ronan lynch (chainsawheart) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2017-11-14 20:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, ronan lynch |
WHO: Ronan, Albus, & Helena
WHAT: Albus takes Helena on the go-karts, & asks Ronan for help making flying brooms (not in that order)
WHEN: uhhh let's just say it was a couple weeks ago (backdated)
WHERE: Rapax Races
WARNINGS: nah
Prior to his daughter's arrival in Mount Weather, Albus didn't have her in his company every day. The custody arrangement he had entered into with Wendy had given her the primary share of custody with a largely generous amount of days for Albus to spend with the young girl. It was about as ideal as it could be with their circumstances. The fact that the two adults were capable of communicating rather well and maintained their focus on their daughter's best interest also was a blessing. But, because of this, Helena's interests could change between the last time he saw her and the next time he would with no clear indication as to why for him to go on. He'd suspected this was only going to become more prominent as she grew.
Now, however, he was her sole guardian. Wendy hadn't arrived in Mount Weather or the Island or Space or Tumbleweed. Of course, it was possible that she might, but Albus was a man of statistics and averages and numbers. The probability just wasn't in his daughter's favor. And while Albus actually wanted Wendy around, for Helena's benefit, he did enjoy the fact that he now had a firm grasp on why his daughters interests and personality was developing in the way that it was.
For instance?
Helena was fascinated by animals and this was a direct tie that Albus attributed to Credence and Luna being her live in almost siblings. Helena also was incredibly interested in seeking answers to any question she might come up with. This was largely thanks to her rather frequent interactions with Clara and the Doctor. And, well, her developing love for speed and adrenaline?
Albus laid that blame on James Potter and genetics. It was as if Ginny Weasley's heritage were reaching across parallel worlds to reach her Granddaughter and saying 'you will love the wind in your hair,' something of which Albus hadn't ever developed a taste for. And having James around only increased the fascination; for Helena loved James Potter.
So this afternoon Albus was once again at the go-kart park that had been brought to Tumbleweed by one Mr. Ronan Lynch. When they'd first started attending, Helena had been under firm orders to call everyone by their given surname. Enough visits now had occurred that Helena knew not to do this anymore. And Albus didn't fight it. So, as they climbed out of a kart, and Albus heard his daughter shriek, "RONAN!" he didn't feel a need to reminder her of manners. Instead, he smiled and watched as she rushed towards the other man, waving her hand in greeting.
He came up behind her and nodded his head towards Ronan. "Hello, Ronan," he said in his own greeting.
--
Small children were the best and worst part of having a go-kart business. Or maybe it was really their parents that annoyed Ronan to no end. Parents that didn’t clean up their kids messes, who ignored them when they cried and screamed. Thankfully, Ronan had at least anticipated the safety issues of having children on the go-karts, and had made them as impossibly, magically safe as he could (which was a considerable amount). It would take a great deal of purposeful effort to get hurt on the go-karts, and even then he wasn’t sure it could happen, but still, sometimes kids tripped and fell on the ground, or hit each other with their toys, or threw up or spilled drinks, and there wasn’t much he could do about either of those things. He didn’t like having to deal with their parents when shit like that happened.
But then there were also the kids that he genuinely liked, that had a grand time riding the go-karts, whose parents looked out for them properly, and Ronan really enjoyed them. So did Opal, a lot of the time, which was a bonus - she hadn’t ever really gotten to hang out with kids her own age (although he wasn’t really sure what her age was, precisely).
Helena was one of Opal’s favorites, and that had also endeared her to Ronan. She was magical enough that he didn’t have to worry too much about Opal being weird around her, and she always had fun on the ride.
Currently, Opal had gone off with Adam to get more fruit for the stand, leaving Ronan in charge of what snacks and drinks were still available - his least favorite part, because it meant interacting with people - but thankfully there was no one bothering him at the moment. Until someone shrieked his name, but when he looked up it was only Helena, and he started to grin.
“Hey, speedster,” he greeted her, and allowed her to clamber up onto the chair next to him, usually occupied by Opal. He offered her a little bowl of peach slices, on the house. He looked up at Albus, and gave him a nod. “How’s it going?”
