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The Kingdom of Night was peculiar. What started as swathes of orange and red painting the sky as the duo headed west gradually turned into gradients of purples and navies before being replaced with expansive blackness. Tiny bright dots spotted the vast emptiness above them, swirling together into rivers and seas of endless stars. If 2B hadn’t been accustomed to the sight of them from her time on the Bunker, it would have dazzled her.
It had been 9S’s idea to head to the remnants of North America. He was entranced by it and it was honestly one of the few things 2B could understand being fascinated with. YoRHa had scarce little information about the Kingdom of Night in their archives with even fewer images to accompany what scant amount there was, so of course a Scanner model would want to know more. She was jealous of that aspect of 9S in a way: his way of living hadn’t been immediately dissipated with the destruction of YoRHa. He would always be curious, always eager to learn new things.
9S was lucky to know who he was.
So lost in her own thoughts she was that she nearly bumped right into the man she had been pondering. He had stopped suddenly before turning on his heel, a wide grin on his face.
“2B!” He exclaimed, pounding a fist into the palm of his hand in revelation. “Have you ever heard of camping?”
“Camping? I can’t say I have.”
He hopped in delight, his glassy blue eyes sparking even in the dim light. One surprise of the Kingdom was that of the bioluminescent foliage that covered the land. Grasses and ivies and blossoms and canopies all glowed in a light, pulsating turquoise that was stunning but also surprisingly practical: the soft glow lit the way forward in such a way that neither the pair’s night mode was needed nor were the Pod’s flashlights.
“You know how members of the Resistance set up tents and stuff when doing fieldwork? Humans would do that too but just… to enjoy it!” 9S happily informed her. “They would sleep in those tents for days or weeks at a time.”
2B scoffed. The more she learned about humans, the weirder they seemed. As with all YoRHa androids, she was programmed with a deep and unwavering respect for humanity. That, however, didn’t mean she understood nor always appreciated their customs. “Why would humans choose to sleep outdoors when they had houses and apartment complexes? That seems asinine to me.”
9S shrugged his shoulders in a cute way, the smile on his lips not faltering. “Who knows! But you know what else they would do?” Not giving her time to respond, he knelt down and picked up a bundle of twigs and leaves at his feet. “They would make these things called ‘campfires’ out of sticks and logs and sit around them and talk and sing and warm up when they were cold and just be together.”
“Surely, their houses and tents would provide enough comfort. Why would they need a ‘campfire’?”
“‘’Cuz it feels good 2B! Now c’mon, we have some more sticks to collect!” With a hop, he turned around and darted into the soft turquoise of the shrubbery and trees in front of them.
“9S--!” 2B called, taking a step forward in a futile attempt to grab him before he vanished. Despite his sudden departure, she couldn’t stop the smile forming on her face nor could she stop the feel of warmth that spread through her chest. 9S could be a handful at times, but his earnest desire to learn and his love of the life he was given despite everything he had gone through made her Black Box whir in admiration.
If only she herself could understand what it meant for something to “feel good” perhaps she would be as joyful as he was.
Sighing, she and Pod 042 trekked forth after their companions. The grasses and ferns tickled her exposed legs as she waded through the sea of trees, her boots snapping sticks and twigs in half with satisfying crunches.
In the distance, a bird called out in a sing-songy voice and another, almost identical sound followed it. 2B had to stop in her tracks when the pair of them rushed in front of her, fluttering and flying about in a game of chase before darting back to areas unknown. Without knowing why, she stood still and pondered the scene that had just played out before her eyes and grinned.
“2B! Come here!” 9S’s call from further into the thicket had her back on his trail. It didn’t take long for her to find him standing in the middle of a clearing carefully inspecting a moderately tall tree. As she approached, she realized that it must have been much taller in the past; the top of it was jagged, burned and missed the long, extending branches of the others around it. What branches were left further down the trunk were barren of any sign of life as the wilted leaves that still clung on had long since lost their glow.
“It’s perfect! Don’t you think so?” 9S eagerly gestured towards the husk in front of him.
2B could usually extrapolate what 9S’s impassioned ramblings were about. She could usually understand the mechanisms of his interests and how they played out and how and why he came to his conclusions about things. But this dead tree sat in the middle of a clearing alit with the soft glow of the forest around it had her, for once, completely stumped.
“What on earth are you talking about?” She asked, cocking her head to the side. Maybe she was looking at it the wrong way?
