The Village called Arston was holding services for Yonnsa the God of fertility  on the first day of spring, as was the tradition, when a traveler  was admitted who wished to observe the ceremony. The sacrificial blade was honed and oiled, gleaming bright in the noon sun on the altar, and the representative was prepared for presentation. The elder himself was privileged to provide his first born this year as representative. His eyes were large and swimming with the euphoria of his coming transcendence. The traveler had heard of such ceremonies before, but not of the finer details. He had expected to be witness to a death this day, an unnecessary death at the hands of, what he certainly thought, an archaic and dated tradition, but he was not aware of the magnitude of suffering involved.
He watched as the honored representative began the process of the flay and the scorch, all necessary to stand truly naked before Yonnsa before being permitted to carry the petition for fertility. He could only stand to watch a few short minutes before his conscience demanded intervention. He shoved and pushed at the crowed rousing more confusion than anger. After all, who in their right mind would disturb the rite. It was  a thing that simply wasn't done.  It was being done, however, and the traveler was doing it.
He leapt onstage, tossed the purifiers off of it, snatched the great sword that would have eventually ended it from the elder, and stepped in front of the young man to make good his escape. There was no need, however, as there was still no uproar or rage brewing in the crowd, only awkward hushed confusion.
"Well than. Get out of here man," he said to the boy.
"WHAT ARE YOU  DOING,"  the boy said back.
"You're suffering lad. Can't you see they're  going to make a filet of you."
"Of course I'm suffering. That's the point.  Why do you think l would care when the life of my tribe is at stake."
He thought of a million ways to refute generations of tradition in the few short moments he had their attention in, baffled at what to say to stop a practice centuries old,  a rite with a life of its own. The confusion finally started to yield to the next phase of anger, however, before he could settle it.
"Leave interloper," one shouted.
"He means to kill us with starvation," another screamed.
He decided he would command the situation for a moment more for one last address to them and raised the sword above them in an awesome gesture.
"SILENCE," he screamed in the loudest powerful voice he could muster when a rumbling began. All looked up to see the distant mountain summit shaking along with all the village. It shook with such violence that the snow frosted top let loose an avalanche on one side and lower down the mountain earth and various debris was letting loose a land slide. This didn't place the village in harms way as it was so far away, but it was still a sight to behold nonetheless.
The traveler watched it in awe that it should happen at such a time as this. He turned to see even more surprise, as the entire host of the village was bowing low with their faces in the dirt.
"Spare us great lord," the boy to be the sacrifice spoke up, "we only wished to give tribute to thee."
"They take me for a god," he thought to himself.
"NO," he cried out to them, "NO. Don't think that for a second."
It way too late though. The acceptance of divinity was instantaneous and perfect. All wailed their pleas for mercy, all voiced their perfect supplication. He tossed himself off the stage with the boy and kicked and pulled at them to stand up but they would immediately return to their pious bows and wails. He thought of what little he knew of indiginous religion and thought, "blood isn't supposed to be a part of a god's constitution to them if I remember correctly," and he immediately sliced a painful gouge into the palm of his hand.
"LOOK," he screamed, "I bleed. you see I am no god."
This was to no avail, however. He saw as they continued to scrape and grovel.
"See how the good bleeds for us," they shouted back.
Their attentions became more frenzied and they began to pull at his clothes and draw him in closer. They were screaming for blessings and healings and children and money. He became fevered and stifled until he saw no other means available to him of escaping the inevitable trampling or killing when they realized he had nothing for them, no means of helping or blessing them. He spun the sword around and sliced his own belly open, the final end of his divinity. That too did nothing to appeal to them and instead they cried out, "he sacrificed himself. The god has sacrificed himself and returned to heaven to bless us."
This did little to comfort or depress him while his spirit watched, as he was dead and could do nothing about it. He turned to pass into what he expected was nothing and saw God there. He was very surprised to see him, as he had not previously thought God existed. He was rather Gaunt and starved looking, but all the pictures were more or less right about his beard. God craned his neck to look past him at the worship.
"Surely I'm about to be damned for becoming a false idol," the man thought to himself. Yet God did nothing to express feeling either way and bent his head slightly to better watch the sight.
"You see what happened to me then," God said.
"You slew yourself to proved you weren't God."
"Certainly."
"But why didn't it work. A god that kills itself cannot be a god."
"Silly man," God said, "that was your mistake. To kill a god you can't rely on people to use what they see to dissuade them. You have to force them to feel your absence. I've been trying to die for years. Why else do you think I've been causing so much pain and suffering for all these poor pitiful humans all this time."

Sophy wasn't like the other children her age in the middle of their field trip. She had retained the invaluable talent of being able to be struck dumb founded. The Body Shop had accumulated a myriad of emotional responses between the spectrum of anger and joy since its creation and eventual indoctrination into the mundane day to day life of every citizen of the world. The guides stationed on the premise however, were always happily refreshed when met with the reaction of one such as Sophy. 
"Well have you decided yet little one," A beautiful guide from the bioware division asked her as she gandered at prosthetics and their specifications. It had maintained feminine features and seemed to have had some work done to have startling muscular definition. It wasn't freakish in it's proportions or size, but the overall shapliness gave Sophy a moment of recoil. Bioware was the most common division to be placed in Body Shops as the adolescence touring them more than any other age group were still tied to their own starting forms to begin the education process. Bio Builds were what they found most familiar and contributed to the overall comfort of visitors.
"Still window shopping," Sophy said, "I'm mostly just here for my gen therapies."
"What's your account name? You might be old enough for some basic temp modules for educational purposes to start thinking about it more seriously."
Sophy was only thirteen but she had enough intuition to catch a very faint connotation in that last word "Seriously," the subtext that she was about to be expected to think about serious thing before too long. She didn't like it, but the idea of getting her hands on some mods, real live mods, even temporary ones, struck a solid note of appeal in her.
"Sophitia1579."
The guide turned over her palm to look at the membra display implanted beneath the skin that immediately became illuminated and showed the general details of Sophy's life, her age, the specialization of her head instructor and general trend of modules used most in people from the home she had come from. Sophy wasn't happy to see that either, knowing that more than half of the seniors and instructors at her plant had been raised to gear toward the analog, replacing their biological limbs with prosthetics with the strength and modular attachments for physical labor. She had nothing against this per se, she just also knew she wasn't going to do it and didn't want to hear another lecture on the enormous help such people are to do the less glorious, but nevertheless necessary tasks of every day living. This guide had seen her eyeing the  latest models of arms on top of that, their was no doubting what the first suggestion would be.
