Etta Diem’s Specialty Sheers
There are many things to be found in Etta Diem’s eccentric attic shop. I remember visiting once where I spent nearly an hour sorting through a shelf full of beautifully crafted bottles — often called Egyptian Tear Catchers. Each of these small and elegantly spun bottles held a small tag that offered a name of the bottle and the properties of the fluids kept inside. One of the most tall and narrow of these bottles, painted an incredibly pearl like black and crimson and extremely beautiful, claimed to contain the tears of a mythical dragon of very old legends. When Etta’s back was turned I did a rude thing on impulse and removed the stopper of the bottle and lifted it to my noise. The smell alone caused my noise to recoil in pain and my eyes instantly watered. Nervously I tipped the bottle a pinch and watched a droplet fall from the bottle and hit the wooden floor with an evil hiss of burning. That one droplet burned clear through the floor, and then through the items that lie in the basement below. I quickly put the bottle back and excused myself from Etta’s shop. So it didn’t even cause me to pause or doubt the strange shopkeep when she showed me her collection of antique and very special scissors. Each elaborately crafted tool that she finds I take up to the Archive and do my best to study and document its cursed or enchanted properties. I drew up the diagram of the individual sheers that Ms Diem currently has in her shop. And below this image I have summed up the things claimed of each sheer. Please admire their eerie beauty, however… I don’t recommend you touch any of them, even for a second…
The Blue Pearl Tick Wick Slip Sheers – The Tick Wick sheers infect through the skin of the user and turn their blood into a pearl-like blue substance. The infected’s blood begins to smell like water lotus and the body becomes numb. When the whites of the eyes become a deep blue the effects of the infection are irreversible.
The Bog Moth Argonaut Cutters – The Bog Moth cutters cause any materials they cut to turn into golden fleece. They’ve been prized for centuries because of this rumor of wealth. However, skin cut by the cutters also become infected and turn into gold while keeping the afflicted alive.
The Brass Gears Scarab Clock Tenders – The Brass Gears Scarab sheers can cut through any metal known to man. Legend also states they can cut through the unbreakable silk webbing of the mythical Snow Spider.
The Elegant Whip-tail Scorpion Blossom Clippers – The Blossom clippers are imbibed with the Elegant Whip-tail’s venom and their cut turns the touched material into the soft fleshy texture of a flower blossom. Infamous female killers through the ages have used these clippers as their means of soft feminine harm.
The Baptista Imp Paper-doll Sheers – The Baptista Imp sheers were designed by a child and cursed by the same child when she reached maturity. Anyone who uses the scissors will fall into a trance where they exert all energy into creating paper-dolls. The curse brings the paper creatures to life. The dolls steal their life energy from their scissor holding creator. The doll creation and energy stealing lasts until the user dies, drained of all life force.
The Slim Despot Slice – The nature of the Slim Despot is unknown. Anyone who has actually handled these sheers ceases the ability to communicate in any fashion. Even collectors refuse to handle the cursed sheers.
The Tinkerbot Butterfly – The Tinkerbot Butterfly enchants the person who handles it. The enchantment is strong and all consuming, the victim rarely ever loses the obsessive desire to hold the sheers and touch the delicate metal detailing of the wings.
The Sakura Cave Spider Slashing Sheers – The Sakura Sheers smell of cherry blossoms and are always cool to the touch. They infect the user with the desire to slash any surfaces that are smooth and unmarked. The materials or persons who are cut by these sheers find the smell of the cherry blossoms infect the wounds and can never be washed away.
The Wasp Masquerader Cog Fly Nips – The Cog Fly nippers inspire a strange and demented type of lunacy upon those that handle them. A malicious sense of dark humor comes over them and causes them to act out cruel jokes that are often harmful, but the nip inflicted jokester never realizes.
The Silver Wisp – The Silver Wisp is a tool of healing. The sheers painlessly move through skin and are able to snip away disease. They were prized in Medieval times for their curing ways, though most doctors found in possession of them were put to death on the suspicion of turning to dark forces to bring about their healing magic.
To order this image as a print, stop by our Etta Diem shop. Limited edition 16 by 20 inch metallic prints available for a short time.
Tags: antiques, Bajema, dark fantasy, etta diem, instruments, mechanical insects, steampunk
Oh, these are so wonderful.
I have many scissors. I love scissors, actually. That isn’t an exaggeration — I truly can not imagine my life without them. I have at least 1 pair in every room. As I look around, I can see 10 pairs in this room alone. I even keep a pair in my car just in case something needs cutting opened (it happens more often than most people would think).
I am referring to the regular “cutting without curses or cures” kind of scissors, of course. And while I have a large variety of interesting and useful shears, I don’t have any that can match the beauty and purposes of these. I wish so much that I had every pair.
I wonder if Atropos has scissors as beautiful.