Just to encourage a few more of you to write enough posts so you can join the "club" area, here is today's post from my current story.
(The "story so far": Serena is a witch, named in a prophecy as "the witch with a mouth of metal.... who will save the world from evil". She already had braces, but not enough, so last post she got those removed, this is where she gets MOST of her "mouth of metal"... she'll get the herbsts at another appointment! Peter is the ortho, Gemma is the assistant. Oh, yeah, these braces are magical...)
Chapter 16: Gimme, gimme, gimme...... the metal!
"Are ready for the next bit" Peter asked Serena.
"Not really, but it must be done. So let's do it...". Once again, Peter lay the chair back, so that Serena was once more almost horizontal, then fitted the lip-spreader once more.
"I'll work on your top teeth first" he explained. "I'll try things in, in the order they need to be fitted, and check how well they fit, making any adjustments as we go. When I'm happy, then I'll glue them into place"
Peter took the metal plate, that would be at the front top of Serena's mouth, and slipped the four bands over her teeth. The four bands fitted perfectly over her incisors and front pre-molars. In fact, maybe TOO perfectly. Peter tried to remove the plate, but was unable to do so. In fact, as he looked, he could see the four bands almost 'shrinking' onto Serena's teeth, just like a piece of heat-shrink tubing shrinks onto a wire. And he could see the metal of the actual plate slightly adjusting itself too, no doubt to fit her palate a bit more closely.
Peter had never seen anything like this before, but he was very aware that this situation was far from normal: we are talking about braces specially made from a very special metal, being fitted to Serenaa, who, if prophecy was to be believed, would probably become one of the greatest witches the world had ever know.
He said nothing just yet, and picked up the tongue rake, and prepared to gently place it onto Serena's rear premolars.
"Hey, Gemma, put those close-up eye-glasses on, and watch as I do this...." said Peter
The gap between her teeth, created by the spacers, was exactly what was needed, and the appliance dropped straight onto her teeth. As they both watched, the metal once again formed itself intimately and perfectly around her teeth. The wire of the rake seemed to move closer to her palate, and the sharp ends of the 'spikes' seemed to soften as they watched.
"Wow... amazing!!!" said Gemma
"Are you ok there, Serena?". She nodded - she could feel absolutely no pain or discomfort. "Ok, let's try in the expander. Gemma passed Peter the upper expander. Knowing exactly what was about to happen, he just placed it onto Serena's molars, and they both watched once again in absolute awe as it fitted itself all around Serena's molars, then pulled its expander part up and neatly against Serena's palate. Peter decided that he ought to explain what had just happened to Serena, so he removed the lip-spreader, and sat her up.
"I have some strange, but also good news for you"
"Yeah, I got that feeling when Gemma thaid 'wow'.... what jutht happened?" asked Serena with a very slight lisp - for whatever reasons, her tongue just knew what to do, where to go in her mouth, to get the right sounds. Everything felt 'perfect'. Oh, and she was feeling some pretty amazing feelings in her top teeth too, clearly from the new braces.
"Well, your upper appliances fit perfectly"
"Tho you jutht need to glue them in?"
"No, that's the strange part... they sort of... fitted themselves...". Peter explained what he had seen. "How does it feel?"
"Well... amathingly comfortable. Intimate. Like they are almotht part of me...."
"Ok... well, shall we try fitting the other bands to your top teeth, then move onto your lowers? I have a feeling that this will be the easiest bands fitting I have ever carried out!"
Again, he leaned Serena back, and fitted the lip-spreader. He took the upper bands, one at a time, and let them fit themselves. Unsurprisingly, the lower expander fitted just perfectly too, and he watched in awe as the lower screw expander module moved itself slightly downwards to find the most comfortable place for Serena. The lower bands, including the slightly bulkier ones over her canines, fitted themselves without any issues.
With all the bands and appliances fitted, Peter needed to fit the archwire. Inevitably, when an archwire is fitted to a new set of braces, it would need a tiny bit of bending, as it's close to impossible to line up the brackets perfectly straight. With bands, this would be more noticeable, as you couldn't adjust their placement with the same precision as you could with brackets. Yes, you could just force the archwire in place without bending it, but that would apply quite some pressure, and be very painful for the newly braced patient. Things were helped a bit by using a softer, thinner, wire, but it would still need a few tweaks.
But today, Peter had a hunch that the archwire would fit without any problems. He took the heavy upper archwire, and fitted it - as he had expected it fitted into place almost perfectly, adjusting itself as he put it into place.
Gemma held up a selection ligature colours, for Serena to choose from. She knew from previous visits that Serena liked bold colours, and liked to try a different colour each time. Serena chose the bright neon purple ones this time. Peter slipped the ligature over Serena's braces... needless to say, they went on easily. They had considered using wire to tie the archwire in place - it would add a tiny bit more metal to her braces, but his dental technician felt it would be too huge a task to fabricate a suitable wire. So they went for the normal ligatures. The lower archwire was fitted just as simply.
