worktodo | Voicemail

[The following morning, a single page is sent via door.]

Edited (now with less fail) 2012-09-18 23:36 (UTC)

[LATER THAT DAY, a response haileth.]

[Hiccup's next reply is actually an audio message--it's quicker, anyway.]

Did you want to go with?

[He's careful to make it clear that it's simply an invitation. No use guilting Albert into it with a hopeful tone if he didn't want to go--the point was to repair this damaged bridge, not wreck it further by annoying him.]

Are you inviting me on a field trip?

[If Hiccup is paying close attention, he may notice that while the usual sarcasm is definitely there, the biting impatient condescension oddly...isn't.]

[It takes a few seconds for that fact to register, but he definitely notices.]

It's possible.

[And in what is perhaps a stunning display of character development, it occurs to Albert a moment after that response that, ah yes, a Viking might not actually know what a "field trip" is, would he.

This is not necessarily something he would've considered before.

Which doesn't automatically mean he's going to explain it, but hey, he noticed. Progress.]

You planning to build one?

[Better to get back on the topic of the generator. That's safer.]

[It just wasn't something that happened in dragon-slaying class.]

That's what I was thinking, yeah. [Now that he knows how.] Haven't actually built anything in a while, and I probably can't accidentally start a fire with this.

[...Right?]

I doubt it. If you want to accidentally start a fire, you want the periodic table science project, not the electricity one. Put the right two components together and it'll create a chemical reaction; pick the ones that don't like each other very much and they'll go kaboom.

Unless you break the bulb. You might throw some sparks off of that.

Sounds a lot like people.

[...No, that totally wasn't a pointed comment.]

If the thing isn't turning, it shouldn't spark right? [He'd rather keep his streak of explosion-free months going.] I'll just stop it if it breaks for some reason.

You really want to start that again?

[TREAD CAREFULLY, HICCUP.]

Right. If you're not turning the crank, you're not producing any electricity, so the light doesn't turn on.

[Hiccup sighs, but otherwise doesn't push the issue. It's not the time.]

Great. Shouldn't be a problem, then. [Though he does make a mental note to buy an extra bulb or two. You can never be too careful when your name is Hiccup Horrendous Haddock.] So, uhmn... Did you? Want to come with? I can ask someone else, if you don't.

[A very prudent solution, all around. Just because he's working on it doesn't mean it's not going to be a long and laborious process — or that he's going to ultimately be any less prickly along the way.]

...

[Coop, you better award him so much credit for this.]

Yeah, all right. Dummy can handle watching the Thing for a while while I'm gone.

Really? [He sounds surprised, but not unpleasantly so.

...Honestly, the fact that Albert agreed is enough to keep him from commenting on those names. Because what.] I mean, uhmn--we shouldn't be gone for too long, anyway.

[His names are the best names, okay.]

What's got you interested in electricity all of a sudden, anyway? You thinking of wiring the Viking Village once you get back home?

[Frankly, Albert wouldn't blame him if he were; that seems like a completely reasonable thing to do, considering his personal conception of Viking villages.]

[HICCUP is a better name than Albert's names.]

I would if I could... [It was all so advanced, though. Where the heck was he going to find this stuff on the Isle of Berk?] It's more because of that storm messing with the network, though. Someone started talking about power being knocked out and back-up generators.

Well, sure, this little science project will show you how it works. But it's not going to teach you why it works, any more than "hit these two rocks together" is going to teach you why it makes fire.

Then I guess I'll just have to learn that, too. [...He figures it's harmless enough to mention her.] Carmen started teaching me about it, anyway. Ben Franklin, with his kite and his key.

I better not catch you reproducing that one, by the way. Franklin may have invented the lightning rod with that stunt, and sure, it paved the way for a lot of other innovations to come, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a patently stupid thing to do.

[Figures Miss American History would gravitate toward Franklin, though. Hmph.]

The thing you're building is a contraption that a guy named Faraday came up with. And the light bulb you're using was pioneered by Edison. The point is, science doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's full of people looking at what everybody else is doing and saying, "I wonder what'll happen if I do this."

[You forgot to mention his stunning good looks, Albert...

But instead of trying to come up with something that will appease Albert on all fronts, Hiccup goes for a different question.]

What kind of stuff did da Vinci do? Besides writing in code.

[He may have pronounced the name wrong, but he's a viking. What did you expect?]

Da Vinci. It's Italian — not that that probably means much to you. And what didn't he do. Imagine a guy so fascinated by the world around him that he was trying to figure out every single thing he could, and he kept using all those things to help him figure out other things. The guy was a painter, but he was also interested in anatomy. Took apart a bunch of corpses, too, figuring out how muscles and bones worked. But then, you figure out how an arm works, you can draw it a lot more accurately when you paint.

[Seriously, he's not about to sit here and adoringly list off da Vinci's many accomplishments the way SOMEONE ELSE might, but he'll give the guy credit for being the genius he was.]

You compare someone to da Vinci, you're saying that they're a genius inventor and scholar years ahead of their time. That's who he was.

[Sorry, but there's one part of that speech that Hiccup's a bit stuck on.]

He took apart corpses?

You got a problem with people who take apart corpses?

Uhmn, I--

[The little voice in his head is screaming ABORT! ABORT!]

It's just not exactly something you see every day, is it?

Not anymore, it's not. Thanks to a notable lack of corpses around here putting me out of a job.

[TROLLFACE.JPG.]

[ o o p s . ]

Voicemail

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