<div dir="ltr"><div>This story takes place right after The King of Fighters. Thanks to Hallan for checking the story for characterization and dialogue, and catching a few typos while he was at it. </div>-LurkingWolf ________________________ February 14, 708 CR It had taken Lois the better part of a week to recover sufficiently to consider continuing his training with Paula. She was reasonably understanding about the situation, even though she was quite happy to prod him about it in good humor. He would have been more amused if the recovery time didn’t suggest something that he hated to consider. Age was beginning to slow his body. He remained capable for now, but he knew the day would come when his injuries would simply refuse to be healed. He did not like to consider the fact that it might be soon. Such considerations were kept to himself for now, however, even as he set about another task. It had been just past a month since the ermine had commissioned the mechanical leg that he hoped would help Gerard overcome the loss of his leg on their previous patrol. He had checked on the progress several times since the beginning, but his recovery had prevented him from doing so recently. Now that he was on his feet again, it was the first small matter of importance that he wished to see to. It was taking longer than usual to find smithy, and Lois was becoming impatient. Kyia was generally quite helpful whenever he wished to get somewhere quickly, but today’s route was circuitous, even compared to those he had taken during his first trip to the Keep years ago. After wander for several minutes, Lois considered that perhaps Kyia knew that Drift was not in. He shook his head; no, even if the samoyed had stepped out, the Keep’s spirit would have directed him, either to the smithy or to the smith’s actual location. She had some other reason for keeping it hidden from him for so long. Or perhaps it was not supposed to be hidden. Lois suddenly realized that he had been passing a familiar door repeatedly during the span of his journey. Now that he turned and looked at it, he realized that it was Drift’s door. The ermine had been looking for the sign that announced the presence of the tinsmithy, and without it he had been ignoring the door. The ermine frowned and approached the door. Something seemed wrong with the sudden change. The former assassin would usually have opened the door without much ceremony, but that seemed wrong for today. Taking a quick breath, he rapped on the door to announce his presence. “It’s open, come in,” a familiar voice spoke from beyond the door. Lois breathed a sigh of relief. It was Drift, and he sounded well, if somewhat stressed. The ermine gently opened the door, stepping across the threshold to stand in the cool room beyond. He frowned once again; the temperature of the room suggested that the forge had been cold for quite a while. “Lois! It has been a while.” Drift stepped out of the workshop where the two had met for the first time. He smiled, but Lois was more focused on the smith’s physical appearance otherwise. His fur was pressed down in places and stuck out at odd angles in others, as though the samoyed had just dragged himself from his bed. The dog Keeper was otherwise clearly quite composed, however, so Lois concluded that Drift had simply been too busy to groom his fur that day. For some reason, that bothered him. “I had to take a leave for a few days,” the ermine explained. “I joined a pugilism tournament and took a few good hits. I wanted to come in now and see if you had made any more progress on our project?” The samoyed nodded. “One moment, I’ve put it around here… somewhere.” He stepped back into his workshop and began to carefully shuffle through some things in search of the requested item. Lois stepped around the doorframe himself. The room was perhaps even more of a mess than the last time he had been there, although there was thankfully no glue left out for Drift to paste his tail with. The canine craftsman had just moved a stack of design drawings to one side and was now shifting some other things that had been placed on top of the item he was searching for. Finally, he carefully removed the object, turning it over in his hands, prodding it, and then handing it to Lois. “I was able to finally assemble all of the parts a few nights ago. Sorry for the pile; after I finally finished it I had some other projects I wanted to work on, and…” He ran a paw through the fur on the back of his head. Lois chuckled quietly and took the offered device. It looked very much like a deer’s hind leg, only rendered in metal instead of flesh. The only exception was the hoof, which was made of a rigid, but slightly pliable, substance which would simulate the hoof as accurately as possible. It was also light, Lois noted with some satisfaction. The ermine scanned it quietly for a few moments, examining it closely in silence. He noticed that some of the workings along the back of the leg were exposed, and he began to prod them carefully. “I wouldn’t try that,” Drift cautioned. “I ran some tests, as many as I could without the man it was designed for present. I noticed that this area,” he indicated the exposed parts, “tends to catch every now and again. Usually it is not a problem; the weight of a man’s body being supported on it should cause it to loosen up without any adjustment. Every now and again, however, it stays caught. The first time I manually loosed it, it bent the rod I used to free it.” He poked around the pile he had moved to find the leg a moment before and withdrew the rod he had mentioned. It was bent at a horrible angle. Lois realized the implication and quickly drew his claws back from the opening. Drift chuckled. “It’s loose now, so it isn’t a danger, but I just wouldn’t get in the habit of sticking your fingers in to try to release it. I hope that we will be able to figure out whatever is causing the problem in the field. Well, I hope you will be able to find the problem, I should say.” The samoyed cast a distracted glance back into the workshop. His eyes didn’t settle on anything, however; Lois wondered if his thoughts were in the room at all. “That should be all right; I’m not inventor by any means, but I have a little experience with mechanical devices. If I’m not certain what to do, I suppose I could write a note for you to look at afterwards?” He realized as he asked that Drift was still distracted. The samoyed only realized he had been asked a question when Lois stopped talking. “Hmm? Oh, yes. I might be able to take a look at it later. If there is something that can be done to improve the design, then I would be very much interested in finding it out.” Lois nodded slowly, but he could see the distance in the dog’s eyes. “Drift?” The samoyed looked up at him questioningly. “I think you need some rest. Not sleep, just some time away. Your mind is somewhere else, and I speak from experience when I say that is dangerous.” The canine Keeper shook his head. “I’m just distracted,” he replied. “I'm going on patrol in a few days, so I want to get as much done before then as possible.” It was a reasonable answer, but something in his manner suggested that there was more going on than Drift was telling. Lois considered pressing the matter further, but he realized with some chagrin that he was only complicating Drift’s distraction. Drift was a professional acquaintance and nothing more, yet Lois was trying to do the duty of a friend. Perhaps his years as an assassin had taught him that one lesson too well. He was so used to acting like every man’s friend, even though he admitted to himself that his own blade might slice their throat the next day… Drift was already back to his work, poring over the contents of the pages he had spread over a workbench in the room. Lois opened his mouth to say something more, but convinced himself otherwise. A simple, “Good day,” was all he gave, and after receiving the samoyed’s like response he stepped back into the halls. For a few moments he stared at the grain of the door’s wood, trying to convince himself to do something more, but he finally turned away with a sigh. It was a problem, but he was more likely to make it worse than he was to help it if he put his muzzle into it. </div>