--
Helena had no qualms with climbing up onto the chair beside of Ronan. She was far more social than Albus ever would be, even at the age of five. He'd once been hyper active and full of information that he wanted to share with everyone but that attribute had been stamped out of him between his multitude of cousins and his siblings; until he'd become more reserved and resembling the man he was today. Helena, though? She had no one shaming her into silence and Albus was grateful for this. He liked seeing her thrive and socialize.
She instantly thanked Ronan for the peaches and took one without hesitation, grinning as she did so. Seeing that the girl was content just by being in Ronan's presence (and her being taught well enough to know not to interrupt when others were talking), Albus shifted his gaze back to Ronan and smiled.
"It's alright. Nice day out," he commented. It was beneficial for enjoying the track. Albus supposed you could use the track when the weather wasn't as cooperative but he didn't think he'd do so. He was already nervous enough about the loops at high speeds. "Things well for you?"
--
“Good day for racing,” Ronan agreed. He wasn’t much for small talk, so he just gave a lazy shrug in answer to Albus’s question. Things were well enough, he supposed; they’d have been better if he were racing, or if Adam and Opal were here to entertain him. But Helena and Albus were decent company, as customers on the race track went. “You gonna race today, Dad?”
--
"That it is," he agreed. He didn't push for a verbal answer. He understood that the shrug was in itself an answer so he just nodded in understanding.
"He promised!" Helena quickly leaped in, before Albus had a chance to answer. He glanced to her, repressing a laugh, as she grinned apologetically and lifted another piece of fruit to her mouth to try to cover the grin. Glancing back to Ronan, he nodded his head. "Yeah, it looks like I am," he chuckled.
"I did have a question, actually, about your cars," he then asked.
--
Ronan laughed, and raised one hand towards Helena for a high five. “Nice.”
Now that he had established that he wasn’t getting up to race with Helena - at least not immediately - he settled back in his chair and stretched his legs out under the fruit stand. He was still grinning at Albus, but after the question, it faded just a little. He tilted his head. “What about them?”
--
Helena had leaned forward and up into the high five, looking as though she thought it was the coolest gesture on the planet, before beaming as she bit into another piece of fruit.
As for Albus, well, he didn't know Ronan well enough to take note of the fade. He cast a glance back over his shoulder, towards the speedway, before looking back towards Ronan. "I was just wondering, well, are they copies?"
This was Albus' suspicion and what he'd actually hoped was true. But he would get to that later.
--
“Copies?” Ronan repeated, not entirely sure what Albus meant by the question. He looked out at the go-karts, and how they were all very similar, and thought maybe he understood. Kind of like the forgeries that Kavinsky had used to make.
But Ronan had not simply copied the karts from one design, he’d dreamed them individually, and if you rode on all the karts regularly, you could start to notice some of the differences. Some of them were quicker to accelerate but took more pressure on the gas to maintain their speed. Some of them were better with tight turns, others swooped around the edge of the track at high speed with ease. And all of them adjusted, just a little, to the personalities of their drivers.
Still looking at his karts, he narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Not exactly.”
--
Albus was not mechanically minded. While detail oriented, his attention didn't necessarily lend itself to anything such as the go karts. Nor did it lend itself to broomsticks back home. Outside of cosmetic, a broom was a broom. Of course, his family would likely disagree with him if he ever so much as suggested this, but it was true.
What details Albus did take note of, however, was time and numbers. Ronan's go-kart endeavor had come into being seemingly out of nowhere. And while Albus hadn't been friends with Ronan to have paid attention before the business, he was a member of the community, and there should have been a period of reconstruction. Where the track was being made. There should have been machinery to do so and delivery of the cars.
And, well, he didn't think Ronan was necessarily in a large amount of wealth to afford such an endeavor through traditional means. Which was fine. Albus wasn't against non traditional means, after all. But it did lend itself into Albus' suspicions and the logical assumption that Albus had come to was that this was somehow rooted in magic.
He figured the carts were copies of other carts. "I don't know a lot about cars," he offered up. "But I thought maybe you found some way or someone to duplicate them? To get so many?"
--
A small smile quirked at the edge of Ronan’s lips. He was aware that the sudden appearance of a go-kart track was strange, but then again, so was the sudden appearance of his farm, and he had mostly just let people make their own assumptions about it (or not). The townspeople didn’t seem to even think about it, and nobody else in their weird little group had really asked.
