean the god's new apprentice wasn't intelligent.

The apprentice returned with tempered brass, a regulus, and dwarven oil.

Sotha Sil took the oil. "What is this?" He knew what it was and why they brought it, but he found his pupils learned better when they explained their thought processes.

"Dwarven oil." They said, sliding back onto their stool. "You used it in the configuration sequence of your last creation. It looks like the fabricant needs..." They searched for the right words, "Sequenced configuratively?"

A smile almost breached the god's lips. No, his new apprentice wasn't unintelligent. In fact, they were very quick to learn.

The clockwork god went to work "sequencing configuratively", or rather in completing the last steps in creating the fabricant, and his apprentice's attention was once again glued to his work. Being so closely watched was not new to the god, but for some reason it was not as suffocating when the apprentice watched him. Perhaps it was because they were transfixed with his work, not himself.

At the last detail set with mechanical figures, the clockwork god set his hands behind his back and tilted his head, observing his own handiwork. His tiny creation, no bigger than his hands, stood up blinking. His attention was then drawn to the delight emanating from his apprentice.

"It's a nixad." They said, laying their head on their arm and using a finger brush the fabricant's tiny metal cheek.

The god had previously seen his apprentice bring the nixads of Artaeum berries. It didn't take a god's power to see that his apprentice liked the creatures. "It is a fabricant." He said.

Their brow furrowed ever so slightly, before his apprentice matched his ruby eyes. "A fabricant? Where's his flesh?"

The god didn't miss the charm of his apprentice already granting the epicene fabricant a gender. "It has not grown yet."

The nixad climbed onto his apprentice's fingers, the fabricant's wings not grown in. The apprentice was mesmerized by the creature. "Fascinating. Can I keep him?"

Many things were unpredictable about his apprentice. However, even a child could have seen that question coming. ""He" is yours." Sotha Sil said, returning to his work.

"Can I tinker with him?"

That question wasn't one as easily predicted. The god turned back to his apprentice, who still watched the stumbling fabricant on their fingers with soft adoration. Many of the god's followers considered tampering with his creations to be blasphemy. Others rationed that no improvements could possibly be made so there was no use in trying. "Yes," The clockwork god turned back to his work once again. "In fact, I'd encourage you to do so."

His apprentice hastily grabbed a myriad of delicate tools as they set the fabricant in front of them, but they stopped themselves before they got to work on the fabricant. They're brow furrowed in a way they always seemed to do before they asked a question. "Will it hurt him?"

The god hummed at that. "It will not as long as you finish your tinkering before the fabricant's flesh grows in."

[vestige-nan]

The Clockwork God’s Apprentice: Ch 1

(I write so much for Mannimarco, but Seht is my true love.)

Summary: Snippets of the vestige being Sotha Sil's apprentice before the vestige became the vestige, because being Seht's apprentice is the dream.

Fun stuff: Vestige is gender neutral and not described, however they are a psijic. Romance is there if you squint, maybe it’ll be more romantic later but for right now it’s a super slow burn.

The dim cyan light of Ceporah's fixtures illuminated focused ruby eyes and industrious brass fingertips. A dwarven box gleaming in bronze, beautiful and complicated in its fine details, clicked and reconfigured in mechanical deftness under the careful attention. The dwemer contraption was impossible in its intricacies to solve for the brightest scholars, but in the clockwork god's hands it was a mere toy. Sotha Sil had a fondness for the dwemer's craftsmanship; perhaps that was why he enjoyed solving dwarven puzzle after dwarven puzzle, regardless of how many or how trivial they may be.

A brass finger came to the tinkerer's lips. He had every possible solution and surprise mapped out and anticipated, which he acknowledged with a numbed acceptance.

He turned and went back to his workbench, retrieving an animo core—one he had previously fashioned to attune to dwemer relics. A faint but muted satisfaction subtly filled Sotha Sil, a feeling not uncommon for the clockwork god when he fit puzzle pieces together. As he returned to the desk he kept the dwarven box, somebody he didn't recognize, a psijic, was sitting on his desk.

They didn't notice him as they fiddled with the box, angulating the puzzle with a concentrated look on their face. Sotha Sil didn't recognize what pattern they were attempting, but his mind was quick to theorize every possibility.

The clockwork god approached the psijic carefully, watching them silently. Only after the psijic seemed satisfied did he make his presence known. "An interesting approach. I have my suspicions, but what inspired your method of application?"

The psijic looked up at him. They weren't alarmed or ashamed—common reactions the tinkerer received from those invading his study—as they blinked curious eyes at the god. Instead, they simple tilted the dwarven box, showcasing their handiwork. " I just wanted to make a butterfly."

Indeed, the bronze cube's mechanical intricacies did mimic the image of a butterfly.

" Aestheticism," The god hummed. "Not a common approach on Artaeum, and not often practiced by the Dwemer either."

The psijic handed the puzzle back to the god, "Was I close to solving it?" They asked.

"No." Sotha Sil answered. As he took the puzzle back, he inspected it more carefully. Regardless of how far they were to solving the puzzle, it wasn't a simple feat to configure the puzzle in such a pattern. " However, this does educe a second angle to be analyzed..."

The psijic brightened, they're smile almost childlike in their delight, "Really?"

Before the god could respond, a loud gasp came from behind the pair. "Lord Seht?" A dunmer psijic dropped his stack of books at the sight of the clockwork god. "I had no idea you had returned-Initiate! What are you doing?!"

The god's ruby eyes glided from the horrified dunmer to the passive psijic on his desk. The psijic didn't react much at all even as the dunmer began scolding them.

