Konoha’s gaze drops to the floor between them, lips pursing as she swallows her instinctual answer. She needed a lot of things. Or maybe it was just “wanted a lot of things”. She wants to feel the strange, buoyant weight of the children of Akvos in her arms again. She wants to go back, to never go there in the first place. She wants to forget what she saw in that Rift. She wants to go home.
But what comes out in the end is a straw that she grasps for the purpose of just... having A2 stay, of hanging on to company in her misery.]
Can you... help me with my hooves? I have a file...
[It had been the wrong thing to ask, she thinks, a second later, feeling awkward and out of place. She had felt helpless there in Akvos, too outside of her designated purpose to be of any use, she'd thought.
This too, is outside of her experience. But Konoha looks so diminished, and so sad, that she can't simply detach herself from it either.]
Alright. Just tell me what to do.
[A pause. She appears to debate something.] After...maybe you could, uh.
[Maybe it’s stupid, to do something like that now, like this, but. Konoha seizes on it just as fiercely as one would seize a life raft, moving aside to let A2 in before she goes for her harness pouch and begins to rummage around in it. The sheets of her bed are all piled in a bundle beside the mattress, it’s easier for her to sleep standing or on the floor, and more and more keepsakes and mementos have found places in the simple room.
Like the seashell hair ornament she holds for too long in her hand before she forces herself to place it back and pluck out the metal file underneath instead.]
I didn’t have to walk in Akvos so it didn’t really bother me, but now my hooves have grown out a bit too much...
[And much like human nails... they needed a decent sanding every now and then, and simple anatomy meant that while she could reach her own back hooves... it was much easier to ask someone else.]
[A2 is careful not to be obtrusive, so much so that she seems uncomfortable in Konoha's space, as if waiting for a cue to relax.
She notes how Konoha seems to hover over her belongings for a few moments and keeps her gaze averted. Whatever it was, it was nothing she needed to know, she's decided.
To be of some use seems to calm her; she takes the file when it's offered and holds it for a few seconds, brow furrowed. She doesn't really have a frame of reference for this, but she wants to help.]
[She realizes now she’s never really had to explain it before. Just like so many things she was familiar with from her world, she’s used to people just... knowing. How to farm, how to cook, how to sew. How to file hooves. But she’s had people manage to explain how to use text messaging and emoticons on the “watch” to her, so... this can’t be that hard.
And it’s something that isn’t crying.]
Here, just like with the nails on your hand, you just sort of...
[Carefully she lays warm hands on A2, never shy with personal space, particularly with other women. She moves the file and A2’s hands gently to show how to grip the file, placing it against the point of nail and miming the action of shaving off the ends, rounding it.]
Like this... Until they look about this long.
[“This long” being apparently as long as her two front hooves are if the way she lifts one already-filed hoof for inspection is any indication.]
You can sit so you won’t be uncomfortable...
[To facilitate, she places her hands on the wall of the room for balance before picking up a rear leg, proffering a long hoof at what would be about lap height for someone sitting on the bed.]
[She almost says she's never had any need to trim her nails, but instead listens to the explanation, very serious and focused, trying not to jump when Konoha makes physical contact, as skittish as a wild animal.]
...Okay.
[She settles on the bed, feeling it sink beneath her weight, and is careful as she takes one of Konoha's hooves, moving the file the way she'd been shown.
This goes on in silence for a while. Finally though, she mutters out:]
[It will occur later to Konoha that androids might not... grow nails. Or hair. Or teeth. Or skin. But like always... she forgets to treat A2 like anything but a human.
She settles softly, quietly, into the motion, careful about setting her hoof in A2's hand. Her parents used to help her file her back hooves. She remembers, eyes closing a moment, being smaller, long, spindly limbs splayed over the dirt floor of their home, burying her face in her father's side while her mother carefully filed away at the hooves she chipped in the rough play of children. Remembers the days before heading off to work when she'd pause at the doorframe, lean against it and chat as her father bent his aging spine to chuckle and drag the file along.
It's a calming sound. A little bit of a painful sound.
