If you haven't read it yet, check out the new Ajri post (link in the post before this one.) The sparks around the seeing stone in the last frame of the Ajri post take place just as this post is starting.
--------
Things went well from there, and eventually, we decided that Rukhsana should come home to meet my admittedly odd family. It didn't really seem fair to ask her to marry me until she knew the whole package. So after we'd finally graduated, we packed up all of the things I'd had at college, ferried them over to Aurora Skies, and then drove into town on one of the brisk winter mornings I had missed while I was away.
"They'll love you," I assured her as Rukhsana stood shivering in the woods and looking warily toward the empty field I told her was home. We'd parked the truck out of sight, just down the road. "Come on. Just follow me through…"
"Follow you through what?" she asked, though she took my hand and came along behind me. "There's nothing-- oh!" And there we were, through the magical field, and in front of the family barn. "How did you-- what did you-- where did this come from?"
I grinned at the startled look on her face, gesturing toward the door. "I told you our house was weird. I'm sorry to report it's not bigger on the inside. But it's perfectly fine. Come on!"
I was anxious to see my parents and great grandfather, and to show Rukhsana the crazy workshop we'd built over time. It was usually bustling with activity -- sparks flying, propellers twirling, pots bubbling, that sort of thing. But as I pushed open the massive wooden doors to the barn, the creak of their rusty wheels echoed in a quiet chamber.
"Hello? Mom? Dad?" I shouted into the open space. At least it was warm. I shooed Rukhsana inside, then turned around to--
"Close the door!" That was my father's voice, from behind the partition.
"And quiet down! We're trying to hear if--" There was a loud crackles, and a bang, and then-- BZZZT. Sparks were flying once again. I was definitely home.
Hurrying forward to see what was going on behind the wooden wall, I drew up short at the strangest looking contraption I'd seen yet -- and that was saying something. "What are you doing?" I shouted. "Is that a colander?" I grabbed the nearby fire extinguisher, ready to douse the collection of odd spare parts if needed, but my great grandfather was already climbing out of harm's way.
"What happened?" he coughed, standing up and waving away what looked like the last of the acrid smoke. "Start it back up!" He didn't look my way, just poked at the panel of jumbled controls next to the machine.
"Fried the circuits," my father lamented, shaking his head at the burnt switches and toggles. "It's done for." He sighed, and pushed his glasses back up his nose, wiping his sooty hands on his pants. "Did you see anything? Or hear anything? Did it work at all?"
My great grandfather shook his head with a quiet "nothing," and though he tried to hide it, his stooped shoulders and dejected expression made him look older than I could ever remember him. My dad had reached out to clasp his arm for comfort when I decided to interject.
"Well if you're done trying to burn down the barn," I drawled, "can I introduce my girlfriend?"
"Etienne!"
"You're home!"
"Welcome back!"
"We've missed you!"
Hugs and handshakes all around, and then my great grandfather was looking me over with a proud, appraising eye to see how I'd changed, when my dad, ever the gentleman, held out his hand toward Rukhsana.
"You must be the young lady he wrote us about. His e-mails didn't do you nearly enough credit."
"And you must be Etienne's father," she replied without missing a beat. But rather than returning the handshake, she was more concerned with peering at the cart of computers that had so recently caught fire. "I must say, his descriptions didn't do this workshop enough credit either. Is that CPU an old Nrass Industries Master Controller? Hooked up to a... what is that thing? A dentist's chair?"
"Maybe," my father replied proudly -- though how anyone could be so enamored of that pile of scrap, I couldn't understand. "We picked it from behind the tattoo parlor. Very comfortable. Well, except for the colander. Claudia salvaged that from the restaurant kitchen. Industrial, you know? Just the right size, and strong as cast iron." He knocked on the metal dome, which rang like a misshapen funeral bell.
"And that?" Rukhsana pointed at the rack on the other side of the chair, where I was experimentally turning dials and flipping levers under a massive antenna. "What's all that for?"
"Oh that!" My father enthused. "That's the transdimensional signal detector. It goes ding when there's--" He paused, realized there was too much to explain and lamely stammered out "--stuff."
Rukhsana lifted an eyebrow at the ridiculous explanation, but let it slide. "All right," she said. "But what's it all for?"
"First things first," Great Grandfather smoothly interjected. "You must be tired, and--"
"No no," Rukhsana said, crouching in front of the odd machine. "If you have a set of tools, I can see if I can get this cranked up again. You probably only fried the Integration module -- and no wonder, since you have it hooked up to a car battery. I mean, really -- you couldn't find a deep cycle marine battery? And where did you get that inverter? Did that come from the tattoo parlor too?"
"I like her," my dad announced to no one in particular, heading off to find the tool kit.
A few hours later, after a dinner with my mother, that was everyone's general opinion. We all liked her. She liked us as well, even with all of our eccentricities, and eventually, once we'd decided to get married, we let her in on the family secret. I'm not sure she really believed it, but I'm not sure it really mattered. We were in love, and she was fascinated by all of the crazy machinery in the workshop, and we were both happy.
The strange machine that had first caught her attention turned out to be an attempt to contact Ajri. It was genius work in its own way, and as Rukhsana struggled to understand the technology with my father, I struggled to understand the related magic with my great grandfather.
"It's never going to work," I remember lamenting to her one night. "There's no way. I mean, I honestly think that the theory is sound, but it needs to be adjusted, and made more scientific. Besides, that thing is held together with duct tape and chicken wire, and--"
"It's not that bad," she protested. "Your dad's got a real knack for putting things together, especially considering he's not had any education in any of this."
"Right," I said. "Which is why I think you and I need to step up. I'm thinking of getting a job at the lab downtown. I'll have access to better equipment, and I can earn some decent money for supplies. You and I have got the right education for all of this. We've got to build a better version of that thing."
"Mm hmm," she said, running her hand over my chest. "But isn't there something else we need to do for Ajri? Something we can work on tonight?"
A few months later, when I'd had a chance to run some tests on the lab's sophisticated equipment, and when Rukhsana had worked out the schematics for a safer, more robust system, we were back in front of the whiteboard. Only this time, I was the one explaining the science. I could see Great Grandfather trying to follow what I was saying, but after I got to a certain point, he just shook his head.
"I trust you, Etienne. I've been trying to use what I know, but it's not strong enough magic. Science is the powerful force here, and that's what we need to use. So if you think what you're saying will work, then we'll do it"
"It will take both," I admitted. "But I think it will work."
It wasn't easy. Mechanical parts were incredibly expensive, and some of them were hard to acquire. Circuit boards had to be disassembled and reassembled.
We needed gems that were both rare and precious, and had to be perfectly crafted to fit into the new machine.
]
And all of the materials had to be tested, again and again at the lab, to make sure everything was in the proper parameters to function.
And while all of that was going on, little Amelia came into our lives.
But finally, eventually, we had a new machine. Its smooth lines gleaming with polished metal, it looked incredibly out of place in the middle of an old and cluttered horse barn. But it was perfect. It was insane and wonderful at the same time, just like so much that went on in the Dempster/den'Rhelys household. And we were ready to try to contact Ajri.
