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Hana’s knee bounced up and down, her back slumped deep into the sofa she was sitting on. Her sight drifted across the corners of her eyes, looking around the foreign living room she was forced to be in while avoiding the huge, menacing omnic right across from her sitting on his own couch. The noise of harsh snow pattering against the roof was barely audible over the crackling of the fireplace and the scent of hot chocolate pranced throughout the cabin, all forming the perfect cozy snow day vibe, but given the situation, she’d wish to be literally anywhere else.
On a table next to her, a mirror reflected her image. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into two low pigtails while the fluff from her santa hat was messing up her side swept bangs. There was more fluff at the top of the santa-themed dress she was told to wear, and she looked down to see the fluff also tracing the hem of the skirt. As her knee kept bobbing, her long, black sock fell lower and lower; she had to hold back a scoff. Was this supposed to be friendly? Inviting? Was she supposed to represent all of humankind like this? Was everything she fought for reduced to a couple of cute pigtails and a fluffy, short dress? Was she supposed to put on an act for him? For—
“Ahem.”
Finally, Hana’s gaze directed to the omnic before they narrowed.
“You don’t have a throat to clear.”
“I was trying to catch your attention.”
Once again, she held back a scoff. Whether she liked it or not, she had to put on the act. People's lives relied on what she did that night, there was no room to be risky.
“You have it now. What?”
“This is supposed to be a friendly human-omnic meeting, is it not? I doubt you treat other humans this way, Mrs. Song.”
Hana's eyebrow furrowed at the proper name. “I'm a miss, not misses, Mr. Ramattra. I'm only twenty-six! Are you calling me old?” she accused, though she really didn’t care. From her outfit, anyone could tell she's still young. Or at least treated that way.
Ramattra shook his head, the whirs of his robotic head turning making Hana’s teeth grit. It wasn’t like she was… robophobic. Bastion and Echo were very, very sweet and she never thought negatively of them for being robots, but it was so much easier to put someone's individuality against someone you hate, and while she hated to admit it, that applied to Hana, too.
“Are all humans this shallow?” he asked in disbelief. “Obviously, I was trying to be respectful. I wasn’t wrong to assume you have a partner, was I?”
“No.” Hana finally let out the long awaited scoff and if it was even possible, sank deeper into the cushions. “I just thought that maybe since you picked to see me, you would’ve done some research on me or something.”
She eyed him up and down, taking in his cleaner-than-usual chassis. It was probably the lack of fights he’d been partaking in and she’d also heard about criminal groups like the Phreaks that consisted of both humans and omnics who helped Ravagers get new bodies, so there must be groups helping to clean them, too.
Were they really criminal groups, though? Hana didn’t think so. Yeah, it was against the law, but it was morally right for omnics to have the same rights as humans. After Aurora made the sacrifice to give up herself so all omnics could gain sentience, omnics had the same intellect as humans. So although they weren’t organic, they were alive. But not everyone shared the same thoughts as her. Her friend Brigitte also believed in omnic rights, but her father, Torbjörn, disagreed. It made holiday dinners with them very interesting.
“Then that would defeat the purpose of this meeting. This summit is supposed to prove that humankind and omnickind can get along. What good would it do if I had learned everything about you beforehand? No, I’d like to learn about you from a face-to-face discussion,” Ramattra explained. “You do know how important this is, don’t you Ms. Song? This is no time for your petty hatred against omnics.”
Hana sat up immediately, her santa hat almost flying off as she yelled, “Petty hatred? Is that what you’re calling this? My friends—” her voice shook and she took a deep breath in. “I watched my friends die because of omnics. Your liberation group killed sooooooo many people, and this is just petty hatred?!
Ramattra’s head whirred again as it turned up to look at Hana, who rose to her feet.
“My life just started, then I was drafted to fight to protect my home! At nineteen!” Her hands moved to swipe her long-sleeved undershirt off, revealing battle scars that painted her entire arms. “I almost died so many times! And no matter where I was, even safe in my bed or in a crowded room, that horrible, dreaded feeling of impending doom would find its way back to me, curling its disgusting fingers into my back, tracing my scars and creating new ones! For years! And that’s all I knew!”
Hana’s hand held her undershirt, and it moved up just to whip it back down, striking Ramattra’s chest.
She continued, “Despite all of this, I know there are evil omnics, and the omnics trying to gain their rights to just live are not them! The Gwishin omnics were evil! Not them.” Hana threw the article of clothing onto him, running out of breath. “And you?”
A pause.
“I don’t know.”
