WHAT: Edwin wants to run some tests with Robin's powers WHERE: Sutton Cottage WHEN: Backdated to late February/Early Marchish? WARNINGS: Nah STATUS: Complete
Sutton Cottage was quiet in these last few months of winter; though the temperature was warming, the rose beds that brought so many visitors wouldn’t be in bloom for a little while longer yet, though Edwin suspected that Briar would have them full-petaled and vibrant before he was expecting them to be.
There were still some visitors though, who came for the hedge maze, the yew and the holly that made up the maze still green, if not dusted with snow. He thought there were some guests in the maze now – their voices occasionally carried on the gentle breeze, and there were fresh donations in the donation box set near the entrance.
When Robin had arrived, he’d led her to the kitchen – if he’d been back home in England, surely the staff would be horrified, but Edwin had never been one to stand on protocol, and seating Robin in the parlour while he fussed about the tea in the kitchen just seemed like a waste of his time and hers. He doubted that Robin would be terribly concerned.
He returned to the table he’d sat Robin at, the teapot in one hand and the biscuits in the other, and the floorboards under his chair slid out, pulling the chair with them, so he could sit.
“You said you don’t need a direct line of sight for your creations?” he asked, as he poured first her a cup of tea and then himself. “I had thought we might start in the hedge maze? Does the surface you require need to be solid, or will it work on the maze walls too?”
When Edwin had invited Robin to his cottage, she had expected to be sitting in a quaint little home nestled amongst the trees, with small cozy rooms and a large hearth that warmed the house from the center. She did not expect to see a large house (what she would consider a mansion) and the sprawling gardens surrounding it. She was taken with the gardens immediately. They may not have been in full bloom yet, but they were gorgeous just the same. Robin could lose herself for hours just walking the grounds. If Edwin hadn’t invited her for the purpose of experimenting with her Devil Fruit, she probably would have done just that.
But Edwin had invited her to test the limits of her powers, so she followed him inside and waited at the kitchen table while he prepared their tea and biscuits. Robin was never one to stand on ceremony and etiquette. Sure, it had its place with the right kind of people, but she got the idea that it wasn’t a big of a deal to Edwin. Besides, she felt rather flattered that he let her into his kitchen.
Edwin, of course, got straight to business. Robin’s eyes lit up at the mention of the hedge maze. Oh, she very much wanted to see that. “The surface should be solid enough for me to anchor on to,” she said. “However, if the branches of the maze walls are close enough to one another, that may work.”
“They’re fairly dense, so I think they’ll be considered solid enough,” Edwin said, frowning thoughtfully. He wasn’t sure entirely, but it certainly seemed solid enough when the maze had been trying its very best to turn him into fertiliser. From his pocket, he produced a small notebook and a fountain pen, and stood the pen up on the page. It hovered there for a moment, and then on its own, it wrote the date on the upper corner of the page.
“You’d mentioned that you’ve used your powers up to twenty metres before, haven’t you?” Edwin asked, glancing quickly at the notebook to be sure that his pen was recording his words, and once he was sure of that – and sure that it would record Robin’s answers as well – his eyes flicked back to Robin. “How else have you used your powers? Do you know if there’s an upper limit on the number of body parts you can produce? There’s very little sense in testing things that you’re already aware of.”
Robin watched with raised brows at the pen as it wrote all by itself across the page, a smile on her lips. Magic was amazing! She looked back towards Edwin when he started asking her questions. “Hmm,” she said, tapping the top of the table with thought. “I typically and most commonly use my ability in combat situations,” she said. “But I was part of a criminal organization for a period of time and occasionally I had to use them for recon work.” She frowned darkly thinking of Crocodile and Baroque works. “Mostly my eyes and my ears in those situations,” she said, her eyes moving back to the pen as it wrote down what she said.
“But I’ll use them for everyday tasks as well.” Edwin had seen her in the tea shop. “As for how many parts I’ve manifested at once…?” She tapped the table top again as she thought. “I think the most I’ve ever done at once is 50? Perhaps 60 at a time?” She smiled at Edwin, knowing that wasn’t exactly a helpful answer. “ I’m sorry I can’t be more exact. I’ve had this power for so long and have honed many of its techniques that I don’t often stop to calculate how many of a specific part I’ll need.”
Edwin waved off her apologies with a somewhat impatient gesture. He couldn’t imagine not testing his own limits whenever possible, but then, bumping up against them did not take much effort. He fought down a twinge of jealousy at the idea of someone using their powers for nearly their whole life and never encountering those limits, like Jack and Elsie holding hands and freezing a lake of water when they were children, when Edwin could hardly freeze a thimble of the same as a grown man. He washed down the bitter taste of it with a mouthful of tea, and tried to remind himself that he wasn’t so limited as he used to be.
“That is the purpose of this exercise, I suppose,” Edwin conceded. “If you’re ready, I think we can head out now.”