"Judging from what I'm seeing on the account I think we could start you off with some snug actuator fitted braces. You won't be able to bend a girder with them but you'll-"
"I know what they'll do," Sophy interrupted, "I was wondering if I could be outfitted for a beats bundle and start advanced streaming."
The guide stopped smiling. She was ill equipped for questions outside the obvious memorized script she was going from based solely on glances at an account, let alone such a bold request as Sophy's. The advanced stream package was the start of a neuroware bundle.
"I'm sorry. Every bundle is of course open to the public but affordability of a package varies on the account of the person requesting. I see your instructors give you glowing recommendations in your course history for analog operation and repair. These exo mods could increase your strength and endurance by a factor of five and by extension give you a higher degree of comfort in your continued training and are free assuming your ongoing participation. Why not continue the route prescribed."
"Well yeah I want to," Sophy said thinking up an excuse as she went along, "It's just you said it yourself, I'm well ahead of peers. I want more access to detailed digital course work and would like to start training my brain to over clock to absorb more lessons more quickly."
The guide's smile at this showed she was at ease but was also still not budging on helping someone break protocol.
"We appreciate your enthusiasm. Alas your education, though boring at times no doubt, has been set to fit certain requirements and guide lines for a reason. The repetitive nature and rigid discipline train your brain to master the analog manipulation and movement memory."
The term "muscle memory," had long since become obsolete since locomotion and physical movement had ceased to involve muscle for the majority of the work force. Sophy looked down, dismayed at the guides definitive, polite, but unflinching answer and looked up again when she was ready to accept it when a mod actually succeeded in catching her eye.
"What about that," she said pointing over to a strange shiny metal glove. The bio followed her eyes.
"Ah yes. Now that is acceptable, a very fine starting exo for citizens aiming to specialize in the finer motor movement oriented analog line of work. We call that the tool box. The tips of the fingers change with the needs of the individual and the settings alter based on the task they're performing. They could become a screw driver of any shape or size, clamps for turning and tightening bolts, super heated tips for saudering, even welding after you complete twenty credit hours of training, magnetized extendable pointers for picking up little screws or knuts you might lose working on a project. The whole setup comes standard for people who work in small scale repairs and technical support, that's technical support involving replacing the actual physical components mind you. Coding and interface repair are all handled by the neuros of course."
"Yes that's perfect."
"Lovel-"
"Except," Sophy interrupted in annoyance of the poor guide now clearly trying to pawn her off to the checkout, "Could I also have a repalcement set of digits and repair kit, for good measure mind you."
"They have a warranty but... I can give you the first set free and I can see your performance has earned you a decent amount of credits for one so young. I can give you the kit you requested for an additional three hundred and fifty."
Sophy thought that price was a little excessive but had a clear form in her mind about what she actually wanted the exoskeletal glove tool for and needed it. It would be more than worth it, expensive or no.
"Deal," she said smiling, a genuine wave of relief rushing over the the guide who then tapped the bottom of her palm where the option to begin a transaction was on her membra display. She reached her hand out to shake Sophy's who accepted with a single firm pump allowing the nfc element in her own membra display to activate with the gesture and complete the transaction. Only a scarce few of the elderly remaining who had refused to adopt ware even remotely remembered this was nothing more than a social gesture once. Sophy wasn't thinking about that at all, however. She was enjoying the cocktail of endorphins and seratonin typical for one who had just performed a purchase as it soaked her brain in the after glow of the the shiny polished combination of steel self configuring tool tips, aluminum mesh, hair thin strength enhancing actuator coils, and spare minimods.
"So what's the first thing you're going to assemble with it," the guide asked.
"I'm not going to make anything with it," she responded emphasizing that word make rather than assemble to express her creative intentions, "I'm just going to make it better."
"You are an odd one. You realize if you break warranty it'll be deemed unfit for field training."
"Then that's what happens to me. I accept that."
"you were just complaining about your excelling makes for boredom amongst your peers. Learning to use that could be a source of new curriculum so it's important it stays intact."
"Ah but that's the difference between you and I. You think I want it for the new coursework on it. I want to make the thing itself the new coursework."
"Oh to be young again. Such enthusiasm," the guide said and turned to cater to a neuromodder who required a new bus for the back of their skull.
Sophy turned with one of the gloves already over a hand to better investigate it's glimmer and aesthetic appeal.
***
The process of dissection for animals or biological organisms offers the luxury of never needing to worry about the proper method for reassembling them. This luxury is present on account of the fact that the person dissecting them rarely intends to make use of them again. Sophy did intend to make use of the glove again, and because of that was experiencing some minor waves of anxiety at the sight of her disassembly. That was the major difference between biological and mechanical objects in the end, in one field of study people engaged in dissection and in the other people engaged in dis/reassembly. 
The specialized parent guides of her home forced a line of education that even from a young age involved the memorization of schematics and building plans for basic structures and components of a variety of machines and electronics integrated into modern day culture. Life was constant drilling and testing for part recognition, speed, and mental endurance and dexterity for repetitive tasks. Sophy realized she was stuck in the education system but gave herself distinct handicaps to increase her enjoyment. Namely she researched ahead to see the curriculum of the future and acquired samples for herself to take apart without knowledge of the schematics, her reason being that she liked to have a unique concept of the nature of the objects she was forced to study. When she took them apart and began the long arduous puzzle of putting them back together without detailed instruction, she felt she understood the nature of the components with greater intimacy. Everyone else in her class took apart and put together things because it was what they were told to do, while when she put them together with apparent effortlessness, she was doing so because she had a relationship with those objects and knew where to put the parts together because she had felt them telling her where they belonged.
The downside of her method, however, was that it often involved a great deal of confusion because it constantly involved unfamiliar territory, and that was where she was now. She was staring at the myriad of tiny components and sensitive programmable materials in a spread on her small work desk, some of it familiar, much of it foreign. She didn't look at confusion as a reason to be disheartened, quite the opposite in fact. She saw that her comfort with that confusion as a tool in itself, a means to look at something being unknown as a transitory state. Often it was inevitable though, as it was now, that her patience reached a breaking point, a moment where she had to retire from it or else be totally ruined by it and throw the work in front of her at a wall, risking truly damaging it beyond repair. She refused to let herself be driven to that and knew that in this moment, as in all other moments like it, one simply needed to walk away and let one's mind be taken away to a more pleasurable alternative so that the problem could be more easily worked out later. That was what she did. She pushed herself away from the desk letting the wheels coast her all the way to the door of her dormitory before launching up with the pleasurable momentum and walked out the door to the end of the hall. 
