<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/5/5a/Agatha-avi.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Agatha Dunwich<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>Unknown<br/><strong>Date:</strong>August 28th, 1872<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Morning<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Bayou Vermillion 181, Towards Tombstone<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Marguerite (Mentioned...sort of)<br/><hr/><br/>Agatha barely noticed the gentle roll of the 181 out of New Orleans anymore.  She had grown up watching her father build these rails, or ones just like it and now that she was old enough she was traveling them.  There was something that felt right about it.  She been travelling the rails and seeing the west for months now.  Before she left Salt Lake City her father and told her about an old friend of his that had settled in Deer Creek, Arizona.  It was just north of Tombstone.  He said the little town was in need of a good scientist and that she might find some work there.<br/><br/>What he wanted was for her to stay far away from Salt Lake City, but he cared enough for her to be safe.  What he really meant was no matter how much he loved his daughter he couldn’t accept who she was.  He was mitigating his guilt of sending her away be giving her a place to land in the west.  Agatha had been in no hurry to reach Deer Creek so she had travelled up and down the lines seeing what the great rail companies of North America had constructed.  It was truly amazing the feats that human engineering had reached and Agatha absolutely loved it.<br/><br/>But eventually she would need money and that time had finally come so she found herself taking tea in the lounge car of Bayou Vermillion’s 181 on her way to Tombstone, Arizona and eventually the little town of Deer Creek.  Agatha gave a little sigh.  She was sad that her grand adventure was coming to an end.  She would miss the rail, miss the gentle sway of the cars, the far off moans of the ghost rock engine and the steam whistle when it sounded for a coming station or a departure.<br/><br/>Her time spent on the rails had not been for nothing.  Agatha’s sketch book was filled with wonders and innovations just waiting to be built to have life breathed into them and lifted from charcoal sketches to reality, some were practical, some not so and some were so intimate she had thought of ripping the pages from her book and burning them so no one would ever see.  She had lived and loved on these rails and would miss them dearly.<br/><br/>The landscape outside was dusty and boring so Agatha turned to the Tombstone Epitaph for a distraction from the beige and cracked land of central Arizona.  The headline read. The Eagle Has Landed: Fiery ornithopter crash kills dozens including financier and his wife.  Ugh the Epitaph had some a habit of sensationalizing everything.  Science had a bad enough reputation without the tall tales rag making things worse.  Still she read the article.<br/><br/>The Ornithopther commissioned by a Mr. Andrew Tuerny and dubbed the Eagle I had managed to maintain flight for over a half an hour before the crash.  Not bad for a prototype.  She had to wonder though why anyone would test fly it over such a large group of people.  It was a true shame. Agatha felt a particular sadness for the loss of Mr. Tuerny’s wife Elizabeth and the other bystanders as well as the daughter the article said they left behind.  It was with particular disgust that Agatha noted the final line of the article in which it stated that Smith and Robard’s had purchased the plans for the Ornithopter from the estate.  Leave it to them to sell a machine based off of faulty plans.<br/><br/>Agatha put down the paper and stared out the window for a time.  The world passing by was just as bland and bleak as before and her mind kept coming back to the article she had read, winged flying machines so very unstable.  Wouldn’t it be better if one could move and dart or hover like a humming bird or a dragon fly instead of dipping and diving like a bird?  There would be so my more uses for a machine like that.  Her mind had already begun constructing the machine in her head before she could open her notebook and find a pen to write with.<br/>