"I guess that works, it'd just be kind of sad if I never got to see her regular eye color again."

"I could make it default to it when she's not having a lot of strong emotions, or when she just wakes up from sleep. So it would be like the colors are being sort of pushed out by the emotions into her eyes, and when that doesn't happen the colors fade?"

"That's a lovely idea."

"Great! Also I want to have thee colors push outwards from her pupils across her irises, so when she changes you can get intermediate combinations of colors! Human eyes can do that sometimes and it's really pretty."

Bonesaw can send what this will look like!

"Wow, cool!"

Surgery time! This is going to be a lot more elaborate and she has to install some tiny little organelles into the eyes but not very complicated ones so they'll be ready by the time she's finished with the brain surgery portion of the emotion detection system.

Beka serves as surgical assistant as needed and sings to keep Bonesaw company when not needed.

"Huh." says Bonesaw after a bit, pinky deep in Kat's brain.

Beka's gonna not ask because Bonesaw is busy!

Poke poke. Yep, that's definitely what that bit is.

"She's got a corona pollentia." 

Still not asking but increasingly alarmed!

"Bit of the brain that means she can get powers - it's the first one I've seen here. Lots of people have them back home and there's no reason an orc can't get one but I guess there weren't any powers around to cause them to grow until I got here."

Bonesaw can route the synaptic hookup for the eyes around it to get at the bit of the amygdala where it's supposed to go.

Huh. Cool.

Thread this bit into this lobe and then it's time close the head back up, putting some powder on the seems she cut into the skull and then licking them to activate the sealant so it'll be right as rain. Connecting the eyes is pretty easy now that the tiny organs are done boiling in the pot she put them in earlier. 

"And all done!" she says as she drips three drops of liquids into Kat's eyes, causing them to briefly pulse with waves of each color Bonesaw installed before settling back down to their original black.

Beka closes Kat's eyes for her so she can go back to sleeping. "What kind of powers will she get?"

Hmmm... 

"Probably she'd inherit them from me - powers can do that even when people aren't biologically related. So it would be similar in some ways, especially in terms of what capabilities the agent that's providing the powers has, but possibly with some sort of refinements from how I've learned to use mine. Some of it will come down to how she triggers - she'll need a sufficiently stressful event to induce the connection and the circumstances around it will have a big impact on what shape her powers take. Though it'll take less since she's second gen..."

Bonesaw thinks for a moment.

"Her corona pollentia is probably too high up and deep for it to be a Tinker power? Not close enough to the bulk of the prefrontal cortex for the connections that typically develop as a result of that. Probably not Thinker either, for the basically the same reason, though it's less clear. I bet I could induce a Brute or Striker or Mover though... Trump too maybe though those typically ended up disappointing when I've caused them, which is really annoying since I'm a Trump and my power isn't disappointing at all... I suppose if she's a second gen off of my power she might get a neat Trump power like mine but I'm guessing no since my Trump aspects seem more like restrictions being removed than my agent having a lot more inherent abilities..."

"What do all those kinds mean?"

"Oh um, Brute means strength and durability and is triggered by physical damage, Striker is a touch-based ability and is triggered by immediate simple stressors, Mover is movement and wanting to run away, Tinker is inventing and is triggered by mental stress that persists over subjectively long time horizons, Thinker is cognitive but not related to the same sort of inventing and triggered by briefer mental stress, and Trump is powers that interact with other powers directly and is from stress involving powers. Their are also a few other classifications and really the whole system is just an attempt to describe what's going on, not something inherent to how powers work. Except for Tinkers and Trumps which do seem to be pretty natural categories."

"So she'll probably be a Trump if she's triggered by getting too many surgeries or something and a Mover if Sauron chases us maybe?"

"Oh um. Yeah. Though the Trump trigger would have to be because of the sorts of surgeries I do with my powers, if it was just about having surgery done at all it would more likely be Brute powers."

Bonesaw frowns.

"I don't want to make her trigger."

"- huh, I thought you'd be excited for her to have powers."

"Triggering isn't very nice...."

"Well, lots of things aren't very nice but most of them don't also give you powers?"

"I think the people I've made trigger before would almost all prefer to have died instead?"

"And um. They were scared of me afterwards. And angry."

"Oh."