One of her parent guardians by the name of Pamela was waiting at the end of that hall, a very old model that had trained four generations of children to perform in her line of work and was looking into her last run before retiring toward moderate labor work. She was equipped for hard tasks with a much wider intimidating frame and mostly taught the children proper lifting and securing technique for loads as heavy as three tons, but also enjoyed teaching fast movement techniques like the proper way to absorb shock from jumps as high as fifteen stories. Sophy did her best to look inconspicuous ash she passed her but it was to no avail.
"It isn't advisable to leave the home so close to curfew."
"I'm just going out for a stroll. I'm working on a personal project and need to get some air to think."
"Another personal project?"
"Am I the only one who has them?"
"You are the only one who has them in as large a quantity."
"Are they still permitted and if so has my behavior merited having the privilege taken away?"
There was a slight pop as Pamela's right hand knuckles twitched in aggravation, a sound that Sophy had trained herself to hear with great acuity. There was no justifiable rebuttal.
"Curfew is in twenty seven minutes and forty two seconds," she said and turned back to her personal quarters.
Sophy made her way out and wandered aimlessly for a short time. There was a particular place she wanted to go and she didn't have much time to get there in. The outskirts of the commune was still kept wild with forest and overgrowth to conserve the biosphere and provide what little food was needed. They were genetically enhanced to have unrivaled metabolism unlike anyone in the centuries past and people with full limb amputation needed even less, but it couldn't be denied there was some remaining need for food and specialty diets especially for the individuals streamed into neuroware who had to function on levels of super cognition as living computers. That biospehere involved some wild elements and the forest was one of them.
In a particular part of the forest was a relic her and a friend who shouldn't have been her friend met at. It was the horribly rusted frame of something they couldn't imagine as being useful for anything but people a century ago would have recognized as an old volkswagon van. If it still had its wheels they might have understood it as an ancient means of transportation, but those had either decayed or been taken long since. They called it the museum, and the friend she was going to meet there was a girl set to the education route of neuroware by the name Janette. She was leaning against the front of the frame holding herself with a grimace but with a decent sized haul to her left of randomly assorted items in a box. 
"Something wrong Jan," Sophy asked making note of her apparent inexplicable discomfort.
"They implanted my atrodes today," she responded referring to the electrodes required for beginners in neuroware that stimulated the muscles of their bodies as they streamed for hours on end to prevent muscle atrophy.
"Didn't they use anaesthetic?"
"Well yea they had to stab me about fifty times but you still feel like you got ran over by pod for a couple days after."
"Baby," Sophy said.
"Ass," Janette parried.
"Alright, alright. Enough nonsense what have we got today."
"Album covers."
"What covers?"
"Albums."
"Okay but what are albums."
"Come take a look."
Janette toppled over the box she had brought with her at this and a horrible clingy tacky sound resounded with dozens of strange plastic squares tumbling out of it. Sophy came over to the mess and stared carefully at them to see a shiny collage of dozens upon dozens of pictures, everyone of them with dozens more strangely dressed people in poses that ranged from profound and thoughtful to silly and stupid. Some of them held giant strange wooden objects with cables and strings woven and protruding from them. She opened them to see strange little leaflets of folded stuff she had known was called paper from historical records, all of them with hard copies of words and text printed onto them and on the other side was a small round protrusion in the middle of a large round concave cutout. 
"So these held... circles," Sophy asked.
"Discs, hard storage for media like audio and video."
"But why have these pamphlets in them?"
"People paid for them so the covers and pamphlets had to catch the eye and offer interesting information about the people who made the music. It was a kind of advertising."
Sophy pawed through them fascinated at the colorful images. There was one with a white outline of a skull with lightning through it on a black overlay, another with a very thin pale man with blood smeared on his face that looked like a neuro from the early days before atrodes. Many more with simple portraits of people with their names and album titles next to them. They seemed very boring and uninteresting but had rich detail of age and experience that just wasn't seen in people engineered to not age or show signs of wear.
"What are these things so many of them are holding," Sophy asked.
"Instruments. Tools for analog music production."
"But how did they use them to make the music?"
"Same way we're making sound with our mouths silly, reverberation of materials like wire or air through complicated valve systems."
"Why didn't they just use notational software and make soundscapes?"
"They did for some parts of their music. They enlisted the help of sound engineers to combine tracks of them playing and synthesized instruments like we use more of today. Many of them just happened to also enjoy creating music on the small scale and to get the intimate knowledge of the rules of composition with one instrument at a time rather than sketching out soundcapes. It allowed them to become better performers and feel closer with others who engaged in the art."
Sophy continued to dig, determined to get a look at every one before she had to go back to her home in a few short minutes. It was simply amazing that people would go to such efforts and lengths to appear different to the whole of creation. There was women wearing draped diamond encrusted fabric in almost transparent consistency over their intimate areas, men with what had to be a thousand piercings and studs all over their clothing and skin, childish conceptions at robotic forms, cartoon humans with exaggerated features of masculinity and bizarre faces, and a plethora of even more variety. It was beyond anything she had ever before seen or experienced. She had plenty of compilations and songs available to her, was well aware of a few of the bands from oldie stations and extracurricular social education courses, but many of those songs simply weren't listened too very often and little more than soundscapes of famous and underground DJs alike were popular in this day and age. There was no reason to ponder on the content of older music that wasn't as popular.
Modern sound engineers just overlayed tracks on notational rolls, the only hint of the origin of analog music being the tiny keyboard animation scrunched to the left that nobody but the engineers themselves saw, and didn't even refer to as a piano roll anymore. She was too young to say she was experiencing nostalgia, as nostalgia was a thing that referred to something a person remembered and yearned for and she had never experienced it to remember it, but she was feeling intense yearning to experience it. If there was a word to describe what she was feeling it would have to be invented, some strange sharp collection of consonants that combined the words jealousy and curiosity. 
"Could one acquire those instruments."
"I suppose one could make them but I'm not aware of anywhere that produces them now. There might be very old schematics for them to be printed with."
The term 3d printing was out of date as no one printed the content that would have been on paper anymore. Those were simply shared digitally so as to not waste the materials used for paper and conserve biospheres. Thus the term printing was only ever used for the objects and materials one produced for oneself as needed. Everything was only produced as needed and there wasn't even any need for anything to be produced en mass. Sophy gaped at the picture of one woman next to a man holding a guitar both staring at each other like they were preparing some kind of physical assault, the woman apparently screaming into a small orb in her face in his direction.