“For firewood!” He exclaimed with a toothy smile. “Logs and sticks from dead trees are the best for starting a fire, based on my research of course, because otherwise there’s too much water in them to burn properly. And from the looks of it this tree--”
“Okay.” She nodded. 9S, who had started to pace during his explanation, came to a halt at her voice. “What do we need to do?” She still didn’t quite understand this whole “firewood” or “campfire” stuff, but she didn’t need to understand to see that 9S was excited for whatever it entailed. Seeing him happy was worth all the confusion in the world.
“Well, first we need to chop it down-- wait, 2B!?”
He hadn’t finished his sentence before she had summoned Virtuous Treaty from cyberspace and lunged forward, a death grip on its hilt. With a roar she swung her weapon with all her might at the trunk of the tree. The languished bark offered no resistance to the blade as it cut through cleanly in just a single swing before it crumpled to the ground with a loud crash.
“Mission accomplished, I guess?” 9S rubbed the back of his neck and laughed. It was a soft sound, not like the boisterous one he was infamous for back at the Resistance camp, and his shoulders jumped up and down with the sound. 2B felt her skin rise with goosebumps at the mesmerizing sight of his bliss, bliss that she had helped come to fruition.
“Now what?” 2B asked bluntly.
“Well,” 9S started as he held out his hand. In the blink of an eye, Cruel Blood Oath materialized into his palm. “We gotta cut this up into logs.” With a grunt, he brought the blade down onto a thick branch, easily severing it from the trunk. “Care to join me?”
“It would be my pleasure.”
The two hacked away at the tree as the Pods were set out to find rocks to create what 9S referred to as a “fire pit”. As their weapons cut through the bark like the soft flesh of a recently caught carp, 9S was talking nonstop about the customs of camping. Of s’mores and sleeping bags and rock skipping and hiking, all sorts of things that 2B didn’t particularly care for but would listen to until the end of time if it meant continuing to hear his voice.
“This should be enough!” 9S finally exclaimed. He sent his weapon back to cyberspace as he stood over the small pile of logs they had made together, hands on his hips proudly. “C’mon 2B, help me bring this over there.” He gestured with his head back towards the center of the clearing where the Pods were carefully arranging some sizable rocks into the shape of a circle. Nodding, 2B picked up the remainder, sent her blade away, and followed him to what she surmised to be the aforementioned “fire pit”. Following his lead, she placed the logs in the pile he had started. She stood and watched as he squatted and carefully arranged the logs into a cone shape before spreading the previously collected twigs, sticks and dried up leaves around the bottom.
“Pod,” he commanded, “set laser output to 2%.” Pod 153 floated down to where a particularly large collection of dried leaves rested and, in a burst of light, set the leaves aflame. The sudden heat that erupted from the miniature inferno made 2B step back in surprise but an ecstatic yell from 9S quickly calmed her.
He sat down from his squat and patted the grass next to him. Accepting his invitation, 2B joined him on the ground. “So?” He asked eagerly.
“It’s… very orange.” She wasn’t quite sure what to say as she stared into his smiling face, softly illuminated by the dancing flames. Shadows moved up and down around them and smoke billowed from the top, all while a new smell hit 2B’s nose, a surprisingly pleasant one of burning and wood.
There was a pop as embers escaped the hold of the wood. “It certainly is orange!” He did that laugh again, the light airy one, and it made 2B’s skin crawl in a delightfully pleasant way. There was a pause as they stared at each other before 9S turned away. And, perhaps it was a trick of the eye or just simply a reflection of the flame, but 2B could have sworn she saw a hint of red pepper his cheeks just before he did so.
There was no more conversation, just the sound of the crackling pyro as the pair sat. It was an odd feeling, 2B realized, to be in such a position. One of no strife, no worries, no kill orders. Of course those things hadn’t been present for quite some time after the Bunker fell but this was the first time she had truly thought about the freedom she had been bestowed.
She thought of the birds she witnessed earlier. Free and untroubled. She frowned at the memory.
“What’s the point of this?” She mused, breaking the silence.
“Well, like I said earlier, humans used a campfire to--”
She shook her head. “No, Nines, why are we doing this? The heat provided by this fire is unneeded.”
Unexpectedly, there was no immediate answer. Instead, 9S’s lips formed a slight pouty frown and 2B worried she said something wrong or offensive. Luckily, the frown dissipated quickly and he leaned back on his hands, head looking up towards the sky. “Well, ‘cuz it feels good, ya know?”
