Part XVIII

Wigliff stood stripped to the waist, covered in drying clay. He was sweating profusely and swearing sulphurously.

"No. Seriously. WHY A TEAPOT?" he asked for about the eighth time.

Branwen's hair was sticking out in crazy directions because she kept shoving it back out of her eyes with her clay-covered hands. It dried in interesting ways, making her look something like a very dirty Medusa.

"Because they're pretty. I like colours. I like the shape. And if Tristem can have an airship-shaped house, I want a TEAPOT shaped house!" Branwen replied. Again. "Besides, there's a TON of clay in the lake."

Wigliff looked at the buckets full of wet clay beside them that he had hauled up from the lake. "Not any more," he answered. "Now there's a ton of clay HERE."

"Ok, ok, I OWE you," Branwen admitted. "You're doing all the grunt work, and I really REALLY appreciate it," she told him.

Wigliff looked over at her, with a sly look on his face. "I know how I want you to pay up."

Branwen gave him a wary look. "And how would that be?" she asked cautiously.

"I want a UNICORN!" he told her.

"Good gods, get bent," Branwen replied, throwing sticky clay at her friend. Wigliff ducked and the clay splatted against the rounded walls of the teapot-shaped house they were building. He smoothed the clay onto the wall.

"Well, why not? Cube and I are coming up with a real programming language it understands... Why can't I make a unicorn?" Wigliff pouted.

"Because we'd have to EXPLAIN IT," Branwen hissed.

"We're going to have to explain it eventually," Wigliff shrugged.

"Seriously?" Branwen asked him, sounding incredulous. "You want a bunch of geeks and nerds to know we can create anything we want to by giving the schematics to a giant, mind-reading, crystal computer from OUT OF SPACE AND TIME? Do you KNOW how many requests for tricorders, laptops, phasers, photon torpedos and my little ponies we'd get?"

Wigliff's eyes brightened. "Ooh, a tricorder! Do you really think..."

This time, the clay hit him right in the chest. "Ow," he said, peeling the mudball off of himself. He plopped it onto Branwen's head.

"This stuff better be good for my skin," Branwen muttered. "I'm wearing enough of it."

Wigliff stepped back and looked over their creation with a critical eye. "It's not bad. The spout and handle are going to require some serious reinforcement before we put them up, since they're basically going to be free-standing. But the shape is right. Do you think it's big enough?"

"Let's go inside and see," Branwen suggested. They stepped through a door-sized hole in the side of the huge teapot into the cool darkness of the house. The clay was drying on the outside quite nicely, but it was still damp on the inside. It smelled like freshly turned earth.

"It feels nice in here after being out in the sun," Wigliff said, and he promptly laid down on the floor in the middle of the single, round room. "I like the way it echoes in here! La la la la!" he sang in a deep bass voice.

"You're a goof," Branwen said, but she smiled as she said it. She laid down beside him and looked up at the curving ceiling. "You know, Tristem's one hell of an engineer. This turned out so much better than I thought it would."

"He knows his stuff," Wigliff agreed. He rolled onto his side and looked at Branwen in the half-light. "Umm... I really think you need to wash your hair. It's drying in place like that."

"What? You don't like my Bride-of-Frankenstein look?" Branwen teased. "Ok, fine, can I use your bathtub?"

Wigliff sat up and helped her up as well. "Absolutely m'lady. I think I'll go for a swim to knock the worst of the clay off myself..."

"BRANWEN!" the Cube shrieked into her mind. Branwen clamped her hands to her ears as though it would help quiet the immense noise of the panicking Cube. "Something's attacking Adol's village! You have to go there to help him RIGHT AWAY!"

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