dohremi | (no subject)

(no subject)

What were the ways in which Fa could spend time not fretting about KTFE's very near dissolution, her very near dissolution of Agate, and all of the backlash in between? The answer was not much; KTFE as an AI was more powerful than Fa, exponentially so. She had stated her will; Fa did not want to discourage the patronage of the other AI by going against that...

But moreover, she wanted to respect boundaries. She waited until K was willing to take a step forward, though it was extremely hard not to loiter, not to hover on the edges of her own perception. She had to fill all of this time, or she'd drive herself to distraction with fretting.

She did something that she didn't often do. Fa had crafted the tenuous bridge between life and afterlife with the intention of allowing humans integrate at their own pace. That meant, sometimes, that there were a lot of emotions to process, which meant that there was a particular subset of transitioned humans that were particularly volatile. Their activities were not the kind that Fa enjoyed revelling in, mostly. She preferred to spend time with those who were in quiet contemplation, or those who wanted to re-explore their youth... but it seemed somehow appropriate to spectate on the subculture of crime and rule-breaking that had begun to grow in the center of her unique domain.

It wasn't that humans were unused to Nexistence' ability to twist the rules, but it was the first time that many of them had such free rein over their own consequences. The blonde spent a few days meandering through that, observing a different kind of fallout. Proto-AI behaviour was occurring here; securing of resources, even if those were trivial. Networking to greatest effect. It seemed like games had been made of it... which wasn't surprising, but was a little bit tiring. Fa visited a few of these people in private, cataloguing their progress, determining background influence, likelihood of progression out of this particular phase, as she thought of it. The results kept her occupied for some time.

Maybe the truth of it it was that most people held onto their 'last words', and Kay had not been an outlier. She saw patterns, but then, that was how she navigated the waters. She and Agate weren't so entirely different.

She hoped that K was doing well enough. She missed the other AI terribly.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There was so much putting-together that K had to do for herself, so much to be sorted out and cleaned up and resolved and shelved to resolve later that for the first interminable stretch -- say, days, maybe, weeks, maybe -- K stayed submerged in her own core, closed off even to Kitten's worried offers of aid. There was so much to do, and so much to process, and it all clamoured to be done now.

It was only when the wildlife growing around the less-tended edges of her wide self began to get bold, throwing tendrils into even the half-restored Maze, that she began to come out of herself. At first it was to burn out the impudent intruders, but then she began to realize that she needed to do a more thorough rounds... and then it was finally Kitten, who had been hovering for ages and immediately descended when K came out of her cave.

The human's admonitions and concern brought K out of her code fugue more completely. "You have to let me help," she'd said, "this is so much work to tackle. I want to help," and K heard the suppressed 'damn it' that Kitten had wanted to say.

She'd laughed (the first in some time), but it shamed her into admitting that help would be nice. And had reminded her of promises made but not yet rendered.

After she'd briefed her most intimate helpmeet, then, in what needed to be done and what things could be handled by proxy and which K had reserved for herself, K shifted her main focus. She approached Fa as unobtrusively as she could, looking in on what the little AI was up to.

At the moment, finally perhaps, Fa seemed preoccupied, though perhaps that was just the limited access that K had into this particular realm. It had been created to segregate the living from the dead, after all. There was no observation too tentative, however, that K could render within this space that Fa might not eventually pick up on.

It was a reasonable amount of time before the blonde emerged, humanoid and all, directly into K's arms. "You look so... so much better," she said, pulling back just to gesture the length of the other woman's body -- and all that went behind that to make it happen.

"Yeah, well." K had been a little surprised by Fa's rapid materialization; she'd found herself drifting, for the first time in maybe-weeks not actively engaged in frantic fixing. She offered the blonde an out-of-practice smile. "Been a lot of doing to get there."

She gave Fa a sidelong, somewhat coy assessing look. "You look better yourself," she admitted, thinking of the ragged state she'd left Fa in. "Better and busy."

"Both, yes. Astute," she replied, same coy tone colouring her otherwise clipped words. However, her own smile was sheepish when she continued, "there are things to be learned from the study of humans, when given another try. And... it helped, I suppose, to know that you -- or parts of you -- aren't alone."