When A2's voice ripples out over it, Konoha takes a moment to respond. Longer than she thought she'd need.]
... Thank you.
[But,]
... I wanted to say something, too. About the dream place... I didn't mean to intrude.
[A2 works in silence for a few moments longer, thinking. The dreamscape had been intrusive, people had learned things that she would have never told them otherwise. But she can't blame Konoha for this.]
It's fine.
[She says, after a moment. It comes out a little gruff, so she amends, after a pause.] Not like you did it on purpose.
[She’s heard a little from A2 about her world, of course, saw that vision from Pod of the robots, but. Seeing it for herself was a different matter. But more than that...]
It just... I felt sorry, when I thought you were dead, that I hadn’t helped you pick a name and it was just “A2”-
[Her soft murmur trails off, staring down at her hands, wringing together... until she straightens up with a snap and somewhat frantically looks over her shoulder, quick to try and correct a potentially disastrous turn of phrase.]
I mean- I was mostly sorry cause I thought you were dead, of course- !
[Though Konoha hesitates a moment, wondering if she's pushing things or being too nosy, but in the end... her hoof twitches a bit in A2's lap, and she says it anyway.]
I guess no one needs a name, but.
[She has trouble imagining someone not wanting one.]
I know it's not my place, sorry. It just seemed- I don't know. If I was in trouble and my friend was calling for me... I'd want them to call "Konoha", not "jinba".
[A2, already quiet, seems to grow so much so that she sucks all the noise out of the room. The repetitive, soothing motion of her hand working the file along Konoha's hoof slows some.
She considers her answer. Nothing seems sufficient, but this time she is honest.]
I've never thought I deserved one.
[It's said without much inflection. She pauses, then resumes her work.]
[Konoha waits. This isn't a silence she likes, one you can relax and be at peace in... it eats at her, at A2, and she wants to break it... but she doesn't. A2 needs to be the one to do that.
And when she does... Konoha waits just a moment, just to let the words settle but not long enough to imply any sort of doubt.]
... You do deserve one.
[Even if it's not her opinion that matters. Even if A2 didn't believe it.
[In the months before, this conversation would not have even been considered. She would have dismissed it outright as worthless sentiment, pointless and unwanted. Today though, she has come to comfort Konoha of her own accord. Today, she was listening to her friend.
Her brow furrows. Often sadness takes its time to reach her: it's always easier to be angry, to feel nothing. Right now it lurks in the impassive flatness of her tone as she responds.]
For a moment, Konoha doesn't know which one she should say. This feels so important, it feels like if she says it wrong she might ruin things forever, and that's a heavy burden when you cared as much as she did about the result. About making it clear to A2 that she deserved so much more than what she thought she did.]
Everyone deserves a name...
[But it isn't just that, and her expressions twists somewhat painfully, so anxious to get across her meaning in a way that might resonate, that A2 might believe, that she almost seems on the verge of tears.]
Even if you hadn't been so kind to me, or helped people in this group... But you have, and you do. I know you said you're an android, but. You deserve everything a human person does. Everything a jinba does.
[There's a million things she can think to say to that. That she was designed to serve. That soon, inevitably, she would leave this place and be dropped back into her ruined Earth, and either the machines would kill her or 9S would.
It was easier, when she belonged nowhere, and nothing belonged to her. Existing was easier.
She doesn't say anything for a while. Eventually though... ]
You're not the one who gets to decide that other people's love is wasted on you.
[She doesn't know what this oath is, only has the nightmares of the void to give her hints of what A2's world must be like, but.
Her fingers tighen in an anxious knot, hearts swelling fit to burst with a sudden, strong affirmation. Wasted... Konoha was the one who got to decide if her time, effort, and affection were wasted on someone.
They weren't wasted now. She's sure of it.]
And I'm sorry, but-
[Not wanting to be remembered...]
I can't forget you. Even if you don't have a name.
[For Konoha's sake, A2 wishes she could forget her. It was always the remembering, that was hardest. It settled like stones on your chest. A2 had tried to destroy herself rather than experience it for longer than she had to.