"Can I take some of this... paper?"
"Of course," Janette responded, "Take as much as you like and think you can conceal."
Sophy began to paw again, this time ferociously, pillaging as many photographs as she could with depictions of those stringed instruments, tearing without care for the antiquity of the items, caring only to get as much information as she could to further analyze how one might create a schematic of the things themselves. She still had some echoes of sense, however, and looked down to her palm display to see she had barely five minutes to return to her home. She could manage it, but she had to leave immediately.
"I have to go," Sophy said, aware that Janette as a neuro had an extra hour till her own curfew.
"I understand. I can keep them for a day more if you need any."
"No. Only...." Sophy trailed off. She knew she shouldn't meddle with the last pleasantry she always ended these interactions with, but couldn't help but indulge with the ritual.
"Where did you get these," Sophy finally said, her customary ending to Janette's and her's trades. She didn't really know why Janette called them trades, she never gave anything in return, but Janette told her the chance to interact with anyone or anything in and from the analog was the favor.
"Don't worry about it," Janette responded smiling. She had a beautiful smile. Her face was smaller and the cheeks seemed weak as they weren't considered necessary to apply atrodes too, but her eyes smiled with the face as well in a way that couldn't help but be sincere making the gesture itself feel very warm.
Sophy turned and had to bolt at a full run. She'd still make it. When she got there however, Pamela was indeed waiting outside of the home.
"Forty seven more seconds and you would have been late," She said.
"Almost late and barely on time are colloquialisms that are just another way of saying adequately on time," Sophy parried.
Pamela's knuckle popped with her usual tick at annoyance. Her augmented body, while it had completely prosthetic limbs, maintained most of its human features in the torso and head. Full consciousness exchange was only done for individuals required to use bodies made for the most hazardous of environments. There was minor reinforcement and augmentation done to the spine, skull, and ribcage for shock absorption and trauma prevention, however, and Sophy could almost hear the clicks of the perfectly stabilized vertebrae snap into place as Pamela held herself completely rigid to meet her gaze. It was a dangerous in how controlled it was and aided to remind her exactly what lengths could be taken to discipline someone without having to mention possible punishment. 
"Well it's curfew. Go to bed then."
Sophy nodded. It was only a reminder then. She couldn't give anything else as no rules were infringed on. Even if she found the photographs there would be no punishment as there was no law against accumulating what she would have seen as garbage as long as it didn't pose an environmental threat. She didn't doubt her behavior would be noted in some kind of behavioral chart on such things, and any misdemeanors on her part would be given special attention. She had never been prone to illegal activities though, so she would most likely just be categorized as an eccentric and be ostracized from social functions she wouldn't have cared about to begin with.
She continued down to her room, the halls peacefully abandoned of children who were most likely streaming a variety of content from textual, video, and game oriented sources in their room. She opened the door to her room and took great care to close the door quietly. When she was sure no parental guides were outside she yanked at the pockets and flaps of clothing she had used to hide the paper photographs, and laid them out on her work desk, pushing the litter of her original work on the work glove aside. Again she was in a stupor, simply absorbing the qualities of the images on a primal level. She traced her fingers over the details of their instruments, the features of their faces, all much more varied between one another from a time when the gene pool drew from infinitely more elements. She wondered how people could hold the designs of art and imagery in their heads of things so beyond anything in reality and anything she had ever seen. She wondered what it would be like to be in the same physical space as an analog production of music, in an atmosphere of creativity with a person trying to be original. She leaned back in her chair wondering how Janette even got access to what the more strict authorities in charge of homes might have called contraband.
She knew her friend was not unlike herself in terms of being ahead of the curve in her peer group, but even the dullest of youths in the education system for the neuro oriented had knowledge and resources beyond any of the other systems. Did she have the means to observe and manipulate the contents and routes of materials being disposed of from bygone eras, and was she really doing so just because Sophy had expressed a mild curiosity in relics of the past. If that was the case she was a very skilled hacker and an insane eccentric. This thought brought a smile to Sophy and she stared again at the pictures feeling a change beginning in her perspective. She piled them neatly to the side of her workspace and tapped the corner power switch to start interacting with the interface. She accessed her tools and touched scan, wondering if they even still had the basic coding for 2d image scanning anymore, her fears proved premature however, as the white flash around the border of the paper indicated the successful screen shot and there the image was on the display the moment she removed it. She tapped the guitar in the image making it a priority element and threw away the actual picture, it's purpose served.
She knew she'd need to get as many angles as possible dealing with the new element to make it printable, so she went to work furiously pawing through the small pile of pictures, scanning every possible view of the guitar, training the computer to recognize and recreate it effortlessly. Less than 5 minutes later the pile was gone and she had roughly four different models rendered relatively well in front of her. She wasn't sure which one had the qualities she was looking for, let alone what qualities she should be looking for. One was very narrow and more compact but was seen connected to other equipment in different pictures, equipment she didn't want to take the time to learn about in addition to the guitar. Others of varying thickness and hollowness were more attractive but also usually attached to electrical wiring. Then there was the thickest of them that sometimes had the strange orbs she didn't know were called microphones in front of them, but more often was seen by itself, a complete enough tool to perform a number of compositions with the features available to it.
She took another moment to contemplate it. It looked rather big and bulky to hold and handle comfortably, but it seemed there would be no other choice if she was to have an instrument complete in its own right, ready to learn how to play and handle. She swept away the other models and enlarged the rendering, touching up pixelated deficiencies. When she felt she had the right idea, she leaned back again and took a long moment to study it once more.
"It's still not right," she muttered to herself though not sure why. She thought longer about the nature of what she was doing, simple copy and pasting an artifact of a dead century, reproducing a tool or a design like she was taught to reproduce the structures, tools and components of her own generation. The only difference was that this design had the novelty of age. She wanted to make a signature, to have something to show Janette that while her skills in the digital world were beyond compare, Sophy had potential for rivaling her in the analog. Her eyes drifted toward the contents of her room and there was nothing to catch her attention save for the abandoned mess of the tool box glove. The judgment of her abandoned project bore into her whispering the likelihood of losing interest in this new toy guitar. She scanned the pieces in pure masochistic self loathing, the platings and modular tool switches, the threads of miniature actuators and missing digits and that was when it hit her. She needn't judge herself because she wasn't going to abandon either project, she abandoned the first not knowing she had been in pursuit of a means to improve it with the addition of a second project with the novelty of this new one. She could improve this lost design at the same time as this new tool.
