Eavesdropper's Earring

The Eavesdropper’s Earring<ref>As Lucy had signed the far side of the line, this other her had signed her side.

Eavesdropper’s Earring, Implement of Lucille Desiree Ellingson. - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.7 </ref> is Lucy Ellingson's Implement.

Appearance

The earring is held on to Lucy's earlobe with a standard earring pin. There's a loop of metal going up around the inside of her ear, made from one handle of a pair of antique scissors, studded with crystals. A fine wire hangs down from it, holding a smoky red gem in a metal cage.<ref>The loop of the handle where the fingers were inserted had been separated, made to sit inside the outermost rim of her ear.  It extended to the lobe, and there was a pin there to extend through the hole in her earlobe she already had.  A fine wire dangled, and a smokey, red-tinted crystal was set within a cage of the same material the scissors were made of.  More crystals studded the upper portion. - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.7</ref> The metal is sharp enough to be used as an improvised weapon<ref>She pulled her earring off, and gripped the bottom end and wire in one hand.  She raked the metal reinforced jewel at the bottom end across his fingers, to weaken his grip. - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.8</ref><ref>She reached up, taking his hand, and gripped it, squeezing her ear and his hand both, with the metal and decorated studs between them.  He jerked, and she held on, digging into her own ear with her fingernails for traction, squeezing.

He finally pulled away, his hand bleeding.  He turned and fled downstairs.

Her own blood dripped from her ear to her earring, collecting, she imagined, on the dangling crystal, before dropping down to stain her jammies. - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.8</ref> and is a little tarnished.<ref>The earring was different, but it was hard to pinpoint exactly how or why.  Maybe a bit more tarnished, a bit sharper where the segments that ran inside her ear were, the gem a little redder, but all in ways that could be explained as a change in the light. - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.9</ref>

During the Implementum ritual, the earring manifested as a black smoked-metal version of Lucy with red crystals for nails, wire hair ending in red crystals, and shining metal eyes. It was clothed in the red and black ribbons and banners that represent connections to her Sight. She wore an exaggerated version of the earring across one side of her head.<ref>Stretching across the line, doing its own writing, was an arm, slender, black-skinned, and prickling with goosebumps.  The nails were like red-tinted crystal framed in metal, the skin had a faint smokey texture to it, and the wrinkles at the knuckle and the crook of the elbow had deeper, almost tarnished texture within them. [...] Sitting opposite her was herself, wearing not clothes, but an intricate and careful wrapping of the same crimson and charcoal colored banners and ribbons that Lucy had seen so many times, tied to the handles of swords she viewed with her Sight.  This other her had her hair tied back, but the ponytail was wire in tight curls, ending in innumerable ornaments like the ones on the earring, grazing bare shoulders and running down her back.  The other her had skin of a similar color but a different tone and texture, catching the light, her eyes were metal, and she wore the earring, exaggerated and writ large, framing one side of her head. - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.7</ref> It spoke in whispers.<ref>Rigid and tense, the Earring put one hand as far forward as she could without crossing the line, leaned forward with fingers splayed on the ground, and then began to whisper. [...] “Someone in this room was,” the Earring whispered.  “I’m to challenge you.  To get to the heart of you.” [...] Metal lips grazed Lucy’s ear, whispering, “She defended you against teammates.  She questioned Bader.  She could have pushed harder, but she pushed.  You know this without hearing it or being told.” - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.7</ref> As a result of the scissors used to make it being tempered and Lucy's own personality, it was somewhat harsh and uncompromising.<ref>“Are all implement rituals this harsh?”

“No.  I don’t know anything you don’t, except what threads through my manufacture, my design, my aesthetic.  But the same tempering rituals that scoured me clean of small evils and pollution also erased some of the softer edges.”

It felt like Verona should walk though that door, ready to change into Lucy’s pants.  Or the alternate Verona, from the real sequence of events, where Lucy hadn’t heard those words as she’d walked into the girls washroom at school, hadn’t retorted in the same way, hadn’t made Emerson just a little irritated, so she’d talk to Verona…

“Besides…” the Earring whispered, her head moving beside Lucy’s so a cool metal ear could press against Lucy’s own ear.  It should have squished the earring between their heads in an uncomfortable way, but it didn’t.  “…Would you have me be anything but harsh?  Uncompromising?  Willing to challenge?” - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.8</ref>

Similarly, to Avery's Sight the earring appeared exaggerated, with wire flowing through her hair and multiple metal-framed crystals hanging in the air around her head.<ref>Avery turned on her Sight, and she could see the earring, exaggerated.  Metal-framed crystals, elongated, hung in the air, close to her head, and wire ran from her ear, along her hair, and into her ponytail, where it proliferated, decorating what was there. - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.9</ref>

Abilities

Lucy can reach out her perceptions through the earring to hear words spoken with an intent of them being hidden, which feels a little like using her Sight, but somehow both subtler and more obvious.<ref>She straightened, moving her head around to feel the simultaneous weight and lack thereof on her ear.  Reaching into and through it felt like using her Sight, but another appendage.  Subtler and more obvious to the outside observer at the same time. - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.8</ref>Can be used to hear through doors and walls but is most effective at hearing whispers and more specifically at hearing whispers about herself,<ref>“Communicate what you’re doing.  I can hear you,” Lucy said.  “It’s clearer if you whisper.” - Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.3</ref> but she can put power into it to help her hear specific conversations.<ref>“Draw on my power, let me hear,” Lucy whispered. - Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.2</ref>

Any diagrams Lucy draws are automatically elaborated with complicated flourishes, making simple diagrams impossible but some more complex ones easier.<ref>It couldn’t be easy.  Lucy tried once more to draw the circle.