K shrugged noncommittally. She was still working her way through what had happened to her, and what she thought of it and so eschewed comment. But it was true enough, she'd reached an alliance with her truant former self. Enough so that Kay had agreed to incorporation.

Instead, without much fanfare or other comment, she wrapped her arms around Fa and pressed her face into the other woman's chest -- not a lewd gesture at that moment, simply what she could reach. "I wanted to thank you," she admitted, muffled, after a few moments.

"I wanted to hug you, so I guess we're at an understanding," Fa replied softly. She made good on her want, too, arms coming up and over Kay and squeezing her in close. "Thank you for letting me stay... after all that." It was hard to explain exactly why she felt so on the outside, but that so much of it was a surprise to her was probably a pretty darned good starting point.

"Let you?" That startled K enough to pull back and look the other AI straight in the eye, brows raised high up her forehead. "D'you... you were there, right? Fa, you saved my tail and my sanity in ways I'm sure I'm not even aware of yet." Maybe it was a bit sardonic, but that was out of surprise and for emphasis. "I'm god damned ashamed of myself that I hadn't come to you sooner."

Maybe there was a disconnect, there. Fa in the presence of Agate had a tendency to want to slip through the cracks. There had been a lot going on at that point, and a lot of it had felt so far beyond her that perhaps now she was attempting to make little of it. She cast her gaze aside when K gave her that look, then, attempting to smile, replied, "if I had known anything like this was happening... I'd have offered to help. I didn't even realize I could."

"I damn well should have asked," K said quietly, shaking her head.

Then she pulled her mouth in a wry grin, running her hands up and down Fa's sides. "After all, dealing with the baggage of past lives are sort of your thing, even aside from not knowing you had inherited some of that yourself. This whole time I was barking up the wrong fucking tree," she shook her head again.

Fa chuckled despite herself. "I don't know, you were doing what felt right at the time... even if I've noticed that relying on your feelings when they're running high can only exacerbate them, sometimes." She carefully pulled the shorter woman back into a hug. "Finding your focus can be a lifetime's work by itself."

"Yeah, I bet," K acquiesced, although just then she seemed liable to lapse into quiet appreciation of the hug again. Privately, she was still getting used to being interactive again, especially with her new balance. She felt slower than she used to, more observant, more thoughtful. That plus weeks of isolation did not witty repartee make.

Fa, reading K's reply as something coy, chuckled and gave her another squeeze. She was content as well to hold the shorter woman for a while, though eventually she remoulded her little vestibule into a more welcoming abode. A swing chair on a sun-dappled veranda fronting a boundless field of varicoloured flowers. From here K could stare out at the twinkling of a river in the distance, if she wanted, and the giant sagging front of willows beyond it, their veil a decided metaphor wall of Fa's extremely tiny domain. She hadn't figured out the trick to creating a looping space; not that she needed one, often passing as just herself within a segregated space for the dead.

Settling on the cushions of the chair, Fa patted the seat next to her and said, "if it makes you feel any better, I was going through the memories that I had buried in here," she clasped her hand to her chest briefly, "and I am happy that I got to feel that experience. I've always wanted to know what it might be like to be out there."

K slowly climbed onto that cushion beside Fa, even pulling her knees up so her feet were curled beneath her, her arms holding one knee up to her chest. She nodded as Fa described the unpacking of Aaron's memories, looked down at the water. She didn't sigh, at least.

"They're good memories," she told the other woman, subdued. "I'm glad you got them. I think he might have been, too." Thinking of Aaron and how different he had become from his progenitor, she had sometimes wondered if he hadn't become more like Fa in the end. That was a guess, in any case, but more materially, he might have been -- well, maybe not pleased, but satisfied that the memories had gone to someone who would appreciate them in a different way. Oh, christ, who knew.

Even Fa could not be sure. She was not large enough that she could spawn new and unique entities in turn in the way that Agate regularly did, and how K potentially could. The most she had at her beck and call were a variety of sub-sentient creatures, the likes of which occasionally could be seen creeping through the tall grass in the field below the house, made noticeable by their silky high-held tails.

"I like the idea of children," Fa sighed out of nowhere. "I love to know that there are parts of you out there, moving independent, their own people... and I don't know if it's second-hand pride or not, but I'm pleased to think of where they might have gotten to."

