Ilyna looks at the pieces Li pulls out, casting glances at the manual to compare them. "Let's take a closer look at the green baseplate," she says, shifting closer to it so it is within her reach. "Look for the bigger pieces of the terrain that have an obvious place on the plate, like the corners, while I read. Maybe the illustration on the box cloud help us too." She cannot reach the box from where she's sitting,
#IlynaApartment – April 20, 2021
but she uses a weak biotic field to stand it upright and turn the front face towards them. Ilyna then pulls the manual closer to her, trying to find out if there's an order to assembly and whether there are good illustrations that she could show to Li.
Li 's eyebrows furrow slightly, a focused look on her face as she listens to Ilyna's instructions. Without the manual there's little hope for her to make heads or tails of it, but she does manage to start separating the angled 'edge' pieces.
The manual is pretty detailed, offering layer-by-layer schematics with part counts for each step. As for the box, it certainly gives an idea of what the finished thing should look like, but it's hard to figure much of the internal layout from it.
Halisi seems content to sip her coffee and watch the masterminds on the floor figure things out for the time being.
Ilyna finds back to the first step, and pushes the manual towards Li and moves closer to her. She tries to ensure there's somewhat of a line of sight between Halisi and the manual too. "Okay...," she begins, placing a finger below the picture for the first step. "Let's look at pictures in the manual together, Li. We've got a castle foundation to assemble first, and it's going on the plate before we put the rocks and
hill pieces down. I think." She looks out over the pile, but even if she spots the piece (that she thinks is) for the first step, she lets Li take her time to study the picture and find it.
Li gives a serious nod, studying the instructions before starting to pick out castle pieces and putting them in place, leaving her half-ready pile of hillside edge pieces behind.
Halisi leans forward a little to study the manual and the baseplate, cup cradled in her hands for the moment. "Ah, I believe that one goes one step to the left Li. Count the studs from the edge if it's hard to tell." she advises.
Li hasn't exactly had much in the way of math, but she's got basic counting covered! Her focused expression intensifies as she counts under her breath the row of studs first on the actual manual and then on the baseplate to make sure they match up, finger tracing along. Only one piece needs to be relocated. She'll make architect yet!
Ilyna has a big smile on her face as Li manages to assemble it and correct her mistake with Halisi's hint. She retracts her finger on the manual, and observes Li as she works to make sure that she's following the schematics in the right order. "You're doing well," Ilyna says.
Li flashes a bright smile, only distracted from the assembly process for the briefest of moments. Piece after piece finds its place, but it's obvious that this is going to take a long time. Li's patience shows no sign of wearing thin just yet though.
Ilyna has already expressed how she's fine with this taking all of today, though at this rate it might take all of tomorrow too. "The foundation is really starting to take shape," she says as she performs the important task of keeping the manual on the relevant page. Unless Li gets stuck, that's as involved as she's going to get in the building process.
Construction goes on near-uninterrupted for quite some time - most of the day really. Looks like trying all of the Christmas gifts is going to be a multi-day affair indeed. A break is had for lunch, which Halisi insists on helping with despite the plans being about as basic as it gets. After her coffee was finished, the doctor took a more active role in helping out with the construction - there was plenty for all three of them to do,
after all. Li's focus soon shifted to the dragon while Ilyna and Halisi worked on the castle, and as dinnertime approaches the whole set finally stands complete, a castle with tall spires, walls manned by knights in full armor, with colorful banners and weapons at the ready. The dragon looms on the cliffs next to the castle, a fearsome firebreather of a dinnosaur if there ever was one. Li has taken some liberties with details of the
Li is already playing with the castle (which seems unlikely to remain intact for long) after asking Ilyna to send a picture to Jason and 'Vynna'.
Halisi is taking a moment to stretch after spending most of the day sitting on the floor. She lets out a long breath and sinks into the couch afterwards, eyes shifting to the darkening outdoors before looking down at Li, amused and a little tired. "Well... I'll admit that took quite a bit longer than I anticipated." she says with a quiet laugh, hand rubbing her chin, elbow propped up against the armrest.
Ilyna was content to let Li do all the hard work for a while, but as minutes turned to hours and Li's attention shifted to the fearsome flying dinnosaur, she followed Halisi's lead and helped building the castle according to the manual. Right now, she's sat on the couch with Halisi, is typing out a brief message to Jason and Va'ynna to go with the picture. The message doesn't say much beyond that it took all day and
how much fun it's been. She has just sent the message and shut off her omni-tool when Halisi speaks. "I was expecting we'd be done tomorrow after seeing that the set boasted four thousand parts," she says with a chuckle, looking at Halisi, "and I wouldn't have been mad about it.."
Halisi 's attention turns Ilyna's way, flashing her an amused smile and nodding with another laugh. "Perfection cannot be rushed, hm?" She casts another glance towards the castle. Li isn't paying the two of them any attention anymore, all her focus on the epic battle being waged. "I must say, I think we did quite well." she comments with a pleased nod. "Don't you agree?" she adds, smirking a little as her head turns to look at the