It was like the chalk wasn’t a chalk line, but a pile of chalk dust, and the wind kept blowing at it.  Or she was trying to draw in iron filings and there were magnets under the ground, in elaborate shapes and arrangements.

The earring had its drawbacks, apparently.  Lucy stood, hands on hips, and looked down at the chalk, which had pulled away into spikes, curves, and star-like shapes.

“What’s this?” Verona asked.  She stepped out the back door, hair messy, and rested her chin on the railing of the back steps of the little workshop.  The wood was damp from the past few days of rain.

“I don’t think I can draw plain circles anymore,” Lucy said.  “Or it’s harder.”

[...]

“This is a good excuse to tune your practice to be more you.”

[...]

“Maybe,” Lucy said.  “That feels too art-y.  Like, if I’m going to re-learn some diagrams and customize them…”

“I guess to do a barrier, you want something radiating or shining out, right?  So it’d be more like a star or a sun than a circle.”

“Sun, yeah.”

[...]

Lucy bent down, then, opening her laptop on the edge of the porch to check spelling and address, wrote it down in chalk.  That, at least, didn’t fight her.  If anything it was a bit easier to get the chalk to do as she wanted as it wore down. - Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.2</ref> She learned to adapt to this.^{[citation needed]}

In just plain speaking it could let Lucy hear more in someone's voice revealing emotions or qualities about them.<ref>“The notion of the ‘child’ was only trending out of favor in that era,” the Carcass in Sable said, voice soft, with a faint ragged edge to it that Lucy’s earring could pick up.  “She was old enough to awaken, if we grant her words the gravity required for her to practice, we must grant them the gravity to condemn her.” - Excerpt from Summer Break 13.2</ref><ref>Implement: Wears the Eavesdropper’s Earring. An adornment implement that enhances her ability to hear whispers, boost sensory, personal and display-type practices.
[Picture of implement]
Made from Verona’s Awakening scissors & Ave’s memories. - 15.2 Spoilers, Keeping Tabs, Kennet</ref>

History

The earring was made together by the Kennet Trio. Verona's antique scissors that she had used for the Awakening ritual and tempered magically were used to make the metal parts, while the gemstones were conjured magically from the photograph Avery used in her Awakening - with the main gemstone being the image of a whispered conversation between Edith James and the Hungry Choir around the time of the Carmine Beast's murder.<ref>The handles of the scissors, taken apart and filed down to something subtle, would become ornamentation, fitting to the curve of the upper ears, sitting just inside the rim.  The inside of each would be more framing and decoration, hooking around the side of the ear to hold the ornament in place.

But in the end, it was earrings.  The crystals and glimmers they formed using Avery’s photo would decorate the dangling portion, and be decorated further with the blade.  An earring to let Lucy shine, to be proud of her appearance, because both of those things mattered.  A creative working poised around the ear for the girl who loved music.

And, perhaps most critically, captured on the last page Lucy had snared, a scene.  A distant, captured conversation to adorn the ear of an eavesdropper. - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.6 </ref> They had originally considered making a pair, but messed up one of them during the creation process.<ref>This was the first time Lucy was seeing it all in one piece.  The loop of the handle where the fingers were inserted had been separated, made to sit inside the outermost rim of her ear.  It extended to the lobe, and there was a pin there to extend through the hole in her earlobe she already had.  A fine wire dangled, and a smokey, red-tinted crystal was set within a cage of the same material the scissors were made of.  More crystals studded the upper portion.

They’d debated going with two and going with one.  In the end, the decision had been made for them, when the preparations of the first piece had gone a bit south.  Avery and Verona had been rubbing a handle against a filing surface, and a part had broken off.  They’d decided that it was more trouble than it was worth to repair things.

Better to finish the construction of this one, give a little ceremony to say goodbye to the broken piece, saying a few words about mistakes being made, but it not being an ending.  They saw this stuff through. - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.7 </ref>

Lucy conducted the Implementum ritual over the course of three days, talking with the personified earring and being tested in various dream-like scenarios.

When the Kennet trio worked with Zed and Brie to investigate to Placement Test it was one of the items substantiated.<ref>As a result, Lucy’s hat had a chain with a dog tag and ring on it wound around where the point met the brim, and that became Dog Hat. Lucy had also produced the Fox, from the mask, Smoke, from the cape with runes inscribed on it, and Earring girl, from, well, it was obvious. - Excerpt from Wild Abandon 18.z</ref>

References

<references/>