A moment passed before Ramattra pulled the undershirt off of him, tossing it to the floor with a plop. His movements didn’t hold any anger or irritation, just understanding. …Maybe.
“What’s your biggest fear?” he asked suddenly.
“What?”
“Your biggest fear,” the omnic repeated. “During my time studying under Mondatta, he taught me that one’s biggest fear says the most about someone. I figured that if I want to understand you as best as possible, I’d need to know that.”
Hana's arms fell to hang at her sides, tired and running her fingertips through the fluff of the dress.
She muttered, “My biggest fear…”
When someone's job requires them to step on death’s door nearly everyday, it would be obvious that dying would be their biggest fear.
Nails dug into her arms, picking at the scabs.
She thought about her dead friends. Who she has now. What she does in her free time. Playing games and streaming. Winning awards. Robots. The fight for omnic rights. Being drafted to protect her home as a teenager. Being world famous. Joining Overwatch. Being a symbol of hope. The difference between being alive and living. Intellect. The monotonous flow of time. The meaning of life.
“My biggest fear is that I was wrong. About how I was supposed to live my life,” she finally answered, eyes tracing the lines between the planks of wood. “I gave up everything to protect who and what I have, yet… I could’ve done more. I remember the days that would blend together and I just felt nothing. All I did was fight and work. Take orders. I wasn’t even a free thinker, I just followed whatever the schedule told me to do. I would still play games, but it felt like a chore. All I knew was the need to win. The world turned grey and I could rarely see the beauty in anything.”
Hana’s eyes drifted to the Christmas star tree-topper that sat at the top of a filled box of decorations for the tree, then tore them away, her hand’s grip tightening over her arm.
“Eventually, that changed. I met… someone who was so curious and astonished by everything that was around her. She would hold me and drag me to places I’ve never been. I used to dream of traveling the world but my work stopped me, I had to read ‘Mei's Adventures’ to just barely satisfy that part of me! But this girl, she made my world erupt in color!”
She paused, then moved to sit against her sofa, wrapping her arms around her legs and burying her chin into her knees.
“I saw the brightest star explode one night.”
A deep breath in.
“Right in front of me. And I became the person I was before. I spent most of my time when I wasn’t streaming or on the field fighting in the hospital. I didn’t think. I was a machine, doing the same things over and over again.” Hana paused. “Oh—” She gasped, sitting up immediately. “Was that robophobic? I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant—”
“No worries, I know insensitive terms like that are common among humans,” Ramattra interrupted with a harsh tone, though it held tenderness. “Please continue.”
The back of Hana’s ears burned, but she opened her pursed lips to finish her rant of bottled up emotions.
“But yeah, I just… it should’ve been me.” Her nails picked a scab off. “I shouldn’t even be here. I lost my spark, I lost my intellect. And that’s the scariest thing. Is that even something you can get back? So was fighting even worth it? And now that it’s over, what does that mean for me? What do I do?”
Hana grit her teeth and bit her lip, thinking it over.
“Honestly, our fights were pointless. For me and you. All this hatred spewed from everyone, humankind and omnickind, it comes naturally from us. As higher, intellectual beings, we create this pain and force suffering onto others because that’s just nature. We’re all the same when we’re stripped down to whatever we are. Everything…” she spat out, “it’s futile.”
“You’re wrong, Ms. Song.”
Ramattra stood intimidatingly on his feet, dark eyes practically burning holes into Hana, making her flush and shift uncomfortably.
“As higher intellectual beings, it’s our duty to fight for what’s right. Even if we as individuals don’t see the point, it’s not about us,” Ramattra spat out curtly. “I relate to your perception of yourself during the fighting. It’s so easy to lose yourself when all you can do is the same repetitive actions, it drives you cynical. But there is more to life than mourning what’s lost or what could’ve been.”
Hana eased up, watching as Ramattra’s hand covered where his heart would’ve been if he were human, his soul on fire.
“My experiences as an omnic, they made me discern that I need to hold my head up and make the most of what I was blessed to be given. Life is imperative, yet so fragile and so short. That’s why getting up each day and fighting for what’s righteous is so crucial. Even if you cannot make the most of life as you want, you can make the most of life by helping someone else achieve what you can’t.”
As he finished his speech, silence filled the room as the two beings held intense eye contact, though there was no hostility left. There was only consolation.
“Well…” Hana finally spoke through the thuds of her heels picking her off the floor. “I’d say that was a productive meeting! I guess I can call Overwatch to come pick me up now!”