She practically leapt back up to meet the desktop and started to manipulate the rendering to include new elements, four more strings she mistakenly called wires, and six more of what she didn't know were called frets but correctly assumed were for changing the frequency and pitch of what she didn't know were called notes. She examined what the analysis said the material of it was and was surprised to see it was wood. She understood it most likely had good acoustical characteristics and could synthesize identical material, but also realized she had completely programmable material that wasn't available at the time it was designed to take on similar qualities while being more durable and better at amplifying sound naturally. She could even change the the strings to never lose their tensile strength and need replacing.
After all of this was done and she was satisfied with the appearance and caliber of the work, she gave a firm confident nod and pressed print.
She had done it, a truly original device made for making music, a pastime usually outside the scope of what she knew to be a caste that she was bound to. What's more she designed an instrument that would be better suited toward features not typical for the anatomies of the people who originally made instruments. A person with ten fingers was certainly capable of playing it, but the best ten fingered player would always have techniques and skills of the best twelve fingered person unavailable to them. What's more, she didn't need to limit the anatomy of any one finger either. She could make additional knuckles for one or all of them as well.
Less than three minutes later the printer next to her bed let out the notification sound indicating that her guitar had finished fabrication. She opened it and surrendered to a moment of awe. It was a thing that had never existed till now, and she had made it. She placed it reverently on her bed afraid to pluck a note in fear of having failed, but her curiosity reached a critical mass and she finally reached out and hammered a string. It was beautiful and simple and she closed her eyes to surrender to it for as long as her ears could perceive it. When she opened her eyes again she shut that feeling out however, and looked squarely at the pile of glove components she had carelessly swept aside.
She knew she had a lot to learn and would enjoy learning about how to use her instrument, but if she wanted to start from square one as a person with features never before brought to the guitar, she'd have to start with fixing that. She reorganized pieces on her desk to be the focus of her attention in the exact manner she had left them in before, took about twenty minutes fumbling with parts she had thought she understood before and finally placed them down clenching her fist, weighing how badly she wanted to maintain her standard of figuring out complicated electronics against how badly she wanted to play her new guitar with them.
"God damn it," she grumbled and flipped the side of her desk on again to pull up the instructions for them.

It was a ransack plain and simple. Ada knew this and decided plainly she would keep that choice planted firmly in her head. Hugh and Roger didn't have the proclivity for real honesty, the kind of honesty that allowed one to acknowledge their sins, because they were good people and good people feel obligated to maintain certain illusory mantles.
"What's this now," one of them said at this job or another, "no reason not to do it. T'aint stealin from a man who’s dead. He aint there to be avin it. He can't ave nothin. That means it aint no one's. Might as well make it yours. Eh?"
That final grunted vowel of non committal implied communal agreement said it all. Follow along, make a time of it, get yourself a trinket. That was one of their favorite words was trinket. A bit of coin or silverware that could keep one fat for a good week or two. A bauble would make you not want for anything for a month, or at least it could if it weren't for the practiced eye of most people spotting stolen goods in a heartbeat and bargaining down for the implied risk. A treasure was the instant good life. It was barrels of wine in a villa, and only a fool would refuse, stolen or not.
Ada let them go on as they want, but called it stealing because why not. The priests went on as they did about God as the judge and she had lost count of her sins by age nine so why not go on with it and make the best of what she can before God's storm. So here she was outside Judge Christian's former modest but decent estate, in the black of night. The Priests had carried out the sentence not three hours past which meant there would be attendants in the coming morning to seize his every possession as the property of the church. A funny contradiction was there. The judge had spoken out against the burning of a supposed witch. In doing so the church immediately retaliated saying he was being complicit to witchcraft and in doing so suspect of participation. Now here the church was about to seize the former property of a witch which any person with common sense would find plain stupid. Who would want the property of a witch? Would one not be fearful of some lingering curse meant for one so foolish as to steal from them? This meant little to any of them of course, same as the church. Cursed or no only a fool would pass up on a possible treasure.
"I don't know what we're hoping for," Ada said, "we all know the judge had a reputation for pious frugality."
She spoke with an exact slow tone in larger words most of the others weren't accustomed to. Her moderate improvised education with the late judge was beginning to wear away on their friendships but she didn't see much point in holding back now. He was dead and they'd all knew it wouldn't be progressing anymore.
"We know he ad a reputation for rugality," Hugh pointed out butchering that final unfortunate noun, "a man can ave all kindsa reputations prove fib when they's ain't round keepinem thata way. Remember the old man them priests kilt when he was accused Jew. The ole kike had himself a treasure trove that he did. Sitting on it the whole time he was. We was lucky them other wranglers didn't kill us for tryin ta take the coppers even though they's pocket was plenty heavy and I managed to snatch a gold coin tucked in a corner they didn't see."
She remembered the instance he spoke of well. It  was unfortunately the opus magnum which he would not let any of them forget and didn't fail to bring it up any second any of them worded an utterance of doubt at an impending job.
"No squabbling now," Roger said, "we have enough problems as is. Let's not introduce self contempt at the nature of our profession on top of them." 
Hugh smiled at this as they approached the small but finely crafted home. He liked that word "profession". He didn't know he was playing on them with its use, calling them to attention with over exaggerated flattery at the skill with which they carried out these jobs, if you could even call it skill. Roger succeeded in his ploy, and they grew quiet as they approached the residence.
The door was open, no need to jimmy or pick any locks. The entire process of the judge's sentencing had taken  only a few short hours and been carried out before the end of the day. They opened the door and Ada watched unsurprised as gross looks of unadulterated glee and greed appeared on her companions’ faces. They went about their usual quick scurrying of nooks and crannies looking at the various bits of fine looking metal, the poker for the fire, the silverware in his drawers, a fine cabinet with what looked to be some fine antiques, gifts he had acquired over the span of his career from the gratitude of the local constituency. That sight affected Ada. 
"He hasn't sold any of the trinkets we felt obligated to give him," She thought too herself, "hasn’t used them to improve his circumstances. True most of them aren't worth the weight of the pewter that went into the, but some of them were well guarded family heirlooms, bits of gold favors from ancient conquests some of the local families served in. He valued them not for their material worth but because we gave them to him."
She reflected on this realization for a time until she was shook out of it by the clanging the various bits of metal tumbling into Roger's coarse hemp sack. She looked down happy with her shame until Hugh looked over to her and addressed her.
"Have you even got a mind to get your share or are you just gonna stand around all flabby gasted."
She snapped nodded smiling in faux courtesy.
“Now now,” she spoke, “you know us women. Fickle we are. We won’t settle for being jewed at the market place.”
