Work Text:
There’s a soft chuckle.
“Zelda you can come out, I know you’re there.”
Zelda lets out a little huff and emerges from where she’s been hiding behind the doorframe.
The human woman sits in front of her pottery wheel. Her kind black eyes watch Zelda with a soft amusement.
“Would you like to try?”
She shifts back in her chair, half-turned toward Zelda.
“But I’ll mess it up!” She protests.
It’s true. For as long as she can remember she has been taught to destroy. That’s what changelings were made for. They destroyed cities with ruthlessly gathered intelligence, countries with seeds of discord, lives with the ever merciless blade… trust with a thousand cruel lies. Maybe the last few years had been different, but it wouldn’t change her destiny.
The woman, her… no her familiar’s mother, is oblivious to this. She chuckles at her daughter’s hesitance.
“Of course you will,” She says, a smile playing along her lips. “Everyone ruins their first piece.”
She beckons Zelda over and this time the changeling obeys. Zelda is too small to properly work the wheel just yet so her mothe- the woman lifts her up onto her lap. She then takes a ball of clay and throws it onto the wheel. She kicks the base to get it spinning.
Zelda has watched the human do this a thousand times so she needs no instruction. Not yet anyway. She begins patting the clay into a cone.
“Well done,” Her mother says and she feels a glow in her chest. “Now you’re ready to start shaping it.”
Zelda dips her fingers into the bowl of muddied water and presses them carefully to the sides of the spinning clay. Her eyes widen with wonder and her breath catches as the clay slowly rises upward under her ministrations. Gradually she manages to tease it into a cylinder.
“I’m doing it!”
She whispers in her excitement as if she might somehow startle the slowly forming shape.
“Indeed,” Comes the fond response.
Unfortunately her elation is short-lived. She’s a little too eager to hollow out the center. She pulls outward too fast and it all comes apart.
Zelda stares at the ruined mess on the wheel. Her face scrunches up. She may be a centuries old Gum-Gum spy trained from birth to be ruthless, but this body is unfamiliar; its needs and emotions, alien. What should be just an annoyance, feels like a monumental setback.
“Hush,” The woman says. “Let’s try again.”
And she does, again and again. The woman works with her patiently. Her hands, strong from work, coated with clay and oh-so-very human, are gentle as they guide her own.
Finally she has success. The little pot they lift off the wheel is not elegant, it leans to the side, squat at the base and thin at the top, but it’s hers.
“Look Mom,” she holds it up to the woman for inspection.
“It’s beautiful,” Her mother says and Zelda knows she means it. “Well done.”
She takes it carefully and sets it on the drying shelf with her own works.
She turns back to Zelda and reaches down to cup her cheek for a moment. Her black eyes gaze into Zelda’s green ones and she feels like her heart might burst out of her chest. Her mother gives her a smile and straightens back up. It isn’t until dinnertime that Zelda finally washes the streak of clay off her cheek.
Nomura stares hard at the community board ignoring the way the passing humans edge carefully around her. Arcadia is well past denial at this point. They can deal with her presence at the grocery store.
There are fliers for pets and concerts and jobs and a thousand other trivial things, but those are not what has drawn her gaze.
In the lower left corner there is a sheet of plain white paper bearing the words: “Pottery Class”.
She can’t quite tear her gaze away. Some undefinable feeling stirs in her chest causing her heart to ache and her fingers to twitch with longing.
The humans whisper as she tears the flier off the board and stalks away with it.
Once home she sets it on her counter and starts working on dinner. Every other minute her eyes drift back to it.
“Don’t be stupid,” She tells herself out loud.
Her fingers twitch. She reaches up and brushes one along her cheek.
The phone rings: a welcome distraction. She quickly grabs it. The edges of her lips quirk up at the sight of the name on her screen.
“What is it now, Little Gynt?” She drawls in a slightly mocking tone.
There’s an amused huff on the other end of the line.
“Nothing at the moment, thankfully. I was just wondering how you were settling back in.”
Nomura makes a little scoffing sound. She’s never been one for small talk.
“Fine. Incredibly they gave me back my job at the museum… I knew they were understaffed, but they must be really desperate.”
“Or they could just think you do good work,” Jim suggests.
She can picture that look in his eyes, sincere and oh so gentle. Foolish child. Foolish kind child. The memory of another pair of eyes ghosts across her mind.
“Maybe,” She allows. “Is there anything else?”
“No, just checking in. Talk to you later?”
She’s thankful that he respects her space.
“Yeah,” She says and hesitates a moment. “I’ll try to call you.”
“Bye, Nomura.”
She can hear the pleased smile in his voice.
“Bye,” She says shortly and hangs up.
She sets the phone down. Her gaze drifts back to the flyer. She walks over to the counter and picks it up, holding it delicately in her clawed hands.
Foolish…
She was made for destruction. Kindness is not in her nature.
She thinks of a lumpy clay pot. Of dark eyes and strong gentle hands.
She reaches for the phone.