The Brass Leviathan and the Merchant of Earthen Whimsy

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Scene I: The Cavern of Forgotten Machines

(Soft phosphorescence hums from unseen vents. The Captain polishes a gear the size of a dinner plate while Gremble leans against a samovar, smiling like a man who knows every secret and none of the answers.)

Captain Verdigris:
Behold, my Leviathan! Once it ruled the oceans of Mars—now it fetches candlesticks for a living. Such is progress.

Gremble:
Progress, my dear Captain, is a kind of rust that dreams of purpose. You have given this beast an afterlife of polish and propriety.

Captain Verdigris:
And you, Gremble, have filled your shelves with ghosts pretending to be silverware.

Gremble (grinning):
Ah, but every teapot hums a different tune if you listen with the right sort of ear.

(He waggles his prodigious ears; a faint melody escapes from the urn beside him.)

The Brass Leviathan (mechanical whirr, faintly melancholy):
I dream of salt and thunder.

Captain Verdigris (patting it fondly):
We all do, old friend. Even in the quiet, something still roars.

(The statue flickers; the candle flame atop her head bends toward the Leviathan, as if drawn by memory.)

Gremble (whispering):
Do you see it, Captain? The light remembers the sea.

Captain Verdigris:
Or the sea remembers the light. Either way, we are its keepers—polishers of the forgotten.

(The Leviathan’s eye glows brighter. The walls shimmer with coral shapes, as if time itself were exhaling color.)

Gremble:
Then let us drink to corrosion, and to the beautiful foolishness of keeping things alive that should have been dreams.

(They bow to the audience. The candlelight flares. Curtain.)