She was playing on his lacking understanding. she knew it and she didn’t care, but she also wasn’t going to let her emotion hang out naked in front of these simpletons.
“Well get on a-hunting. Try to long to find the fancy of ye heart and there’ll be nothin’ left for it.”
She nodded. He was right for all his inept powers of observation, and if she suddenly seemed to lose interest in acting privy to their conspiracy of crime it would seem conspicuous. The guilty were always the most suspecting as they needed to be. Their profession demanded it for protecting one self after all. She made her way into the side bedroom. The judge had never taken a wife oddly enough and he was a modest individual despite having undoubtedly received a variety of garishly ornate gifts through out the years. His house was of a simple design. There was the kitchen and main dining and entertaining living area, his rather large bedroom that had enough room for his private tub that probably spent hours to fill and even more time to heat and his side office on the other side of the bedroom which was also rather large and had windows opening to a beautiful easterly view of his property. 
Ada had seen that view many times along with many other children in the village. David Christian’s title “Judge” was largely honorary some might say as the people of the town only ever defaulted to his judgment in the most desperate of cases and most of his time was spent as the tutor of the children, another highly valued profession that many people were grateful to him for, and Ada was once his star pupil. She would have remained as much if her parents hadn’t died of the bloody pox. No one had the resources  or kindness to take her in and so she was reduced to a street  urchin  only a few months ago, unable to maintain the small plot of land they had been lent and without formal knowledge of any trade but farming which the town was far from short supply in. 
She made her way into the bedroom as they squabbled over the fair distribution of the finer prizes on display. The bed was as meticulous as she had always seen it before being shewed into the small office or shewed away home, a necessary display to show that he possessed the discipline he was obligated to instill in the the town’s children. She looked at and handled the small collection of trinkets one would expect in any grown ups room; the mirror and straight razor gleaming with a sharp hone, wrapped up collections of letters in neat piles to distinguish from whom they were written and in what year, though she wouldn’t have been able to decipher the order as she was mostly illiterate, the scales used for day to day weighing of small items with a little bit of a strange smelling crumbled bits of greenery she couldn’t identify but made her feel strangely dizzy. She saw them and looked them over carefully but not with the eye of one trying to distinguish value and price for one’s own gain. She was looking at it all with the innocent curiosity of a child privileged to get a rare glimpse at the belongings of an adult while they’re away for some errand, eyeing them down in the hopes to decipher some tiny secret to prepare them for adulthood and to better imagine their future in the position of the adult.
All at once it dawned on her. She knew she had no inclination to steal anything. She hadn’t come here to take anything. She was mourning a loss, and this was her closure. Some loud clanging of something valuable in the kitchen shook her and the realization of the nature of her company dawned  on her.  A thief on a heist in the presence of other thieves choosing not to take anything was  truly conspicuous to other thieves.  She looked around again setting aside  nostalgia and determining her next action objectively.
 "Very well,"  she thought to herself, "Hugh is only half right. It's stealing and I know it but it certainly helps that the owner isn't present to take offense."
  She made her way over to his wardrobe just as Hugh opened the door and began rifling through as if she had been hard at work in plunder same as them the entire time.
 "Ye missed out on some fine cutlery you simple lass,”  he spoke.
 "Aye. That may be, but a man's like to keep treasure closest to where he sleeps if there's any to be had."
"Thas our Ada.  Blood hound for treasure you is, if ever I've seen one."
 He went to work raiding the drawers she had carefully examined and appreciated not  a moment ago.  A pang went through her that she knew she couldn't give voice to. She likewise began going through the dead judge's belongings,  hoping there was something in there that would let her deceit look like a genius venture. There was only some simple work clothes for gardening, more presentable attire for his work as  a teacher and two fine dress suits for public occasions and calls  for mediation and judgment. He had no formal call or appointment, only the good faith and reputation with his neighbors. Nevertheless, when they sent word for him in this manner he made a point of handling the mantle with the appearance of all due authority. There was a bit of gold on the cuff links of one, a decent enough find by itself but not enough to justify her exclusive attention away from the others. She opened up one of the lower shelves to find two pairs of worn but hardy boots and  a polishing kit, things were looking grim and she was certain she was about to lose face. She opened the final drawer, and  there it was.  Shock overwhelmed her as she placed her hands gently over the crinkly paper of a large tightly wrapped parcel,  a parcel with her name on it.
 She brought it up to her face with the mixed confusion of a child at  Christmas and one being disciplined at the same time. She allowed doubt in.
"This can't be," she thought,  “I don't know my  words so well after all."
 She looked at the large print letters  on the letter wrapped over it for what felt like an eternity.  She couldn't read per se, but the judge had seen to it the whole village could at least make sense of a sign and write their names. She traced her finger over on it again and again sure the letters would change and reorganize themselves. They didn’t and the irony was not lost on her as she finally accepted the simple fact in front of her. She was robbing a man she didn’t want to steal from, and taking a thing that he had meant to give her. She decided not to open it at once. For all she knew it was just some pretty dress with relatively little value or a trinket he saw during his travels that made him think of her and would do little to help her in explaining her delay they would take as sign of a precise search with an intriguing yield. The story would  be  her thing of value, the novelty its own reward that the others could share in enjoyment of. Her heart sank even more as she thought on using it for that, on the further disrespect of what she now saw as hollowed ground, proof of a tender man she loved along with everyone else in town.  
“Well then,” Hugh said behind her thrusting some of Judge Christian’s toiletries in the sack he had prepared ahead of time, “what’s it then? What’s our queen theif’s prize? Eh?”
She shrugged away the grief like it was nothing but a chill and momentary breeze, knowing she had an illusion to maintain with these men, an illusion of cunning cool-headedness. She turned flipping the parcel and flipping her frown with it into a scheming smile. He looked at it slowly, being much less adept at reading than even some of the children that had just begun lessons before the teacher’s death.
“Aaaaaa... da. Ada? Why that’s you. That’s your name there then?”
“Yes,” she said, “It’s a gift. Judge David Christian had a gift set aside for me.”
He looked stupidly at her for a long moment and then burst out laughing.
“Ooooh ha ha ha. You mean to tell me the silly man had a shine for you.”
“It’s the first I’m hearing of it too you stupid git.”
They shared in the laugh, Hugh sublimely unaware of that slight catch in her tone indicative of her laugh being strained.
“Ooooh,” he let the laugh die down wiping away a slight watering in his eyes, “well come on then let’s see it.”
“No later when we’re back home.”
“Oh but I want to see.”