“Of course,” Robin said with a nod. She got to her feet to follow Edwin out to the hedge maze. As they went, she racked her mind to think of anything more useful she could tell him or even demonstrate. It was so rare that someone was actually interested in her ability. As a child, her Devil Fruit power had made her a pariah in her village. Her aunt and uncle despised her and the other children would throw rocks and rotten fruit at her whenever they saw her. Her only solace had been in books and whatever the scholars of the island were willing to teach her.
Edwin was different. Actually, most of the people in Vallo were different. Her Devil Fruit power may have caused people to do a double take, but no one treated her differently for it. It would be fun to test the limits of her power for a change. Plus this would give her an excuse to check out Edwin’s amazing garden.
Once outdoors, Edwin frowned thoughtful as he considered the grounds. The grounds of Sutton Cottage were quite large; a large section of the English countryside nestled into the depths of Vallo Forest, a line of elms separating the border of the grounds from the more wild trees that made up Vallo’s diverse forests. He could start with distances. He could see if she could manifest limbs on the trees furthest from them, or if she could manifest anything from on one end of the grounds to the opposite side.
But, perhaps, they should start with the maze, even if only to see if she was capable of growing limbs on something that wasn’t necessarily solid so much as it was tightly woven together branches and leaves.
“Perhaps we might start with the maze, to see if you can even manifest there,” he said slowly. “Though do be careful; they walls of the maze are quite thorny, and I’d not like you to hurt yourself.”
“I see,” Robin nodded. “Thank you for the warning.” If the arms, legs, etc, that Robin sprouted were injured, she would suffer the injury on her actual body, so being warned of the thorns was very much appreciated. “It’s probably a good idea to pick a place to start that I can see so that I can be sure to avoid the thorns. I don’t want my arms to get all cut up,” she smiled. “That wouldn’t be any fun.”
That made sense. Edwin nodded, leading the way to the hedge maze. He hesitated at the entrance. He didn’t mind the maze as much anymore. He and Nikolai sometimes walked through it, and he’d gone in to find Briar or Gansey a time or two, while the former was gardening and the latter studying in the centre. He even sometimes enjoyed it, and the feeling of safety and protection that the maze sometimes emanate for him. A subtle feeling of belonging, as though the grounds were telling him that they were there for his benefit, that they’d always protect him.
But he still didn’t especially like entering them when he had no particular reason for it. Sometimes the feeling of the maze closing in on him was like a warm, protective hug; other times, the claustrophobia reminded him of the first time he’d entered – been shoved into, actually – the maze.
“I think working from here might be fine. The yew needles are soft enough that they’re unlikely to hurt you unless they feel you’re a threat. The holly is where you’re more likely to get scratched unintentionally, and that’s nearer to the centre of the maze.
Robin would have readily gone right into the maze without hesitation and only stopped when Edwin did. She glanced down the path, bordered on either side by the hedges and then back at Edwin. She wasn’t empathic by any stretch, but she got the impression something wasn’t quite right. She tilted her head a little, her hair falling from where she’d tucked it behind her ear. “Alright,” she said before turning her attention to the path in front of them. “I’ll start by sprouting an arm from that spot over there just to confirm that the hedge is a suitable spot.” She pointed to a spot roughly five feet down the path at eye level.
Robin then crossed her arms in front of her chest, her palms facing towards her. “Un Fluer”<.i> she murmured. It took a little more concentration than she thought it would, but after a moment, a slender arm sprouted from the spot she had indicated. Once Robin was sure she had a good anchor to the branches, the hand waved back at Edwin.
Edwin waved back, something almost resembling a smile threatening to tug at his lips. “Can you make two appear at once?” he asked. “Perhaps on opposite corners of the maze?”
Robin glanced at him. The arm that had waved at Edwin vanished in a small poof of cherry blossom petals. Robin glanced at the maze. It would be a little easier if she had gone inside. Mazes were known for their unpredictable nature and twists and turns. Sprouting an arm at this corner wouldn’t be a problem. The other corner may have been a little more tricky. Robin crossed her arms again. “Dos Fluer,” she murmured. An arm sprouted at the point where the path in front of them made its first turn. The arm at the other end of the maze, however, missed its mark, sprouting at the top of a hedge only a quarter of the way in. Both hands waved at where Edwin and Robin stood.
“Hm,” Edwin said, and made a note. He supposed it would be easier to manage if they were elevated so that they could see the top of the hedge. He supposed that meant that asking her to place a limb on the statue in the centre of the maze was out of the question. Unless once she had seen it she would have a better idea; perhaps they should have taken a turn around the hedge before he’d asked her to attempt something out of sight.
Edwin’s brow furrowed. He wondered a little at the mix of Spanish and French – at least, what he thought was a mix of Spanish and French, he wasn’t especially strong in either language, but he thought he understood, at least a little. He groped after the Spanish for a moment.
