Azalea picked up the toy gun, weighing the plastic in her hand. In the labs, she spent hours upon hours studying such weapons and explosives: the complex processes behind the neat flight of the bullet, the towering mushroom cloud. But she could appreciate the classic simplicity behind the facsimile in her hands. Simple mechanics, after all, was where physics had begun.
She held the gun aloft. The gears of her mind turned with rapid estimations. A pull of the trigger, and a pellet soared toward the target. It embedded itself two rings off bullseye.
Lea frowned. She hadn’t accounted for a spherical projectile. The gun was raised a half-inch.
“I thought the point was to hit the middle,” a silken timbre carried from over her shoulder, appearing at the councilor’s side and revealing its owner, wrapped up in her usual leathers, but at the very least combatting the chill with a scarf wrapped around that slender neck.
Damia took up one of the guns with apparent disinterest, eyeing the construction of the toy. “Or so I’ve been deceived,” she added, tips tugging.
“Pretty much.” Lea lowered the gun and looked over her shoulder at the younger woman. An easy grin, as though on the cusp of a laugh, stretched over the machinist’s face. “No idea what game you’ve been playing all your life, honestly.”
The blonde’s half-veiled smile bordered on secretive. What game, indeed. “Not the sort that require bullseyes. Do you win anything?” Pointless if she didn’t.
“Not yet.” Azalea rose the gun, adjusted, fired. Dead-center. “That,” she added, “will be getting me a bottle of Kerwonian red.”
The stall’s proprietor scurried off with a scowl on his face. The machinist set the toy down. “You should give it a go, honey. And tell me how your Libra’s been going while you’re at it.”
There came a snort from Damia. “Oh, it’s been riveting,” she returned, curling her fingers around the grip of the gun. Its weight was all wrong, but that made sense for a toy with no real ammunition inside, not of the variety that caused grievous injury. Without much expertise, she pointed the muzzle at the target, yet didn’t shoot.
“Can’t wait until it’s over and my birthday comes around, frankly. Terribly excited.”
Upon firing, the ‘bullet’, which missed the bullseye by quite a bit, cut off the path of the proprietor with his bottle of wine, earning her the gift of her very own scowl.
“Oh? Something happen?” And then Lea did laugh, sending the proprietor a glance that seemed to soothe his irritation. He gave the redhead her wine bottle before stepping far out of the line of fire.
“Relax,” Lea continued. “The toy didn’t do you any wrong. Try lower, left.”
And to the left the muzzle was directed. “The opposite. But I wasn’t expecting much from Libra,” the younger woman reasoned, firing once more and hitting one off from the middle. She glanced at the toy gun as if it really had done her wrong. Piece of junk.
“Better.” There was no use belaboring a dying month, and so the machinist commented only on Damia’s technique. “Last one, honey. Make it good.”
Just before discharging the gun one last time, Damia caught sight of the stall owner’s face, carefully knitted into concern. He didn’t want her to succeed; it made his game look cheap. She put on a smile, unkind. “Third time’s the charm,” she quoted, hitting bullseye this time.