Tally is a small, compact Gearforged built from warm brass plates, darkened copper joints, and narrow strips of iron hammered thin as paper. Its body bears the soft dents and rubbed shine of constant travel, with charcoal embedded permanently in the seams around its fingers. One piercing green glass eye sits in a rotating brass socket and narrows with mechanical focus whenever it studies a face. The other eye housing is sealed beneath a plate engraved with a child's crooked sun. A cracked voicebox gives every word a static, warbling hiss, as though a distant radio is trying to remember how speech works. Tally moves with startling quiet, its feet placing themselves with scoutlike precision, yet its gestures are oddly tender and birdlike. The unexpected contradiction is that this tiny, battered machine leaves an impression of immense warmth, while its cheerful sketches often depict grief with almost unbearable accuracy.