InsaneJournal

Construct Scenelets
Because the Construct is awesome and I have too many ideas bouncing around right now.

One

The Construct, sensing her indecision, pulled a different top from the closet and held it out hopefully.

Lizzie regarded the proffered garment with only barely stifled amusement. "I don't think so," she said.

Confusion. But Lizzie liked this shirt, didn't she? She had felt very happy when she tried it on in the store the other day. The Construct only wanted her to feel happy.

"Yes, it's a good shirt, but it's also bright blue and not exactly modest. I'm going to a job interview, not a rave."

The Construct did not entirely understand what she meant, but was skeptical as to the existence of a fashion rule that was more important than Lizzie's happiness. Besides, Lizzie thought it made her look very pretty, and Lizzie was never wrong about these things.

"You've got to understand that there are different kinds of pretty."

But surely Lizzie was all of them.

"That's not what I - " Lizzie paused. "All right, you remember what happened when I wore that really low-cut dress to the club social last week?"

The Construct considered this. Then it returned the top to the closet and replaced it with a heavy grey sweater.

Lizzie laughed, and patted it affectionately on the arm. "Tell you what," she said, "how about you pack up my portfolio and I'll deal with the clothes."

The Construct was having some difficulty coming to terms with Richard. Lizzie had the advantage of fiction, and once the initial surprise had worn off she was quite willing to accept an undead companion. The Construct, on the other hand, understood that anything with a particular shape and a particular way of moving was a human being, and that if you made holes in human beings they generally died, or at least were significantly slowed down. Richard looked like a human, moved and acted like a human - although perhaps a very odd human - and yet he'd had several very large holes put in him over the past few days and was still moving about as if nothing had happened. This perplexed the Construct greatly.

It was perhaps this confusion that caused the rather strained relations between the two of them. Richard was of course prepared to put up with a great many things if it meant he'd get a chance to disembowel something later on, but even the promise of gratuitous violence only went so far, and one too many times he found his chest cavity suddenly much better ventilated and turned around to find the Construct hovering behind him, watching intently to see if he was going to fall over. Even the most well-disposed of warlocks was not going to take that kind of harassment, especially not from a golem.

Since neither of them could figure out any way to actually kill the other, the Construct's peculiarities of design being outside of even Richard's extensive occult knowledge, Lizzie saw no need to intervene in the resulting battles. It was not as if they ever destroyed anything she couldn't put back together, after all, and after a long day of wandering through the countryside and running from outraged villagers, there was nothing quite so enjoyable as watching her traveling companions chase each other around the campfire. Providing power for Richard's inevitable repairs was only a small price to pay for free entertainment.