“It’s a gift stupid. They’re supposed to be a surprise. If I open it now it’s just plunder like the rest of it.”
“People will say your funny Ada.”
“Oh and why’s that.”
“Your letting yourself get courted by a dead man,” his smile grew wider and wicked and he let himself bellow a few more chuckles.
“Well it’s the only kind who stays faithful.”
“And how’s that?”
“Because he’s bound to stay in the bed you left him in.”
They both laughed a little more loudly at this, her laugh even gained a little more sincerity as she enjoyed the game of wit.
Roger emerged from the kitchen as well to investigate the jest.
“We just going to make jape in here till mornin and the churchmen come? Shall I investigate the garden for the makings of a fine stew? Or do any of you have a mind to go on living with your necks?”
Hugh went back to scrounging loudly for valuables in some corner he had already investigated and Ada nodded in agreement standing up with the parcel tucked under her arm. Roger was being paranoid but she saw the reasoning of it. Whether it was in the dead of night or broad daylight, people performing unsavory acts were well advised to perform them with the sense that time was a constant enemy. She looked around resolutely without continued search, apparently ready to leave but not ready to force the others.
“That’s all you want,” Roger said gesturing to the parcel.
“Yeah I suppose.”
He looked at it again, eyebrow raised.
“Some of his cutlery was silver and he had a fine cup in his cabinet of favors that might be almost a pound of gold.”
“I have all I want.”
“What if there’s a secret cache of jewels in there for ya?”
“Then I’ll be sure to let you know, and if there’s nothing, but a frilly dress then I wont ask any gold of you.”
Roger’s eye’s narrowed, but he finally nodded. It was a fine haul no matter how he sliced it.
“Right then. Let’s get a move on Hugh.”
Hugh looked up from his feigned observations and smiled.
“A few fine baubles in all eh?”
“Yeah.”
Hugh and Roger slung their respective finds about them and they made their way into the night outside. The darkness had gotten a deal deeper as it was later and they walked in silence working over their plans. Some of the small trinkets would be easy enough to dispose, the general market would be more then willing to deal with them. The finer silverware might have to be dealt to a particular local owner of an inn they had had dealings with before who was willing to take items of a less than savory nature. Roger was working over that cup though. They would have to travel to some larger city or town, a place with strangers unfamiliar with this towns recent loss. It would be worth it though. There would be fine meals, entrance granted for a time to more elusive societies with the flourish of some money and a fine story they could have some fun concocting in their travels. Hugh could put his skills at working a deck of cards to work in grand games where foolish heirs to fortunes could put their riches at stake and Ada could get to collecting pocket watches and cutting purses at some fine dances.
Roger’s scheming was regaling him with a wealth of entertainment while Hugh’s baser appetites was imagining getting fat and drunk with food and women and Ada hugged her parcel to her, the gift from a dead friend, lost in a deep invisible grief. None of them suspected the turn of a fork with some simple tree cover would bring them face to face with a local magistrate, the priest who had placed a final sentence on the man who's house they had just ransacked and a company of four armed men.  The hour alone made them suspect immediately though there was dozens of forms, behaviors, and excuses a true proffesional highway man would have known to invoke. Sly remarks and calm composure could have at least bought them time until the company reached the house and saw their handy work and they could have hastened an escape or hidden away in a few choice corners of the forest for a few days before they could procure a horse or transport of some kind. Hugh was not a sly man however, and with the baser breed of criminals the feeling of guilt is often the ultimate undoing.
Hugh immediately turned to run and took off as fast as he could, the worst possible response in the eyes of the witnesses on hand. Roger, aware of what the showing implied turned to shout at him.
"Hugh you stupid git what are you doing," he screamed but it was no good, his hemp sack was jangling with their fine showings of plunder and one of the silver knives ripped a hole with the excitement and a whole mess of the goods started tumbling out. 
"Aaaaah," Roger moaned and decided likewise to make what seemed to be the only chance at escape and bolting away also while Hugh slowed slightly to bring his bag in front and hug it to him readjusting the angle so the hole might not cause further loss of goods.
Ada did nothing. She saw the men of authority and thought to herself, "well that's the end of it then."
She was not happy for it but she was content that it was as much as she deserved for allowing the robbery although she would rather the priests not be the ones to perform it as well. She'd rather have her friend back giving the gift she was stealing, but she had no control of that anymore than she had any control of her fate at the hands of the magistrate and church. She only took a moment to smile at the irony of seeing a fitting end to it at their hands, the same hands that had ended her beloved judge and teacher. Her smile grew as she turned to look at her former comrades fleeing in such a ridiculous matter, Hugh scampering about forks of all things, silver or no. It was like a caricature of robbery she now saw. These scoundrels were running about with sacks of all things and she wondered at why they had even kept to the road. That was very foolish indeed she now saw. Their success was what had undone them now she understood. That damned gold cup had made them feel like they were already fat with wine and women that they thought themselves untouchable
"GET THEM," the magistrate yelled and the four well trained guards launched out to a full sprint with long graceful strides. They had beat them to the ground in a matter of seconds. She saw this but was not victim to the same treatment. Her calm deepened as she saw she would not be victim to the same treatment. She turned to see the magistrate and priest eyeing her closely. She studied their gaze in turn and came to the conclusion that they weren't certain of her involvement. They were curious and puzzled. A man who can still be curious about someone has not made their mind up on them. 
"What in God's good name are you doing with these men at this hour child," the priest spoke. Hope sprang even more so. She had done the right thing. She had not responded suspiciously and was not suspect just yet.
"I was just on my way home sire. I happened on these men by chance and was in conversation nothing more."
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING OVER THERE ADA," Roger screamed.
"SILENCE," the magistrate yelled back with a gesture and the soldier knocked him hard in his head with a seel toed boot. He flopped unconscious.
"You know these men," the magistrate asked.
"Of course sire. They are known in the town and we have spent time together in the past as people meager means are like to do."
"They are known in the town, known for all nature of unsavory crimes. Are you cohort to them, privy to and a participant in their crimes."
She was being pressed cornered. The panic returned to her but she remembered that if they condemn her now she would be no worse off than she had thought herself not a moment ago. She reflected on how prized  something stolen once returned felt. She had only been given her life back two seconds ago and something she was ready to surrender she was again willing to fight tooth and nail for. She looked down at her self for a second and saw the wisest response in front of her eyes.
"My lord you see me plain. I carry nothing but a parcel prepared for me by my beloved neighbors not two miles up the road. I have all manner of mixed blessings and curses. I am without home, shelter or work that my neighbors can provide yet they take pity on me to give what work and resources they can spare. I would not betray their trust and charity with any crime."