The dunmer gestured to the psijic apologetically when he turned to Sotha Sil. "Haha, I'm so sorry Lord Seht, you must forgive the child. They have a habit of interfering in affairs their not supposed to." The dunmer gave the psijic a pointedly stern look, which was only returned with a blank stare. "Initiate, leave Lord Seht to his work, you shouldn’t bother the Clockwork God with your shenanigans."

The psijic turned to the clockwork god, "Am I bothering you?"

The dunmer looked affronted that the psijic would ignore him so blatantly in favor of the clockwork god. However, Sotha Sil's mind turned with analysis and prediction. With their very brief interaction, the god calculated the psijic meddler's charismatic impressions, their benefits and deficits, their possible imprint on the mortal plane, and the very weight of their soul—all for the end of one question. Were they bothering him?

"No." At the god's answer, the dunmer's jaw dropped and the psijic smiled. "I believe a fresh set of eyes could be useful at this moment."

The dunmer cleared his throat, his eyes cast to the side and his fingers fidgeting, "If-i f it is a fresh set of eyes the Lord needs, then perhaps I could as well provide...?"

The god swiftly interrupted him, "The initiate will suffice."

The dunmer looked heartbroken, "Of course, my lord..."

As the dunmer left, the clockwork god returned to the psijic sitting on his desk. They were already eyeing the dwarven box.

"How would you proceed?" The god asked, lifting the device to their eye-level.

The psijic traced their fingers along the details of the box, "What if you changed the mechanism this way?"

"Are you attempting to devise a star?" He asked.

"Yes." They replied.

[vestige-nan]

The Clockwork God’s Apprentice: Ch 3

Summary: Snippets of the vestige being Sotha Sil's apprentice before the vestige became the vestige, because being Seht's apprentice is the dream.  

Fun stuff: Vestige is gender neutral and not described, however they are a psijic.

  There were many things Sotha Sil's apprentice did that the clockwork god found favorable.

As with all his previous assistants, it was simply more timely to have another set of hands at work. His current apprentice was quick to pick up on what he needed. He often didn't need to disclose his requests before his apprentice had already fulfilled them. It was convenient, but not unprecedented for the few company he kept.

Then there was also his apprentice's presence, which was... stimulating. Pleasant, even. They talked with him bluntly lacking animosity; a dialect rarely spoken to the clockwork god but one he preferred. They were endlessly curious and their delight in solution was infectious. They were cognizant without timidity, while still holding onto a vibrant wonder of things—a spark that could never be known to the clockwork god again.

"Vaireno says that you know everything." His apprentice said. The god didn't remove himself from his work, his ruby eyes briefly glancing at his apprentice. His apprentice was sitting next to Seht's work on his desk, jamming a fork into a locked dwemer chest. Their nixad had found a small cog to play with, occasional electrical currents sparking from the fabricant. His apprentice did not make any improvements on the fabricant by the time the nixad's flesh had grown in, but had instead impaired the creature in their attempt. They refused to tinker with the fabricant after their maturation, though the clockwork god surmised his apprentice loved the nixad all the more for their imperfections. Another quality the clockwork god valued but could not empathize with.

Ruby eyes returned to the god's work. "So she has."

His apprentice stopped their fork jamming and looked at him, skeptically. "That's impossible."

"Do you believe it is impossible for a god?" He asked.

"Yes." They resumed their fork jamming, "Even Hermaeus Mora searches for more knowledge. Why would he do that if he knew everything?"

"For confirmation. Collection. Avarice, even." A gentle click into place with small pincers came from the clockwork god's gentle craftsmanship.

His apprentice stopped their jamming once again, "If you know everything, then what am I thinking about right now?"

The clockwork god didn't even look up from his work, "Alessia and Morihaus copulating."

They dropped their fork and set aside their chest, "How could you know that?!"

"Do you truly wish to know? The truth is often less gratifying than ignorance."

They nodded, enthusiastically. Their nixad stopped playing with the cog and perched himself on the apprentices shoulder.

The god stopped to look at his apprentice, "Of every book on Arteaum, every tale spread among your peers, and every artifact tied with a story, you would have come across the Alessian Slave Rebellion most frequently save for those stories you would have considered too obvious for me to guess."

His apprentice continued to press, "Then how did you know I was thinking about Alessia and Morihaus specifically."

"That is the part the most outlandish and scandalous to you."

"...Alright, that was impressive." They said. "But that's still not knowing. That's just... guessing accurately."

"Correct."

His apprentice brightened with inquisitiveness. They were always delighted with how the god taught, and Sotha Sil found he enjoyed teaching them as well.

"I don't know everything, rather I can anticipate all things." He said, "My companions, Almalexia and Vivec, would lead all to believe it is prophecy, but it is simply possibility."

"What do you mean?" They asked.

"When you see your nixad hold a torchbug, what do you expect him to do?"

They smiled fondly at their nixad, petting underneath his chin, "To take a bite." They returned their attention to the clockwork god, "If you are able to anticipate all things then... you must know quite a lot."

"Quite a lot." He affirmed.

"Does it get boring?"

"No, but not for the reason you assume."

His apprentice bit their lip, obviously still anxious for the god to elaborate, but Seht didn't say anymore on the topic. His apprentice wisely moved on, sliding off the god's desk and causing their nixad to stumble into clumsy flight. "I'm going to grab more resin. You'll need more, right?"

The clockwork god watched as his apprentice left the room. He could anticipate many futures for them, each more grand and remarkable than the last. He knew they would not leave this world without leaving an impression on it. He knew before their accomplishments they would learn a great deal under him. He knew they would in turn become important to him. He also knew that in time they would leave him, and that it would be when he least anticipated it.