“Wait,” Ramattra grabbed Hana’s hand before she could walk away. “I want to spend more time with you.”
“What?” Hana blurted out. “I mean, why? What else is there to talk about? Do you not understand humans any better, or whatever?”
“No, I do. I understand that this is just part of our peace treaty, but I want to understand you better, Ms. Song. Not just to prove that humankind and omnickind can get along, not because we have to, but because you’ve always intrigued me and I want to spend the beginning of this new world with you. No strings attached,” Ramattra declared from his soul. “You say you’ve lost your spark, but I can see it and I want you to see it as well. So please, let me guide you.”
The nibbling cold and uncomfortable dress no longer mattered to her. The fire was warm, clean, and crisp, and the lights were bright and glowing, but that didn’t matter to her either. His metal face illuminated and his eyes were ablaze with an unseen passion, making Hana’s stomach twirl and mouth fall open then close, at a complete loss of words.
“Don’t…” Hana muttered, the fingers he held wiggling.
Ramattra hummed in question. If he could raise an eyebrow, he would.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
Her face burned red and she pulled her hand away, using it to rub her goosebumps.
“I am sorry, Ms. Song. I apologize if my larger form intimidated you,” he said regretfully, taking steps back.
Hana refused to look back up to him, a rare feeling taking over her. “It’s fine. No, yeah, let’s go… do something! Maybe Overwatch left us an activity to do so we could bond or something.”
As she turned her head to look around the cabin, Ramattra returned with a blanket and wrapped it around her shivering shoulders.
“I found this in the basket next to the unornamented Christmas tree,” he explained. “Would you like to decorate it?”
With a nod and enthusiastic smile, she exclaimed, “Sure! Be careful, though, since I’ll be putting up most of them!”
For the next hour or so, the pair worked together to dress the synthetic tree. What was once dark and gloomy turned bright and bedazzled. The ornaments glimmered in the dim, sparkling lights, each trinket adding a special flare to the shrub.
“You know what this tree’s missing?” Hana grinned. “The star! That’s the most important part!”
She grabbed the tree-topper out of the box and offered it to Ramattra with an open palm.
“I can’t reach that high, you can put it up,” she spoke warmly.
Ramattra looked down to the star, contemplating, before his arms moved and wrapped around Hana’s waist, effortlessly picking her up. Her feet kicked and the blanket bunched around her waist, slipping off her shoulders.
“Hey—!” she yelled, instinctively trying to pry herself out of his grasp by using her hands and heels to try to hit him.
“You’re mistaken.” Ramattra tried to explain himself. “I am elevating you so you can situate the star.”
Hana paused, and grasped the star tighter, looking up to the top of the tree. A tender gaze upon the crown, then she softly placed the tree topper on the high branch, arranging it to sit steadily. Ramattra gently dropped her back down on the floor, before turning to the shimmering star, admiring its beauty.
“It looks good, yeah?” Hana said.
“Indeed, it’s stunning.” Ramattra commended.
She turned to him, her hair sliding off her exposed shoulders, and asked, “Do you want to watch the real stars? We’re in a cabin far from the rest of the city, I’m sure they’re visible from here.”
The omnic nodded immediately, barely giving it a thought. “It would be an honor.”
Speckles of mini suns filled the dark, midnight sky, each one casting their own mesmerizing glow. Leaning against the back porch’s fence, Hana readjusted the thick blanket wrapped around her form, protecting her from the sharp bite of the cold. Her rosy face and dark chocolate hair was dusted with dozens of unique snowflakes and she blinked them out of her luscious lashes. Ramattra stood next to her, immune to the frosty snow. Together, the two of them stargazed, a bitter melancholy fell over them, though comforted by each other's presence.
Hana shook from the frost, gripping the blanket tighter when a large scarf was wrapped around her shoulders. She sniffed and looked at him, who was nonchalantly staring into the sky and she held back another scoff. This time, a scoff of admiration.
“My brother and I, we used to sit up counting stars together, wondering how many other omnics were doing the same,” he sighed, filled with nostalgia.
Hana frowned, nodding in empathy. “Me and my old friend too, we used to do the same, but instead wondering if her people were safe and counting stars, too, before they got saved.”
She slipped her hand through the opening of her blanket and took his.
“But neither of us have to do that anymore. It’s all over.”
Ramattra’s head turned to her with another whir, which Hana was growing more fond of.
Their eyes met with a spark and they moved closer to each other, their arms resting on each other’s before they turned back to the sparkling welkin. A star shot across the sky, bright and beautiful, like nothing could stop it. And nothing could.