They studied her a great deal longer and the bishop reached out his hands for the parcel. She gave it to him and he looked at the cover with her large neatly printed name.
"Your name is Eva?"
"As it says there."
"That brute used your name with a tone of great familiarity."
"As one would expect from a friend. People of lowly means rarely have a choice for making friends of a savory nature."
"I recognize that cup he dropped and know immediately they have come from Judge Christian's former estate which is now a holding of the church. Stealing from the Church is a crime met with capital punishment. Can you swear to me you played no part in it, that you have no knowledge of it."
"As I said Father they are as close as I can have to friends but I have done nothing. If someone were to tell me they had hanged for such a crime as you have described it would not surprise me, but I knew nothing of their intent or from where they had come this night."
he handed back her parcel which she accepted gratefully and they took one last look at her together.
"We could have her searched for any small goods that might be on her person," the magistrate said.
"Lay hands on a woman? No. If she participated in the looting she would have an even share. Even thieves need a code of conduct if they work together, how else would be guaranteed of mutual benefit."
Ada's heart finally slowed to a true normal rhythm. She was going to get away with it, and for the price of a priest's pious modesty of all reasons. If they had done that search they might still have found Judge Christian's gold cuff links in her pocket. The magistrate pierced her with his glance one last time for a good measure in a long drawn out moment, but Ada's calm allowed that moment to pass through her and over her.
"Keep better company in the future child," You may not even have a future yet if I find any evidence of foul play go back to you other than those men's words as they can obviously not be trusted.
She curtsied deeply in supplication knowing he would find none.
"Let this be a lesson to you. If you are innocent you can see these men would drag you down with them if they think there's even slightest chance of a reprieve or that their sentence might be lessened."
"True enough lord. I shall remember this."
"My servants will allow you to sleep in my stables or they may even be a spare blanket to sleep on the floor of their private lodgings."
She nodded seeing this statement as invitation enough to leave and she nudged past and made her way slowly past the scene. She saw the subtext of what he said. 
"Go to where I might question you further. Let me detain you," he was saying without saying.
She would not go there as he phrased it as an invitation which meant she was permitted to decline.  She didn't think they would find anything but maybe when Roger woke up he would be more insistent, lead them back to the cave where they operated from out of town where there was evidence that would. There was no reason to do it, but that wouldn't have stopped him from doing it out of spite. The moment she saw they were out of her line of sight she bolted from the road knowing better than to make the same mistake twice and ran in the direction of the nearest city. She would be out of the magistrates district by sun up if she kept at it all night and there was something she wanted to do when she was.
She was sore by that time, sorer than she had ever been in her life stopping for only a few short sips from cool clear streams flowing to her former home and hungry enough to have eaten a three week old corpse of any animal. She was alone in a flat smooth area of the forest, the sky was clear, and she was confident she needn't fear intrusion or bad weather. She would sleep here for a part of the day. Before that, however, she would see to the mystery of this blessed package that saved her life by virtue of just existing. She sat herself under a tree and placed it gently in front of her like it held precious crystal. 
The first thing she noticed was a painting. It was a painting unlike any she had ever seen. It wasn't on a framed piece of canvas, it was being held in the delicate care she had seen given to the few pieces of art in the sparse number of wealthy people in the village. On the contrary it was a flat piece of shiny paper without even the slightest of brush strokes as if the strange thin paper had been made with the pigments inside of it, made to do nothing but hold the image of a plainly dressed couple. The couple to caught her attention. The man had wore a suit that seemed to be of good durable material and the gold cuff links spoke of wealth but there was no frill around his sleeves, a strange bit of silk tied around his neck that looked like some fashion of plain boring cravat, and there wasn't the slightest ornate needlework anywhere in his suit. She liked it for its beautiful utilitarian dress style. The woman on the other hand looked to be wearing some kind of underwear or slip judging from how low the decolletage was and that her shoulders were utterly exposed. She had no look of shame or sultriness, however, so it was as if no one had informed her of its innappropriateness. 
She pondered the picture long and looked closely at that bit of gold on the man's wrist. Finally she panted a half shriek of awe as she saw they were the same cuff links she carried. She took them out to confer and could not be mistaken. The plain roundness but thousands of tiny nicks and scratches from years of wear and the unmistakable initials of DC. She had no idea what to think of it and set aside to delve further in the package. Beneath the strange shiny picture was, as she had feared, a dress. Worse it wasn't even an ornate dress, it was hardly of better materials than the one she wore now, it's only improvement being that it was cleaner, and without cuts or scrapes. She picked up to inspect it closer and immediately revealed it's secret. It was overwhelmingly heavy for a simple garment. She knowingly flipped it inside out and saw what she had suspected. All over it there was small patches of squares neatly sewn and she saw the bumps and imprints of coinage and jewelry. She knew it immediately for a fortune, real treasure.
"He even prepared for me getting caught," she thought to herself, but still felt far to puzzled as she stripped and put the pocket dress on.
"But why," she speculated further, "why care to give me a fortune. A few moments of parental interest or romantic tension didn't justify years of hidden treasure to be met with at only his death.
She looked down once more and saw another strange shiny portrait, this time not of people, but of a rock. No, not a rock she saw looking closer, a grave stone. It was a faded ancient gravestone that held her name. Was that her name she wondered. She saw "Ada" but it was Ada Christian, but her maiden name was Tomlin. She saw the date was old enough to be her starting in thirteen seventeen and going to fourteen two, she'd have a long life if that was her. But wait that can't be hers either as it was a grave stone and she was very much alive. She threw it away not wanting to think of such a grim premonition, and in so doing saw the last favor of her patron.
The paper itself, he now saw had writing in it. She looked closely at the small print hoping her scant knowledge of words would be enough to decipher something from it. She opened it up all the way to see a massive listing. Names upon names with lines. It was a map, a map of names, one lf those family trees she'd heard nobility and well to do families make, some with claim going all the way back to Adam. It didn't seem quite right as most of those records gave a history of the family, some record of every participant, but it was clearly some kind of rudimentary bare-bones outline. More than that she could see a clear differentiation at parts. Some were written in red, a very distinct branch that ignored all others.
There was her name next to a name she didn't recognize, no doubt someone this tree's author expected her to meet in the near future, and that plain red line went through pair after pair with dates written below of the the members lives and she saw those years go up and up until at last it ended with child being born in the year two thousand and eighty five. It was a child named David Christian at the end of her direct line, the end of her line who sparked the beginning of her new life.