“If you said cien fleur, could you make a hundred of them come up?” he asked after a moment.
Both of the arms vanished as Robin turned her attention to Edwin again. “Oh yes,” she said with a nod. “It’s a technique I sometimes use in order to use a more complex technique during combat. Sometimes I use it to move an individual from one point to the other. Or, more recently, to create wings or a net. Would you like to see?”
“Wings?” Edwin blurted out before he could stop himself. Surely not functional wings. He’d studied the natural sciences in University, and such a thing seemed to go against all the laws of physics. “Yes, please.”
Robin couldn’t help but to laugh at Edwin’s reaction. She raised her hand to her mouth to stifle it a little bit. But Edwin did say he wanted to see so she nodded her head. Since they were no longer needed, Robin dismissed the two arms in the maze. She then took several steps back from Edwin to avoid inadvertently smacking him.
She crossed her actual arms in front of her again and murmured “Cien Fleur – Wing.” A flurry of arms sprouted from her back at her shoulder blades, some on top of others, others hanging on to each other to form two large wings. They weren’t pretty, but then again, they weren’t meant to be.
Edwin recoiled two steps back as the arms sprouted out of her back, grotesque and unsettling, before they formed together into the wings themselves. And then he stopped and stared. They looked, somehow, feathered, and he had the sudden urge to touch them.
He battled himself for a moment. The temptation was overpowering, but so, too, was the horror he’d feel if they felt fleshy instead of how soft. He clenched his fingers, and then extended them. He had to know.
“Can I touch them?” he asked, his arm already beginning to lift though he’d have to step closer to her before he could reach them.
Robin watched Edwin’s hand as it raised towards her, almost as though it had a mind of its own. He was mindful enough to ask her permission first. “Uhm - ” she hesitated at first, her eyes still on his hand. “I suppose, if you want to,” she said. “But they probably aren’t going to feel like you expect them to.”
Edwin nodded. He wasn’t sure what he expected them to feel like, and thought he was likely to be surprised no matter how they felt. He reached forward before he could think better of it, and laid his palm on it.
The wings did indeed feel fleshy. The section he was touching was an arm, after all, toned like Robin’s own. If he were to squeeze it, Robin would feel it in her own arms. She hoped he wouldn’t decide to squeeze.
This was a little awkward for Robin as well. It was the first time anyone had asked to touch her wings. The crew had been curious about them, sure, when they had first seen them, but they were hardly the strangest or most exciting thing they’d ever seen. Maybe it was because they (Robin included) had already been exposed to so much that their crewmate sprouting wings was, in fact, no big deal.
“What do you think?” Robin asked.
It was strange. But not stranger than he thought it would be. He ran his hand down the wing, and then pulled it back. He didn’t know what to think. It was one of the most astonishing things he’d seen.
“Are they functional?” he asked.
Edwin’s hand running down her wing sent a shiver up Robin’s spine. To her it felt as though he had run his fingers right up the backside of her arm. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t do that,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound rude. “I can feel everything through these limbs as though they are on my actual body and that…was a little odd.” She adjusted her shoulders and went on to answer his question. “They are somewhat functional. I can fly, but only for five seconds at a time. They’re more suited for gliding or slowing down a fall from a high place.”
Edwin snatched his hand back as if he’d been burned. “Sorry,” he said hastily. He himself had always been particular about how and if people touched him, and he felt guilty having done the same to someone else.
He did peer at the wings again though, frowning thoughtfully to himself, trying to make the physics work in his head. It made more sense that they’d be used for gliding or for wind resistance rather than any sustained amount of flight.
“I’d have never thought of using them in such a way, if I had your powers,” he said finally, shooting her a smile. “I suppose it takes some ingenuity of thinking to properly utilise a power like yours.”
Robin laughed. “You’re giving me far too much credit,” she said. “I’ve had this power ever since I was a child. Much of what I can do with it has come with twenty years experience and a lot of trial and error.”
She shifted her shoulders again. She wasn’t used to having the wings on her back for so long. Usually she only used them when necessary and then dismissed the arms that made them up all at once. She didn’t realize just how heavy they were on her back. “Edwin, do you mind if I dismissed these for now? Having 100 arms on my back is very heavy.”
Of course the wings would be heavy, especially if they truly were made up of a hundred arms. A hundred humeri, a hundred ulnars and radii. It made him question again how any flight, no matter how protracted, could be possible.
“Yes, yes, of course. Please,” Edwin said. “How are you feeling? Are you up for some more tests?” For his own part, using magic was draining; the idea that some people could use their magic infinitely was still a concept that he had trouble with.
The arms on Robin’s back burst into a flurry of soft light pink petals that blew away and disappeared. Once the weight was off her shoulders, Robin let out a breath of relief. She turned so that she could face Edwin again, that small smile once again on her features. “Of course,” she said. “Let’s continue.”