Clockwork ballerina requires assistance

[myironeyes]

[Voice, Private to Friends, at various points throughout the flood]

[He sounds both flatly mechanical and extremely disgruntled.]

Could someone please come...wind me?


[Spam]

[OR you can just come across Marsh in the hallways, in plain clothes with artistic joint articulation drawn on instead of his normal dementor-shroud, with a giant bronze key sticking out of his back, frozen in rigid poses, scowling while Aster hops worriedly from his head to his outstretched hand to the key and back again. Aster may also have tugged you to him by your hair with much cheeping and flapping.]

Comments

[shakenandlimp]

Ow-- ow, you beast, I am going, stop that. [Bush is in a red coat with pipe-clayed trim and belt today, and that feels a little odd, but then it also feels proper. A piece of tin slag, roughly the same shape as a heart, is pinned to his breast, and one white trouser leg is cut away to reveal his metal leg.]

Oh lord, you've run down, sir.

[With large gestures, he turns the key, tilting his whole torso into a strange pose at every crank]

[myironeyes]

Mmmph.

[Even his jaw, apparently, requires a little bit of clockwork motion. It's very inconvenient.]

...ngh. Thank you.

[He still moves in boxy ways, but at least he can speak and put his arm down. Aster lands on his shoulder and nuzzles, transferring her cheeping admonitions to Marsh, who tilts his head and accepts the wordless lecture.]

Yes. Very careless. Thank you, dear.

[shakenandlimp]

Your bird is right, you know. You never know when there'll be mice about, it'd be a close thing if one of them came on you when you were unwound.

[myironeyes]

[For some reason, he thinks this makes perfect sense.]

She usually is. I didn't expect to run down quite so swiftly.

[He is new at this.]

[shakenandlimp]

No harm done, friend, you are right as rain again. [He bows as if he's hinged at the waist, heels clicked together to make his legs a single unit.]

[myironeyes]

[Marsh bows in the same manner, though not quite as deeply, and the tension in his shoulders isn't all the flood. It all feels very noble, sirs and bowing and Bush's outfit, but the man is so transparently good-hearted and well-intentioned that Marsh can't really bring himself to object.]

I am. My thanks, again.

[routemistress]

[Iris, meanwhile, is having trouble fitting her enormous skirts down the standard hallways; but she's full of immediate concern when she sees Marsh.]

Oh darling, 'old up there, I'm coming. Shhh, birdie, I've got 'im.

[She makes soothing noises at the cockatiel while she heaves on Marsh's key.]

Good thing I found you and not them mice. Bite your bits off as soon as look at you, mice.

[myironeyes]

Erk. Yes.

Sorry about. The inconvenience.

[routemistress]

[Mother Ginger has had so many children, she doesn't always remember which of the soldiers are hers; so she treats all of them indiscriminately as her own, and Marsh has always been a favourite. She reaches up to drop a kiss on his forehead and brushes imaginary dust off his uniform.]

Don't be daft, sweetheart, who else is going to look after my brave lads? Now, 'ave you got a clean hanky and plenty of snowballs?

[myironeyes]

I'm not sure I can bend enough to make snowballs.

[Scowl of puzzled worry. Also, where are they supposed to get snow.]

We should. Find out.