Inktober 2024 - 23 - Rust

"It's yours if you want it," said the salvage yard owner dismissively.

She didn't even remember when that particular piece of rubbish had come in. It might have been here when she took over the place. Either way, it was now part of the walls, like so many other scraps of metal like it in this literal dump. It would probably be worth more melted down than as it was, but she had never gotten around to doing that, prioritising newer discarded equipment, easier to dismantle.

But now, there was a little lady staring at it intensely, so she figured she might as well get rid of it if she had the opportunity. She could always use the space.

The girl seemed fascinated by the the object in question. It hardly had any shape anymore, but she did recognise it must have been a droid once. A humanoid one at that, based on the semblance of a face she swore she caught a glimpse of, beneath the dirt covering every square inch of it. That depression had to be an eye socket…

There was barely anything left of what must have been its body at one point. It was just a hollowed-out husk of a formerly great mechanical marvel, the remnants of an engineering prowess of the past, the rusted shreds of a once upon a time impressive exoskeleton. There certainly wasn't any sign of any limb left, but it took little imagination to figure out where they would have fit originally.

"I'll take it," agreed the girl, without so much as a glance towards the woman.

The latter didn't mind. No skin off her back. Good riddance, actually.

The girl reached out to touch the cold hard steel of what she estimated to have been the imitation of a ribcage when it was first designed. It was quite banged up, bent and torn in some places, but she could see the potential. Its original form would not be too hard to restore, with the right tools. And she had those tools.

Her fingers slid up, brushing against the metal, zigzagging to avoid the most damaged areas and focusing on what few points of reference remained. She could see it. Although familiar with most vintage models, she did not know which one it could have been exactly, but it didn't matter to her that she had no blueprints to refer to. Even when she did have such documents at her disposal, she took liberties. Being a purist had always seemed boring, to her.

Stepping onto the broken appliance laid down just below the droid, the girl got closer to her new project. She was now face to face with it. It would take a lot of spare parts to make it any kind of functional. So much so that some wouldn't even consider she restored it but rather that it had been a spare part of its own to build an entirely new thing.

A single rusty tear, running down what was left of a cheekbone, gave the girl a good argument against such criticism.