Work Text:
There was something about puzzles that had always fascinated Cypress. Whether it was as simple as a jigsaw, to something more intermediate like a tower puzzle that Uri was just so fond of giving out, or as complex as a moving light puzzle, she’d enjoyed all of them. It gave her a chance for her mind to be challenged, to flex her intellect. To seek out the algorithm and solve it, for the satisfaction of a job well done.
The bliss that followed it, the euphoria? Worth it, every single time.
Sometimes, she thought, that’s why she’d been drawn to invention. Everything had always seemed like a puzzle to her. Disassembling things and sticking the bits and bobs together in new, interesting ways. Connect a bit of that crossbow’s flexible parts to the hammer’s head part, and voila! You’d have a hammer that was able to more easily traverse corners, while still keeping enough rigidity when necessary to do its job.
However, as she’d aged, Cypress had come to learn one very important lesson:
Some puzzles… Well, some puzzles are just bullshit.
She could rant and rave at the amount of guesswork some puzzles took, whether it be a majority of the secrets locked behind doors in that dank Elemental Laboratory, or trying to gather the attention of a deaf pirate while locked up in the most notorious prison in the western hemisphere of Gielinor. Honestly, how was she supposed to figure out that she needed to make an accordion vacuum cannon, and fire it at his head to get his attention??
She’d spent a whole week seething after that one.
But still, even through all the nonsense, she kept her love of puzzles and the unknown all the same. Never once had it dampened her spirits, or her attitude towards them.
Though, she had to admit this current puzzle in front of her, was getting dangerously close to the “bullshit” threshold.
“Kharazi damn it!” she muttered, throwing down the delicate parts that she’d been previously palming. This shouldn’t have been so damn complicated. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t worked with before, hell, she’d come to love tinkering with dwarven technology. Their cannons? Amazing! The Blast Furnace? She loved it!
This partially disassembled handcannon on her desk?
Loathing. Nothing but pure loathing.
It was borderline aggravating, honestly. For all the ingenuity and workmanship of the dwarves, this one piece of tech, almost inconsequential in the grand scheme, had one niggling little flaw that made it hell to work with.
You see – it had this tiny little itsy-bitsy chance of, well, exploding in your hands. While you were using it. Not really ideal for battlefield applications, if you’d ask Cypress.
So of course, she thought she’d tinker with it herself, see if she could correct the design flaws. Maybe even augment it with some of the mass amounts of divine energy she’d accrued. What an absolute lark that had been, thus far.
Here she was, Cypress Ofori, the woman who’d built herself a new heart when Nezikchened had damaged her original one to keep herself alive, struggling against this dumb little cannon.
Quite honestly, she was ready to brush all the scattered pieces on her desk directly into the wastebin beside her, and call it a day.
Burying her face in her hands, she sat still for a few moments, contemplating what she might have missed. Cypress was in fact so lost in her reverie, that she almost didn’t notice when Cresbot toddled up to her leg and started shaking it, trying to grab her attention.
She’d always liked the little robot, especially considering it was the first automaton she’d made. Of course, having a good supply of larger, broken ones to reverse engineer helped, but still. She’d repaired him herself, and he’d been an invaluable little Roomba around her workshop ever since.
“Yes, Cresbot?” she asks, peeking of her the tips of her fingers, seeing his little green body jitter with anticipation. He quickly raced in a circle, pulling a blueprint far larger than himself over to her, and gesturing at it excitedly.
Cypress sat for a moment, wide-eyed and speechless.
“Did… did you draw this?” she asks, leaning down from her chair to pick up the blueprint, as well as scooping him upwards and onto her desk. Cresbot simply nodded ecstatically, the blue-green light that served as his eye flashing happily.
Her eyes poured over the document, glancing back and forth between it and the cannon.
“T…Thank you, Cresbot.” She said warmly, patting him on the head.
“Now, be a dear and go feed the parrot? Not too much, though!” she asked, to which the Cresbot leapt off the table and gleefully skipped away, happy that it’d been able to help its master.
Keeping somewhat of an eye on him as he struggled with the bag of birdseed, Cypress eventually turned her attention back to the table, having pinned the blueprint to a nearby board for easy access.
With renewed vigor, Cypress once again dove headlong into her cannon project, the sun setting in what seemed like a blink of the eye as she worked.
Having fully reassembled the monstrosity, Cypress sat back, her finger poised over the switch to flip it on. Did she really want to feel let down again, after having spent so long on this, if it turns out it hadn’t worked?
With a trepidatious breath, she flipped the switch, and watched as the newly augmented cannon thrummed to life, giving off an easy green glow.
Cypress simply sat back with a smile.
Bliss.