Fluff

Chapter Forty-Six - Railgun (Technically more of a coilgun, but it fires toast, so your semantics don't matter here)

Emily couldn’t decide what to stare at more. Her newest sister, who was standing to one side, lips trembling, eyes filled with unshed tears, and little hands shaking, or the very large, very dangerous looking thing sitting on the table just in front of her.

A tiny sniffle made her mind up and she swooped in to hug Maple. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she said. “No crying, you’re fine. You are fine, right? You’re not hurt anywhere?”

Maple shook her head into Emily’s shoulder.

“Hey Boss, what’s going on?” Teddy asked as she stomped into the room.

“Give us a minute, Teddy,” Emily said. For most of her sisters, having more sisters around would probably be a comfort, but she suspected that wasn’t the case for Maple.

“Oh, alright, Boss,” Teddy said.

Emily waited a bit, gave Maple a squeeze, then held her out in front of her. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Maple wiped her nose with the sleeve of her lab coat. “I’m okay,” she said before snorting. “But.. but you’re going to be angry at me?” It was a question, somehow.

“No, I’m not,” Emily said. “Probably. Did you do anything to hurt your sisters? Did you hurt yourself? Did you hurt anyone else? No? Okay, then I’m officially not angry at you.”

Maple tried on a smile, but her lips were too wobbly. Emily reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out some napkins. She’d learned recently that she could never have enough napkins on her. She used it to rub at Maple’s face. There was some grease there, somehow, and not the edible sort.

“Okay, so why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Maple swallowed. “Sister Trinity said that the toaster here was broken, and it was. They were playing games, and I wanted to be a bit alone, so I decided to fix the toaster, and then I wanted to make it better and then... I don’t know, I just started adding things to it.”

“And this is the end result?” Emily asked.

Maple nodded. “You’re not mad?” she asked, as if to make sure.

“I promise I’m not,” Emily said.

Maple walked closer to the table, then pulled the... “toaster” off of it. The toaster had a stock made of bent tin from... cans? The actual toaster part was near the back, with the little handle on the side. Coat-hangers formed a rudimentary handle beneath and the entire thing had a long barrel made of cans bent into a rough oval shape with copper wires wrapped around them. There was a crank on the left side of the toaster, and some gearing inside of it whose purpose Emily could only guess at.

She tried to figure it out. It couldn’t be that complex, but it almost felt as if her eyes were sliding off of the mechanical parts, or maybe she just couldn’t focus.

Which had a bit of a cold sweat forming on her back. “Maple. Can you do me a favour and show me your skills?”

“I only have one,” Maple said. But she obliged, a familiar box appearing before her.