She doesn't really know what to say. She wasn't meant to know this, to hear these things, to have someone care about whether she lived or died.]
...
[She sighs.]
No matter what I say, you're gonna think that, huh.
[For a second Konoha fears an argument, fears the rejection of what to her is simply the truth...
But in the end, A2’s answer has her visibly relieved, quickly wiping at any moisture threatening to spill from her eyes and nodding along, a smile beginning to break back upon her features. Anything less than that kind of answer... and it wouldn’t be very like A2, now would it?]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
She is not sure how to approach this.]
...
[She glances down, frowning.] ...
Do you need anything?
no subject
Konoha’s gaze drops to the floor between them, lips pursing as she swallows her instinctual answer. She needed a lot of things. Or maybe it was just “wanted a lot of things”. She wants to feel the strange, buoyant weight of the children of Akvos in her arms again. She wants to go back, to never go there in the first place. She wants to forget what she saw in that Rift. She wants to go home.
But what comes out in the end is a straw that she grasps for the purpose of just... having A2 stay, of hanging on to company in her misery.]
Can you... help me with my hooves? I have a file...
no subject
This too, is outside of her experience. But Konoha looks so diminished, and so sad, that she can't simply detach herself from it either.]
Alright. Just tell me what to do.
[A pause. She appears to debate something.] After...maybe you could, uh.
Help me with my hair. It's growing out.
no subject
[Maybe it’s stupid, to do something like that now, like this, but. Konoha seizes on it just as fiercely as one would seize a life raft, moving aside to let A2 in before she goes for her harness pouch and begins to rummage around in it. The sheets of her bed are all piled in a bundle beside the mattress, it’s easier for her to sleep standing or on the floor, and more and more keepsakes and mementos have found places in the simple room.
Like the seashell hair ornament she holds for too long in her hand before she forces herself to place it back and pluck out the metal file underneath instead.]
I didn’t have to walk in Akvos so it didn’t really bother me, but now my hooves have grown out a bit too much...
[And much like human nails... they needed a decent sanding every now and then, and simple anatomy meant that while she could reach her own back hooves... it was much easier to ask someone else.]
no subject
She notes how Konoha seems to hover over her belongings for a few moments and keeps her gaze averted. Whatever it was, it was nothing she needed to know, she's decided.
To be of some use seems to calm her; she takes the file when it's offered and holds it for a few seconds, brow furrowed. She doesn't really have a frame of reference for this, but she wants to help.]
How do I start?
no subject
[She realizes now she’s never really had to explain it before. Just like so many things she was familiar with from her world, she’s used to people just... knowing. How to farm, how to cook, how to sew. How to file hooves. But she’s had people manage to explain how to use text messaging and emoticons on the “watch” to her, so... this can’t be that hard.
And it’s something that isn’t crying.]
Here, just like with the nails on your hand, you just sort of...
[Carefully she lays warm hands on A2, never shy with personal space, particularly with other women. She moves the file and A2’s hands gently to show how to grip the file, placing it against the point of nail and miming the action of shaving off the ends, rounding it.]
Like this... Until they look about this long.
[“This long” being apparently as long as her two front hooves are if the way she lifts one already-filed hoof for inspection is any indication.]
You can sit so you won’t be uncomfortable...
[To facilitate, she places her hands on the wall of the room for balance before picking up a rear leg, proffering a long hoof at what would be about lap height for someone sitting on the bed.]
no subject
...Okay.
[She settles on the bed, feeling it sink beneath her weight, and is careful as she takes one of Konoha's hooves, moving the file the way she'd been shown.
This goes on in silence for a while. Finally though, she mutters out:]
Wanted to check up on you.
no subject
She settles softly, quietly, into the motion, careful about setting her hoof in A2's hand. Her parents used to help her file her back hooves. She remembers, eyes closing a moment, being smaller, long, spindly limbs splayed over the dirt floor of their home, burying her face in her father's side while her mother carefully filed away at the hooves she chipped in the rough play of children. Remembers the days before heading off to work when she'd pause at the doorframe, lean against it and chat as her father bent his aging spine to chuckle and drag the file along.
