[18+ Steampunk Cozy Fantasy BDSM Romance]
When Halian, Ilnara's best engineer, loses his arm in a gruesome accident saving his best friend, his life takes a turn for the worse. Although years have passed and he's been fitted with a mechanical arm, l...
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Halian could hardly believe it, but he was actually getting a break for once. Well, sort of. He and Erina had been asked to make upgrades to machines, which was wonderful because it meant a significant boost to their pearl deposits.
However, unfortunately these machines were not new to either of them. They were asked to upgrade them because they had built them in the first place.
Halian scowled up at the large, circular blades of the ilncarver he was standing beneath. He wondered if it was specifically this one that had cut off his arm.
"We need more reach. And perhaps an addition of a better drill to break rocks to get to the ice," said the worker who had been showing them around. The woman was the head driver of the ilncarvers, or so Halian thought he'd heard her say. He hadn't been paying proper attention give the circumstances. He'd rather get this over with as fast as possible.
"We've had to go deeper these past few months," the head driver continued. "We found a large deposit of iln ice, but it is below the surface. To properly mine it, we need better tools."
Halian nodded. There was a deep, phantom ache in his missing forearm. He would need to make the sketches for his plans as fast as possible, so he could get out of here.
"I will make a new design. You will then be given the space to give feedback before I go draft the actual plans," Halian told her.
Usually he wouldn't do this. He'd instead do his own extensive research, design the best machine he possibly could, and then assure the person paying of that, but he wanted this project to just be done and paid for.
"Very well. Thank you, Engineer Teru. I will be around if you need anything."
Halian nodded, studying the ilncarver, paper on a drawing board in hand as he started sketching the basic shapes of the parts of the machinery. It was messy because of his malfunctioning arm, but that didn't matter in a sketch. As long as he could understand it, it would be fine.
He only paused when he felt Erina hug him. He smiled at her, his heart aching when he noticed her guilty eyes staring at the floor.
"It wasn't your fault," he told her, hugging her back.
"I built the things," Erina said, sighing. "It's my fault just for that reason."
Halian shook his head. "It could have been the materials you were provided. It could have been my plans themselves. It could have been a lot of things."
Erina hugged him tighter, sighing. "I'm just so sorry."
"If I could go back, I would have still saved you. I regret nothing," Halian said. And he meant it completely. If he were to choose between his career and not being disabled, and saving Erina's life, he'd always sacrifice his arm readily. But he understood why Erina felt guilty anyway.
"Thank you, Hal," she said, smiling, but her eyes were still sad.
Halian didn't know what to say to make her feel better. His presence here was what was upsetting her, but he needed to be here to study the current ilncarvers. He would have looked at the original plans, but just from looking at the current machines, he could tell they had been modified over the years.