"I wonder what the lip-bumpers will do?" asked Gemma
"Good question... and I can only think of one way to find out: let's put them in..."
Gemma passed the upper lip-bumper to Peter, who lifted Serena's upper lip up out of the way, and put it into her mouth, slipping it into the headgear tubes on her front molars. Needless to say, it fitted perfectly, and self-adjusted itself to be slightly closer to Serena's teeth and gums, to make itself as comfortable as possible for her.
"Erm.... I don't suppose you'd let me put the other lip-bumper in, would you?" asked Gemma.
"Yes, why not.... you ok with that, Serena?" Serena smiled and nodded - she guessed something strange yet interesting was happening in her mouth. Gemma leaned over, gently pulled Serena's lower lip out of the way, and placed the lower lip-bumper in position. She watched as it pulled itself into the lower headgear tubes, and adjusted itself.
"Wow, I've never seen magic braces before!" said Gemma.
"Me neither! Serena, let's get the lipspreader out of your mouth, and sit you up.. you'll probably want a drink, then I'll give you a moment to have a feel around with your tongue, and get used to your new braces"
Serena's mouth was indeed a bit dry, so she appreciated the drink of water (most of which dribbled out of her mouth, and into the sink!). Her mouth felt like it had a new friend, like the previous lot of braces, but more so. She could feel absolutely no pain or discomfort.
She ran her tongue around her mouth. Under the tongue rake at the top she could feel the metal plate, a lovely smooth and very comfortable surface. The tongue-rake felt quite odd: whilst she knew it was made of metal, as she ran her tongue over it, it felt more like it was made of rubber, so bulky, but not really uncomfortable. The upper expander was also oddly comfortable, large, yet fitting tightly and comfortably against her palate. No doubt it would be a bit of a pig to clean after food got stuck in it, but nothing that a good magic spell couldn't sort out.
Her lower braces felt just as good: the expander was more behind her lower gum than behind her lower teeth, allowing her tongue to touch those teeth, which would hopefully help her to speak more clearly. And the lip bumpers were no more than a millimetre above her braces, and felt very comfortable, plus helped to hold her lips away from the brackets on the bands.
That was another odd feeling: she could no longer feel the minor imperfections of the insides of any of her teeth, as they were all now covered by her metal bands. Whilst she had metal bands on her four molars before, these felt so much better. The other ones were slightly wider than her teeth, so that there was a gap for the glue. None of these braces had glue, they had fitted themselves intimately around her teeth, and the tops of the bands seemed to have smoothed and 'chamfered' themselves, making the edges of the bands almost undetectable.
Serena felt ok about her new set of... well, let's be honest, rather extreme... braces, and she started sensing that they were starting to feel ok about her.
Gemma passed Serena the mirror. Serena smiled and looked at her teeth. Well, not actually a lot of teeth, it was mainly just a lot of very shiny bright metal that looked back at her, just like it had been when she looked at the braces on her teeth models.
"Thank you, Peter, they are truly exthellent! And pleathe thank the amathing Dental Technician who made them: he mutht be a mathter craftthman, although I have a feeling that the bratheth themthelveth may have helped in their own making!". Again, whilst Serena spoke with a slight lisp, it was gentle and pleasant: her tongue had no problems making the sounds of speech that she needed. Serena could feel absolutely no discomfort either, the braces all fitted to her mouth like a perfectly fitting glove. Plus there was a spectactularly nice feeling coming from them already.
"One thing.. I mean, they are amathingly comfortable, but do the lip-bumperth actually come out?"
"I must admit, I have no idea, I didn't dare to try... why don't you try?"
Gemma held the mirror for Serena, who put her fingers into her mouth, and tried to pull the top lip-bumper out. She could feel that there was a tiny amount of looseness, but she felt like there was something holding it in place, like a magnet would hold a piece of iron.
"Oh, come on, let me take them out for a moment, I promithe I'll put them back in again..." she said hopefully in a bit of a whisper.
"Of courthe you may, you only need to athk! But pleathe, keep uth together as much ath pothible, to help our power and thtrength, for at the moment we are still very weak. We look forward to the ecthtra promithed metal, it will thtrengthen uth more" said a rather nice and friendly voice inside her head. "And Therena, it'th a plethure to be your new brathes!". Serena giggled quietly: her brathes had a lithp too!
Serena pulled the lip bumper from her mouth with ease, and looked at it: a lip-bumper is, in principle just a piece of thick bent wire, often with very imperfect bends - but the bends in this one were absolutely perfect. She could tell there was, already a lot of power in her new braces.
"Ok, guyth" she said, really aimed at her braces, "let'th have a little bit of fun shall we, and thee how good you guyth really are!". She opened her top lips wide, then pretty much just threw the lip-bumper vaguely towards her mouth.
Click! It slipped perfectly into place without any hesitation.
"Cool bratheth, Peter!!", said Serena with a huge smile on her face.