He was always ready with a flippant, seemingly sarcastic answer: magic. But Albus was magical, and Ronan also liked him, which meant he was a little more willing to be truthful. He still wasn’t going to give away his exact method of creating things, and thankfully it wasn’t an easy one to guess. But he answered, “Yeah. I have a way of doing that.”
Which was the truth, just not the whole truth. After another moment, he asked, “Why?”
--
Albus did catch the smirk and he smiled in response to it, which became even warmer when Ronan answered. He didn't expect a full break down of Ronan's methods. Yet, having confirmation to a degree made Albus glad. He liked when he accurate in his assumptions.
"I've been curious awhile," he offered, which was certainly the truth. "You think you could duplicate a broom?" He then asked, looking to Ronan with a raised eyebrow. "Hypothetically."
--
Ronan almost laughed at that. A broom? It would have been unthinkable to him a few years ago, but now he could dream almost anything. Anything except for a soul for his dreamed creatures; he hadn’t figured that one out yet.
“Hypothetically,” he said. “Yes. But you could also just get a broom at the store.”
--
With that statement, Albus laughed himself, shaking his head. "No. I'm talking a different kind of broom." He didn't want to assume that Ronan knew about his culture. He generally assumed that most did but he wasn't going to verbalize this assumption. So he refrained from using more technical terms like Quidditch or specific broom models. "I mean a racing broom."
He then lifted his hand and gestured upwards to the sky, making flying movements with his hand.
And this was where Helena decided to chime in. She sat up higher on her chair. "A Quidditch broom, Ronan!" She beamed. "We should go flying! Do you want to? Daddy won't fly but everyone else does!"
--
Ronan had not, in fact, read the Harry Potter books, but he had heard of them. He knew Adam had read them. He recognized the names of some of the people here as characters he’d heard referenced, and he knew that people having books about them was a thing - there were books about Ronan, too, although he tried very hard to forget that they existed.
“A racing broom,” he repeated, interested. It was definitely more interesting than a regular old broom, and he already had some ideas. “I guess those would be harder to come by, wouldn’t they?”
He was amused, too, by Helena’s excitement. “Do you have any for me to look at?”
--
Albus gave a nod of his head in confirmation. He imagined that if all the plans panned out, and brooms were more easily accessible, many would take up racing once again. Or at least Quidditch and that always involved high speed flying. "Incredibly hard to come by. Nearly all the ones we have around have been from random happenstances," he chuckled.
Then he nodded his head. "We do. I can gather you up a sampling. My Grandfather would be able to tell you more of the differences, and stuff, but I know they are wanting more. And for people without magic to be able to fly them. 'Course, one step at a time, as they say. We might have to come up with an enchantment on our end for that possibility."
--
“I could probably make some,” Ronan said. He was always a little wary of making promises that his dreams wouldn’t be able to keep, but Albus was only asking for brooms. Brooms that could fly, but making something that could fly was easy for Ronan - he dreamt flying things all the time. And he didn’t have to worry about the science or even the logic of how to make something that flew. If he dreamt that it could fly, then it could. “It’ll take some time. And it would be a lot easier if you could lend me at least one to work with. How many do you need?”
--
"That's alright. We've got plenty of time for what they are needed for. Charlie's not even got land yet," he commented, smiling still. "And if you could manage it, we'd all be grateful." Albus didn't have any intention of flying himself but he knew that most from his world wanted to. And he knew that teaching the younger Wizards how to fly was going to be a priority. He wondered how long he could put off Helena actually mounting a broom once they were accessible. He supposed if his Grandfather were manning it with her, it'd be alright.
"I can get you a few. I know my Grandfather and Charlie have different models, so I'll talk to them." He thought for a moment. "At least fourteen. I imagine they'd want a few more but that's how many is needed for two full teams."
--
“I won’t need them for long,” Ronan said. “I just need to get a feel for them.” He meant that literally. He needed to be able to run his hands all over them, feel the weight and texture, so that it was a real object to him, one that he could create and bring back from his dreams. After a moment of thought, he added, “And it would be nice to see someone fly them, to see how they work. Especially if you want them all to be copies and not just - whatever I come up with.”