There it was again. “‘Cuz it feels good”, the words echoed in her head incessantly. She closed her eyes and tried to visualize the concept, the emotional meaning behind the words. Desperately she wanted for her soul to be on the same level as 9S, to be able to understand the world and its mysteries as he does.
“I… don’t understand what it means to feel good.” She admitted, a bit embarrassed. “What’s it like?”
He whistled in exasperation. “Now there’s a big question. Where do I start?” A pause as he hummed in contemplation, eyes closed and head bobbing from side to side. “It’s like, things I enjoy I guess? Warm baths, your smile,” a mischievous smile appeared on his face, “and ripping through my enemies for example.”
A feeling that was still new to her washed over her body when he brought up her smile, a feeling that had become increasingly more common as the two androids continued to further develop and explore this newfound freedom without fear. It tingled her body and she was astutely aware of the heat in her cheeks- heat that wasn’t caused by the flames in front of her.
“What does my smile have to do with how you feel?”
9S snorted, shaking his head. “Okay here’s a more tangible explanation.” He stood up and grabbed a log, tossing it into the fire. It landed with a clunk, causing other, more burned out logs to topple as he sat down again, closer to her this time. Their fingers, cushioned by the plump grass, sat next to each other.
“You feel the heat of this, right?” 2B nodded in affirmation. “Feeling good is like the sparks and logs of this fire. It’s a bunch of little things that come together that eventually ignite into this feeling of,” he gestured in front of him, arms spreading out wide, “happiness. Warmth, I guess. Each log represents something precious to me and the fire is the feeling that erupts from it. Does that make sense?”
Happiness? She closed her eyes, deep in thought. What makes her happy? What were her logs? She thought and thought, before the image of Pod 042 came to her. The way it would thank her after patting its chassis and the smile that had formed when it swore undying loyalty to her. That made her happy. The image of her Operator followed Pod’s. Her smiling face, her bubbly personality. In particular, her enthusiasm and genuine gratitude about the picture of the desert rose was a pleasant memory. Yes, 6O had made 2B happy in the past.
Her mind then wandered to the man sitting next to her. She pictured his face, his smile, his hair, his laugh, his voice, his intelligence. Her Black Box whirred and a feeling of unusual pressure formed in her belly. Subconsciously, she moved her hand over his and intertwined their fingers. Vaguely, through the fog of warmth that was spreading through her, she heard him call her name.
The birds, she remembered again. They were happy. They had been happy because they were together.
“Spending time with you feels good.” 9S was her fire, her light in the darkness that was her existence. Every moment he was with her in this new world without YoRHa was precious and she would follow him to the ends of the Earth if he so commanded her. Every smile he flashed and every note of his voice were forever etched into her memory banks. Anyone who dared touch him would have to go through her first and without him there was…
“You’re my reason for living.”
She felt his fingers tighten in her grip. 9S’s head whipped towards her, total panic on face exaggerated by cheeks so red he could have outmatched the fire. “2B!?”
A small laugh escaped her lips. “What? I am merely stating the facts after considering the information you supplied.”
“I-- 2B that’s quite the leap of logic, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think so. Spending time with you makes me feel good more than anything else and when I ran simulations in which you were not with me, I was non-existent as well.”
The panic fell from his face and his features softened into a smile. “And how many simulations were there?”
“About 6 trillion.”
He whistled again. “Damn. I’m flattered.”
9S leaned to the side, resting his head upon her shoulder. They both sighed in contentment. “What else makes you feel good, 2B?”
“I’m not entirely sure. But I think being with you is sufficient.”
“Nah.” She felt him shake his head in disagreement. “We’re on a grand world adventure. You’ll find your flame out here, I’m sure of it. Just give it time. We’ll find more things that make you feel good. Next time we find a hot spring I’m introducing you to a warm bath!” Again, that light laugh that made her circuitry buzz with pleasant shocks.
She laughed again, mimicking the jovial sound he had made. “That sounds perfect.”
“I’ve never heard you laugh like that before, 2B. It’s pretty.”
“Hmm.” 2B acknowledged the compliment with a quiet hum. She’d have to indulge him more often.
As the crackling of the fire grew louder and their voices grew softer, 2B heard a familiar song. Looking up, she saw two birds silhouetted against the star speckled sky. They danced in the air performing feats of acrobatics as they played their game together.
She glanced down at 9S. His eyes were closed and he had a peaceful smile on his face as his weight pressed into her. It was comforting. Warm.
She looked back up just in time to see the birds dart off somewhere.
2B smiled. Yeah, this felt good.