OMG VD!

[cavedwellers]

[Gosh you guys, there must be a holiday on! One of the bigger, more well-lit caves has been decked out for a PARTY, with heart-shaped BALLOONS and also red and white STREAMERS decking the stalactites and shit. There are BUCKETS filled with LITTLE CANDY HEARTS, and there is a FOUNTAIN featuring a rosy-cheeked CUPID who is PEEING PINK LEMONADE into a basin. Also ther are CUPS in case you couldn't tell the LEMONADE was for DRINKING.

Also, everything is HEAVILY SPIKED WITH APHRODISIACS. Eating or drinking the party favors will make you want to MAKE OUT with anyone who gets IN STRIKING DISTANCE. Have fun with that!]

Comments

[ice_and_steel]

[is it only slang where I come from?]

Um, where I come from, that's slang for activities of a very intimate nature. I suppose your world doesn't have that phrasing.

[onlyhonournow]

[embarrassed beep.]

[ice_and_steel]

[equally embarrassed blushing]

I...apologize.

[onlyhonournow]

[how do we get more and more awkward?]

No, I apologise. That... should have occurred to me.

[ice_and_steel]

[it's like an icicle of awkward!]

I should not have assumed your intentions were untoward. Since you have been behaving in the opposite manner.

[she is pretty sure that's what the one diplomacy manual she ever read said you should do in situations where you have accidentally made assumptions?]

[onlyhonournow]

[silence for a moment or so, before he laughs good-naturedly]

Considering today, I think "intent" is really a tricky thing.

[ice_and_steel]

[laughing is good. probably. right? she is going with that interpretation.]

I...suppose there is that.

[military discipline is usually good for something, like telling yourself you are not feeling the effects of drugs. it doesn't make you not feel it. but you can tell yourself it's less than it is.]

[that is what she is telling herself and meanwhile she is absent-mindedly petting the (fabric? leather?) on the seat.]

[onlyhonournow]

[how does one react to having their insides petted? what is the appropriate protocol for these sorts of situations?]

... Either way, you'd be the first. [okay, now that tone was definitely cocky.]

[ice_and_steel]

[mouth opens. mouth closes. mouth opens again]

I--

[is--is this flirting? because it sounds like things Edgar says. So it must be. Right?]

[she makes an awkward strangled noise, because she cannot reconcile flirting with robot that outmasses me by two orders of magnitude, and the drugs have worn off enough for those two antithetical ideas to collide, although not enough for her to stop petting because she hasn't noticed that yet.]

....how does this even work?

[onlyhonournow]

[chuckling]

It doesn't, really. That was cruel of me, I apologise.

[ice_and_steel]

Oh. All right. I was perplexed.

[but if it doesn't work then why is he bothering to talk to her? perhaps he has some plan for which her skills are useful.]

[onlyhonournow]

[has her tone sharpened enough that he'd pick up on it?]

... I didn't mean anything by it. I realise that it didn't quite help the situation.

[ice_and_steel]

I--no, it's okay. I am...not good with people. or robots, apparently. My soldiers called me the ice queen--when they thought I couldn't hear--because they said that's what my brain and heart were made out of.

[onlyhonournow]

[rematerialises his hologram, so it's now perched on the back of the front seat he pulled forwards earlier with its feet pressed up against the rim of the backseat, giving the illusion that he's pushing up against it to remain sitting]

But that's not true.

[ice_and_steel]

[she tilts her head]

It could be. I don't...really act or seem to think like other people do, is it such a stretch to think that I was engineered such that parts of me specifically don't work right?

[onlyhonournow]

[he smiles, in an attempt to reassure her. HOLOGRAMS YOU CAN'T TOUCH ARE REASSURING, RIGHT?]

Would someone heartless spend so long wondering if they were?

[ice_and_steel]

[the most reassuring.]

I...don't know. It occurs to me that those who designed me were sufficiently paranoid, and sufficiently cruel, that they might have put this in as a failsafe: given too much time to think, to force me to become distracted by whether I have emotions or merely the simulacra thereof.

[onlyhonournow]

[the hologram leans in, eyebrows raised with a lopsided, affectionate grin]

Celes, please forgive me for being so forward, but that's ridiculous.

[ice_and_steel]

[she frowns a little, as she is not entirely accustomed to being called ridiculous] it is?

[onlyhonournow]

If you're convinced that that's the case, why wouldn't they have instilled something productive to them? The last I checked, doubt isn't a quality most want in a soldier. Something about being mindlessly obedient.

[ice_and_steel]

[thoughtful expression]

That is one possibility. The other is that they did not intend for me to have sufficient leisure to consider the question.

The difficulty with an intelligent and ambitious person, after all, is that sooner or later that person starts looking above her to see how much higher she can rise. If I had designed me, I would want to make very sure that looking never started.

[onlyhonournow]

[the hologram sits up straight again, and crosses its arms pensively]

You said it yourself. You're intelligent and ambitious. So where are you lacking?

I have a different question. If you could design you, what would you do, for yourself?

[ice_and_steel]

That depends on what I was designing me for. If I wanted a loyal underling, I would not have given myself ambition; that leads to a desire to replace those above oneself, particularly if they're inferior in terms of capability.

...If I had been designing me for the purposes the Emperor did, I would also have neglected to instill a conscience, and would have kept me far away from anyone who might attempt to teach me one. Practically speaking, it only gets in the way when one wants an obedient soldier. Obedience above all. Assuming one is breeding a general to lead one's armies.

...Perhaps it's a good thing I didn't design me.

[onlyhonournow]

[the hologram has a look on his face like it's trying to hold in laughter]

Well, what would you want to be designing yourself for?

[ice_and_steel]

I--I don't even know what I'd want to design myself for. Why would I even want to design another human being? It's messy and complicated.

....What's funny?