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"Can, uh."
'Can you stop staring' is the question Milduf wanted to ask. Demand, really. The clawstrider's unblinking gaze had been locked on the meat in his griddle for the last three batches of fried pork and, not knowing what to make of it, Milduf had done his best to ignore it lest he run screaming from the hall. It hadn't helped, though, and Milduf felt like he had to do something, anything, to break the tension.
Rumour was - and there were a lot of fanciful rumours coming east from beyond Barren Light - that some spark-brained experiment had gone awry and trapped a person in the machine's head. That rumor, at least, seemed to have some proper steel to it. He'd seen the thing offer comments and respond to jokes as the humans it was travelling with settled in, even telling a few of its own if the raucous laughter prompted by the Banuk's scandalised expression was anything to go on.
Still it was unsettling to have a machine bigger than a fully-armoured Vanguard, covered in enough gleaming golden blades to make a bandit chieftain jealous, staring in his direction. Milduf knew the value of a sharp knife when it came to cutting meat. So instead of being rude to the possibly-a-person eyeing up the contents of his prize griddle, what actually came out of Milduf's mouth was, "Can I help you?"
Machines didn't eat, was the thought running about in Milduf's head. Not human food, anyway - they were more interested in rocks and plants and scrap metal, when they had the inclination. Why did it care so much about his cooking? The machine's head twitched, as if startled out of a reverie, and turned so all four of its glowing blue lens-eyes met his own. It tilted its head to one side, knife-edged crest flaring slightly. For a second Milduf wondered if it was deciding how best to skewer him.
"Negative." The voice was a rich baritone, the intonation clipped and precise and perfectly emotionless. If not for the inhuman buzz underlying it the sound might have been pleasant to listen to. "At the projected rate of consumption this unit's fusion core has enough fuel to sustain full operational capability for approximately: one year, seventy seven days."
Milduf had no response to that. Thankfully, it seemed the machine-person wasn't done. Its - their? His? - saw-toothed mandible jaw didn't move as it spoke, the light in its eyes instead flickering slightly in time to the words emanating from whatever hidden voicebox it had.
"This unit is not equipped for biomass reclamation," it continued, as if that cleared anything up. Maybe it was just the light, or the stress of the conversation, but Milduf swore the entire machine sagged as it broke eye contact. Like it was ashamed, no, guilty of something? "This unit was attempting to remember what food tastes like."
That hammerblow of a statement left Milduf speechless for an entirely different reason, shock and dismay warring in his heart and probably on his face, too. He had no idea how this machine - this person, that had to have been embarrassment just now - had been forged, but to forget what food tasted like? How did that happen? How had they not gone insane?
Maybe they already were?
Before the questions could escape his mouth, the acrid scent of char reached his nostrils. Cursing, Milduf busied himself with making sure nothing burned too badly and that the next batch of meals was waiting for the miners who were sure to be arriving any minute now. By the time the evening rush was over and he could spare a glance back to the machine the clawstrider's dark-plated bulk was gone, along with most of its human friends. One of the Oseram was still at the table, a delver in Sparkworker garb, and he watched as she stood and offered him a smile.
"Hunter wanted to say sorry for scaring you," she said. "But the big lugnut didn't want to distract you further from your work. Said something about 'compromising the logistical nexus' if they stayed." The woman's smile turned rueful then, and she raised a hand to her face as if to share a secret, false-whispering, "We think that's machine-brain for 'you're important to this place'." Speaking normally again, the stranger continued, "Then we got word of some trouble back west and, well. Hunter chose that name for a reason. Hammer to steel, that's the clearest expression of who they are now and they didn't like to laze around even before..."
The woman's smile faltered then. Just for a moment, enough for Milduf to catch the slip, but it was back in place almost immediately. If it didn't quite reach her eyes, well. Not his forge, not his business.
As the delver left Milduf turned the evening's encounter over in his mind. There was one mighty story involved there, plain as iron. Maybe he'd get to hear it one day, if this peculiar machine, this Hunter, ever came back to Chainscrape. Milduf resolved to find out, soon, what a fusion core was and what kind of fuel it needed, and where he could get some.
Questions were always easier asked of those with full stomachs.