Work Text:
Damage control -- reprogramming -- required a certain finesse that only her real presence could achieve. Her puppet’s mind carved its own unflinching path through history. The weight of her will, like stone, ground detail into dust beneath its tread; only so many decisions could be made when every circuit inside her head had existed in a single unchanging state since the dawn of her consciousness.
Ei settled into the Raiden Shogun. She exhaled, wondering if it’d been inefficient of her to build this body with the ability to breathe. The facsimile of life no longer held value for her, but her chest continued to rise and fall erratically. She was unpracticed.
Her gaze lowered. “Miko.”
“Good morning, Ei,” Miko greeted. In that moment, the sun broke past the thin ribbon of horizon out in the distant ocean, as though Miko’s acknowledgement of the passing of time was enough to set it in motion. The Raiden Shogun’s eyes cataloged the new visual stimulus and filed it away. It had been prudent of her not to include extreme photosensitivity in the puppet’s functions. “You’ve been out here all night. She was unresponsive.”
“I was attempting…” Ei allowed the puppet’s head to turn to the side. “…modifications.”
Weak dawnlight shone through the thick curtain of Miko’s hair. She had not yet put it up for the day. Ei felt rather than heard or saw her legs shift underneath the low table they sat at, and wondered if Miko was physically uncomfortable. Joint pain had also not made it into the list of human traits deemed necessary to appearing lifelike; murky lay the memory of stiff knees, ankles that protested when she stood too quicky.
“Have you been here with me?” Ei said. “This whole night?”
Miko’s eyes softened, and she shook her head. “Just most of it.”
They sat in silence, and the sun climbed in the sky. Ei watched its ascent with unblinking eyes and did her best not to notice when noon came and all she had accomplished was wondering whether she would have to modify the Shogun’s hardware in order to make this easier.
In Euthymia, it was simple. In this shell, her processing speed and ability to parse emotion were stunted from long stretches of disuse.
“I believe it’s time for lunch,” Miko announced, instead of pointlessly asking whether Ei was hungry. That was something else to think about. Miko seemed to value sharing meals with Ei. “I skipped breakfast for you; it’s fair to conclude that you’ll be treating me.”
Ei turned it over in the puppet’s mind. Yes; it was fair. Not moral -- needing no judgement call, brokering no consequence -- but fair. She could not brute-force this. She could only struggle slowly, laboriously, as she attempted to change what would not be changed.
“All right,” Ei agreed. “Where shall we go?”