They would eventually end up with some quirk of Ronan’s mind - or soul was perhaps more accurate - added to them, and they’d definitely have some of his particular brand of illogical, magical safety features, because he could not stand the idea of his creations causing pain and bloodshed.
--
Albus nodded in understanding. Since they couldn't fly at present to the degree the community would like, he supposed this wasn't going to cause any issue among them. "I'm sure that'll be fine," he replied.
"I'll see if my Grandfather wouldn't mind giving you a demonstration. If he's too busy in the upcoming days, I'm sure we can grab Charlie or Bill. They both can fly. 'Course, my Mom was the real star on a broom," he told him with a slight shrug of his shoulders. He didn't talk about her or Harry much; and never really with casual acquaintances. "Is a particular day better for you? So I'll know what to tell James."
--
Ronan shrugged. “A weekday would be better. So there’s no one here--” he gestured at the go-kart track-- “To see someone flying a broom around on the farm.”
There was actually plenty of space to fly around over the Barns without being visible from the track, what with the trees and rolling hills, at least as long as the flier stayed below a certain height. But maybe they would want to go higher - Ronan didn’t really know how this worked. Instinctively he wanted to keep magic a secret, especially magic that might soon be associated with him. “Also - do me a favor. Don’t tell anyone outside of your family that I made them for you.”
He looked more sharply at Albus, and then at Helena. “That goes for you too. I don’t need everybody coming down here thinking they can get me to make things for them.”
--
"Will afterschool be alright? I mean, if you need it to be during school hours, it's fine. I just won't be able to be here to introduce you," he explained.
"Hmm?" Albus glanced back to Ronan, waiting for him to continue. Then he gave him a light smile of understanding. "I've noticed you don't seem to flaunt..." he tried to think of the proper word. Did Ronan consider it magic? He had questions about what Ronan could do but perhaps he could leave them for another time. "...your abilities. We'll keep it quiet," he agreed.
Helena, though, looked to Ronan. She seemed to think on his request for a moment before a wicked grin came across her face. "It's a secret." She stated, more so than asked, and it seemed as though she relished this idea. Then she nodded her head and it was as if the matter was sealed in her mind, because she dropped her attention back to the peaches. Albus, who had shifted his attention to Helena when Ronan addressed her, glanced back to him. "I promise." He knew James wouldn't say and he doubted Charlie would ask.
--
“Nah, after school is fine.” Ronan had a very relaxed schedule, generally - that was the nice thing about these go-karts, was that they had cost him nothing and they earned him enough that he didn’t have to keep to the kind of work schedule that most people had. It gave him the freedom to work on the Barns as much as he wanted, and even pay Baelfire to work with him, which meant yet another person didn’t have to work at a stupid job. “Just give me a heads up before you’re heading over. Maybe like an hour. So that I’m not in the middle of anything.”
Nothing over here was secret, exactly, at least not from people that he would make dream objects for. But he might be working on something that would be hard to leave unfinished, or he might be spending quality time with Baelfire or Adam or Opal, and those were not things that he liked to have interrupted.
His lips quirked up at Albus’s tact, and then he outright laughed at the wicked grin on Helena’s face. He reached out and ruffled her hair. “Yes, speedster,” he told her. “It’s a secret. And if I can trust you to keep secrets, I might consider telling you more of them.”
--
Albus gave a nod. After school it would be then. He just needed to reach out to James and they'd go from there. And whenever James was ready, he'd get in touch with Ronan.
Helena cocked her head to the side, looking up to Ronan as he ruffled her hair. She was smiling at him. "I'm a very good secret keeper, Ronan. If you tell me some of yours, I'll tell you some of mine," she told him.
Albus gave the slightest grin in response to Ronan and Helena's interaction. He didn't necessarily know what kind of secrets she was implying but it made him chuckle. He liked seeing his daughter thriving in this world and coming into her own. There were people that Albus wouldn't have likely ever gotten close to but Helena had forced his hand. It was very clear to him that she was growing up to be far more social than he ever was. Turning his attention back to Ronan, "I suppose we'll let you get back to your work. After all, I have a promise to keep," he said, looking to Helena. He didn't relish the idea of racing, but, here they were and he'd said he would.