Chapter Text
The heart whirred and fluttered as you ran your claw along its edge. The clockwork within ticked forward, nearly inaudible, expertly crafted. Nothing you could have managed at your activation and certainly nothing you could manage now. Despite the age of the mechanism, it was clear this Sentinel would roam the halls of the eternal-dying Citadel for a long, long time.
Your digits shook and creaked, unsteady, bothersome, as you examined the heart. Yours were joints that should have long since been repaired, unable to carry your weight. Mechanical tendons unoiled.
(You had oil, for your craft for Pharloom eternal, of course. Not for the preservation of your own inadequate form.)
The Sentinel, in comparison, stood still, awaiting the end of the examination like a good little automaton. They did not flinch as you traced the lines between the individual, gilded pieces of their center. Their form was nearly soundless as you brought another claw to hold their waist, though not to keep them in place, but to steady yourself. They did nothing as you poked a clawtip between their gears-
Ah.
The mechanism stuttered as your claw was pinched between, then tugged free, not by your own frayed reflexes but by theirs. Their claws grasped at your wrist and yanked it away from their core. They lurched, their voice box making a little sound as they held onto you with both forelimbs.
A perfect machine, and yet, so unprotected. One unfortunate hit between those gears could spell their deactivation-death.
That, you could fix. They'd protect these halls for longer, still. Was it not within your directive, after all, to seek to preserve?