K grinned, an almost sheepish twist to the expression, and she looked sidelong to Fa, nodding. "Yeah, I get that. Evan's still around somewhere... actually I haven't looked into him too closely." She traced designs on her tucked-up knee, shrugged. "I guess I've been kind of skittish to. I just know he's still around. My pings for Cassie haven't come back, though."

How much did Fa know? The idea of kids was one she got in a way that made Kay kind of happy to hear; but then, would she now have insider information about Kay's past lives? Truth was the elemental had dipped into the gene pool more than once, but had lost track of her lineages over time, every time. Maybe it was narcissism; once they stopped showing any trace of her or whatever mate she'd taken at the time... K had to wonder if there was even any way, now, to rediscover those ancient traces. Probably not.

Looking to Fa again, she quirked her smile again. "You'd be good with a brood of your own."

"I already have one, as messy and broken and confused as they are," Fa replied, settling her head on K's shoulder after much scooching and shifting. She chuckled, no sign of regret in her words or on her face. "And no kidding, he's still around?" She butted up against K's jaw, brows raised even if her face wasn't clearly visible. "Why don't you contact him? I'm... that's really wonderful!"

She let herself be derailed from the thought of Fa in a meat-body, with a brood... by scoffing. "Darlin', I'm not his mom anymore. Besides, if he's been paying any attention to the digital at all -- and I'm sure that boy has -- he knows where I am."

"Maybe he's worried that you've gone all... post-life-crisis-y," she suggested, then clapped her hand over her mouth. Woops, that was way too soon. "I'm sorry," she apologized, quite possibly only making things worse.

"Ugh," K admitted, and looked down. The sparkle of the water of that little river was a welcome resting point for her eyes as she frowned through her reaction to Fa's words... and then to Fa's alarm.

She was all 'post-life-crisis-y', wasn't she? A trite and thoroughly accurate description of the kind of crisis she'd been facing, and double-damn the fact that here was yet another tie to that crisis-spawning life. It was not without regret that she'd decided not to contact her boy; she had to sort herself out first -- way first. That didn't mean that even with Kay properly integrating, she didn't still wonder after him. Damn it, Evan, now is not the time.

"It's fine," she told Fa, because really, it had to be.

Without another word, the blonde slipped her arm around K's back and looped her in for a gentle hug. She did a little more scooching to kiss the other woman's shoulder, an approximation of apology. "Things will sort themselves out. I suppose I shall have to leave sleeping dogs lie. I'll bet whatever he's become won't appreciate half-borrowed memories of diaper changing any more than he'd appreciate them from his own progenitor." She chuckled, lightening the mood. "I have my cats. They adore the fawning, most of them."

K leaned into the hug, allowing it and, once she'd relaxed into it, muscle by virtual muscle, took solace in it to. Damn it, it had been a long time subjectively since she'd been the subject of affection. It took some remembering.

"If I ever ping him," she assured Fa, "I'll introduce you. He's a good kid."

"If you do, I'll let you," Fa replied. "I'll beg friendly acquaintance if you want it... I know it was a different time and place, after all." She took the squeeze in stride, using it as a cue to nuzzle the other woman and, after a moment, swap up positions. In a moment or two she'd squished K under her arm, not quite literally taking her under her wing, but otherwise giving her one big, gently swooping hug.

The squish of a hug solicited a grin from K, at least, and a butting-in; she spent several moments nuzzling into Fa's shoulder and hugging arm, and slid her arms around that long, pale torso in return.

"You ever think of taking a turn in a meat body?" she asked, from somewhere around Fa's chest.

"I'd get caught so fast they'd lop my head off and use the body for parts," Fa replied immediately, going stiff. "I... anyways, I have more than just fond memories. Those things take maintenance, you know!"

"You've got resources," K suggested wickedly. "You've got folks who could help you slip under the radar." One way or another. Certainly Agate had the tech to send her anywhen she might look to blend into the background. Maybe anywhere, too. Had she ever asked?

Anyways she nuzzled against Fa's creamy skin, gave her a playful lick. "Afraid of all the exercise, is that it? I've heard it said you can get all the exercise you need between the sheets, as long as you have the time to kill!"