It's a calming sound. A little bit of a painful sound.
When A2's voice ripples out over it, Konoha takes a moment to respond. Longer than she thought she'd need.]
... Thank you.
[But,]
... I wanted to say something, too. About the dream place... I didn't mean to intrude.
no subject
It's fine.
[She says, after a moment. It comes out a little gruff, so she amends, after a pause.] Not like you did it on purpose.
[a longer pause.]
Sorry if it scared you.
no subject
[She’s heard a little from A2 about her world, of course, saw that vision from Pod of the robots, but. Seeing it for herself was a different matter. But more than that...]
It just... I felt sorry, when I thought you were dead, that I hadn’t helped you pick a name and it was just “A2”-
[Her soft murmur trails off, staring down at her hands, wringing together... until she straightens up with a snap and somewhat frantically looks over her shoulder, quick to try and correct a potentially disastrous turn of phrase.]
I mean- I was mostly sorry cause I thought you were dead, of course- !
no subject
She seems conflicted, rather than upset, which is something, at least.]
Hm.
It's alright. I don't need another name. You don't have to be sad.
no subject
[Though Konoha hesitates a moment, wondering if she's pushing things or being too nosy, but in the end... her hoof twitches a bit in A2's lap, and she says it anyway.]
I guess no one needs a name, but.
[She has trouble imagining someone not wanting one.]
I know it's not my place, sorry. It just seemed- I don't know. If I was in trouble and my friend was calling for me... I'd want them to call "Konoha", not "jinba".
i lost this...i'm so sorry
She considers her answer. Nothing seems sufficient, but this time she is honest.]
I've never thought I deserved one.
[It's said without much inflection. She pauses, then resumes her work.]
R U THO
And when she does... Konoha waits just a moment, just to let the words settle but not long enough to imply any sort of doubt.]
... You do deserve one.
[Even if it's not her opinion that matters. Even if A2 didn't believe it.
She's being honest, too.]
i am!
Her brow furrows. Often sadness takes its time to reach her: it's always easier to be angry, to feel nothing. Right now it lurks in the impassive flatness of her tone as she responds.]
Why do you think that?
no subject
For a moment, Konoha doesn't know which one she should say. This feels so important, it feels like if she says it wrong she might ruin things forever, and that's a heavy burden when you cared as much as she did about the result. About making it clear to A2 that she deserved so much more than what she thought she did.]
Everyone deserves a name...
[But it isn't just that, and her expressions twists somewhat painfully, so anxious to get across her meaning in a way that might resonate, that A2 might believe, that she almost seems on the verge of tears.]
Even if you hadn't been so kind to me, or helped people in this group... But you have, and you do. I know you said you're an android, but. You deserve everything a human person does. Everything a jinba does.
no subject
It was easier, when she belonged nowhere, and nothing belonged to her. Existing was easier.
She doesn't say anything for a while. Eventually though... ]
It's wasted on me.
[She was afraid.]
When I get back home, I'll fulfill my oath.
[She doesn't want to say what it is.]
When you have a name...
You're remembered.
But I don't want to be remembered.
no subject
[She doesn't know what this oath is, only has the nightmares of the void to give her hints of what A2's world must be like, but.
Her fingers tighen in an anxious knot, hearts swelling fit to burst with a sudden, strong affirmation. Wasted... Konoha was the one who got to decide if her time, effort, and affection were wasted on someone.
They weren't wasted now. She's sure of it.]
And I'm sorry, but-
[Not wanting to be remembered...]
I can't forget you. Even if you don't have a name.
no subject
She doesn't really know what to say. She wasn't meant to know this, to hear these things, to have someone care about whether she lived or died.]
...
[She sighs.]
No matter what I say, you're gonna think that, huh.
[It's a concession, not an argument.]
no subject
But in the end, A2’s answer has her visibly relieved, quickly wiping at any moisture threatening to spill from her eyes and nodding along, a smile beginning to break back upon her features. Anything less than that kind of answer... and it wouldn’t be very like A2, now would it?]
Yeah. ‘Cause that’s what friends do.