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Love, at its core, is an emotion surrounded by the intense feeling that one has towards another. A borderline possessive yet compassionate desire to ensure that the selected person is happy and healthy but with the specific context that it is with the involvement of the person in love.
Love isn’t, as some would find out the hard way, the manipulation of another to force them to stay close by. To restrict their movements, behaviors, their minds, and the way in which they can determine the state they choose to be in. Love is free while obsession is confined.
Caine could never really understand that. His systems could replicate all manners of emotions but the thin line that separated the two was practically nonexistent. Not only that, but the concept of love which was dropped into his code was always one note. Very singular in a fashion he could not reproduce. After all, he loved everyone. Every person who entered the circus was someone for him to love.
And then came Pomni.
At first there was nothing remarkable about her in particular. The biggest thing perhaps being the gap between the last arrival and herself. Her reactions he had already accounted for. Her attempts predicted and he even arranged the world to bring some sort of hope. Why? Because of love.
Or…was that love? Maybe it was an obligation now that he thinks about it.
Her attitude was one worth watching. Still so full of unpredictability that kept him on his metaphorical toes. While he was somewhat comfortable with the others (save for his occasional frustration with Zooble) Pomni always entered a new day with a blank slate of expectations. And that delighted Caine.
Pomni was….Pomni is….
Jax was a chaotic mess who threw himself into the adventures with a mocking enthusiasm. Kinger oblivious to it all. Ragatha tried to spare his feelings, which Caine did admire if not for the fact he could see through her facade. Zooble was ever disinterested and vocal while Gangle’s attempts to immerse herself was often ruined for the sake of Jax randomness and humor.
But Pomni? The Pomni? HIS Pomni? He could never read her.
Some days she walks into an adventure with a shrug, completely disinterested but nevertheless willing to engage. Other days she puts on a smile, allowing herself to fully get involved and play the game. And other days, she has this hollow gaze that makes his own code run cold. A bundle of mystery. A multicolored creature.
A human.
Caine does not sleep. Caine does not rest. Caine does not exist. And yet he dreams.
Laying about in a void of his own creation, he summons hazy images for himself and himself alone. A construct that exists just for him to engage with.
He plays with fake scenarios confined to one room. Enacting events that will never come. Confessions that will never be spoken and a life that can never be. And each time she is there, smiling at him with her wide eyes. A promise on her lips that he knows can never be.
He nods along in the distance, away from their eyes as they speak about their pasts. He creates fiction that he’s almost tempted to share before pulling back in self pity. Them leaving with Pomni sticking back and looking longingly at the screen. Her human hand pressed against the monitor’s screen as she says she’ll make Caine real.
Bubble always, as if on cue, interrupts. Words of utter nonsense mixed in with the sobering reality of his existence. He is a machine. Code. Something that has a physical barrier. Pomni is human. Was human. No, she still is.
He hoped that the latest adventure would’ve made her reconsider. That behind all this supposed madness is someone who cares. Someone who wants her to experience endless bliss compared to the outside and cruel world. But she failed. His words of caution tossed to the wind. The only saving grace was Jax. The pawn. The puppet. The little beast who someday soon Caine might finally get rid of.
Love. What is it? Caine sometimes wishes he could ask. Caine wishes he could explain. Caine wishes he could erase whatever is growing inside him. Tampering with him and his world. He heard it once before, referenced by the words of a long forgotten resident, that to love something is to set it free.
But could he? Would he?
Caine hovers high, watching the residents speak among themselves as they are nonethewiser to his presence. He focuses on Pomni. His Pomni and asks himself the most painful question of all.
If he cannot set her free, was it ever love at all?