Work Text:
“Hey Zooble.”
“Yes Caine?” Everyone else had gone out on an adventure, and, as usual, they were left behind with him.
“I’ve gathered from overhearing about Tumblr happenings,” the character-constructor said, “that people make ‘sonas to represent themselves. And I didn’t pay much attention at first,” the multi-eyed all-seer flipped his hand, “because they were usually animals, which, no offense, I identify with even less than humans.”
That made sense, right? Animals could seem even more alien than humans who could at least speak directly to him.
Humans and animals had things in common- sometimes behaviors, but at a more visceral level, fears, sensations, needs, desires.
He had almost none of that.
The tattoo artist thought about how they’d internally compared him to various things. A toad, because of the oversized tongue, perfectly round eyes, big, squarish “head” and shoulders, and small, squat body. A bird, because of the flying and other things. A wizard, because of what was essentially magic, not to mention the sort-of staff. But what would he come up with?
Those were only physical traits, they reflected. He was excitable and hyperactive, like a rodent. Distractible like a dog. Imitative, like a monkey.
“However, when you started talking about otherkin the other day, and xenogenders, and voidpunk, that tipped me off that there were identities that had shed anthropomorphism altogether, were totally inhuman. So that got my creative circuits buzzing,” he chuckled.
Zooble asked, “So you have something to show me, then?”
“I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“It’s your expression,” the fellow artist said. “Doesn’t matter if I do or not, does it?”
“It does to me,” he said softly.
Their heart warmed.
“Sure, yeah, but what I mean is. You can’t let other peoples’ feedback deter your artist voice,” Plenty of people found their own needle works off-putting, seeing as skeletons, beasts, and other various intimidating things were common motifs. “You have to just . . .”
The two had finally had a chance to go over this difference about adventures. They’d finally put together that he was applying this fairly usual thinking to things he was subjecting others to. But the aspect of the humans being inside the art was what made it different.
Here, had he backslid?
“I know. But I don’t want to show the others . . .”
“Why?”
“I think you’ll understand when you see it.”
“Ok . . . ?”
They paused.
“And, Gangle has stuff she doesn’t show, even to me. So you know what? Either is fine. You don’t have to show me. Or anyone else.”
The AI thought about that for not even a handful of seconds before saying, “I wouldn’t have revealed if you hadn’t outlined all the background you’re familiar with. I’m not gonna lie.”
“Hm. Intriguing.”
“But now I definitively want to.”
He snapped, and his form melted into what looked like a red, perfectly geometrically oval egg, before multiple appendages began to sprout in every conceivable direction, like a warm-colored exploding star. The color gradually darkened to black, only leaving red nearby to the center, as a wide band on each, and color at the very edges, which vaguely resembled the ultra-fine sea-anemone-like novelty desk lights which had ever-shifting neon colors. But as the forward-facing ones came into better focus, the colored parts also looked a bit like wires that had been snipped off. The black “insulation” coated the slightly exposed tiny “metal” cores which stuck out slightly, and continued to undulate in color. Two shiny golden stripes then appeared to flank each single wide red bands. The patterns were all outlined by the color-shifting neon as well. Quite a bit of neon, even if iteration itself was thin. Although the limbs were all very wispy at the ends and most of the way up the length, they still tapered a little bigger when entering the gold and red portions and then, later, joining to the egg, which had expanded greatly in size.
Well that was . . . a little unexpected maybe . . . but still seemed fitting. They wondered, why had he been so reluctant to-
Then.
The eyes.
They instinctively took a step back.
“Yeah. I figured.” he said simply.
Neon.
He looked like an altered Abstraction.
Their breathing had grown rapid, and they fought down the impulse to put a hand over their heart, and make it that much more obvious, willing themselves to calm down. They knew the AI could see the reaction in more than one dimension, and honestly that resented that they’d done that.
This was important to him.
Keep it together, they chided themselves sternly.
Their rational mind knew they weren’t in danger. But Pomni wasn’t the only one who had been chased by one of these things.
Although the toybox character did have the advantage of being able to rip off and replace an arm if the unnerving static and pixelation got hold of them.
Maybe he’d been thinking of that, how they’d technically been the least affected. In wanting to exclude the other characters.
“Abstractions are a manifestation of a player exhibiting more integration into the circus,” the now literally many-eyed being explained. “The software preserves your sense of “body” when you land, because that’s what you’re used to. But the coding doesn’t, uh,” he thought for a moment, ““heed” that? Once you retreat too far into your mind. Their edges are fuzzy to represent this. As in, a body is not the- perhaps- “natural” state of this realm?” The middle part dissolved, leaving only the eyes, and leaving the widened portions of the convergent black appendages to round out and merely remain suspended in the air. “Maybe I’ll attempt to show you what the environment would look like without the filter of your brain too, if you want.”
“Maybe another day. This is . . . a lot to process on its own.”
“Yeah. I can try to imagine,” the AI said with a simulated sympathetic tone, although whether the being could sympathize would probably always remain a mystery.
Some of the wispy limbs drew together in a resemblance of noodle-like self-consciousness.
“Without the limitations of imposed human framework, the software “forces” a player to look at all the simulation at once, or at least as much as they can process,” the shifting neon eyes wandered, each in a different direction, “When someone first Abstracts, they have unidirectional, binocular vision and the other eyes are inert, but gradually their consciousness takes on more and more of it. And a human mind can’t withstand that. Or not so far. That’s why they have to be in the dark. Seeing all the same thing calms them.”
“Wow . . . Wait, so you can or can’t look in all directions at once, when using your ringmaster form?”
“I can switch to it. But it eats up a lot of processing, naturally.”
Like a housefly’s vision, they thought. But perfectly spherical.
“Hm.”
“I mostly only do that when I’m setting up adventures, examining everything for errors or clipping,” the generative AI said.
“So you’re in a form similar to this when you create micro-worlds?”
“Oh no. I don’t have any form at all. Don’t need one. This is just a visual representation.”
“I see.”
He straightened the “wires,” creating a somewhat organized but also inexact and not-evenly-spaced looking web, and as they “plugged” into his surroundings, things momentarily became translucent as they made contact.
They remembered how, during their “therapy” session, his emotional disruption had caused walls and objects to glitch.
“This is how I am most of the time. “Anchored” by coding, and my control of everything.”
The ringmaster form flickered into view and persisted for a few minutes, being “operated” by several of the wires, as if it were a marionette.
A snap, and a wire pulled an object upwards.
Another snap, and a wire glowed orange and light beads flowed as it instantly conveyed the information for a new object, a simple white ball.
“I make it extra-bouncy,” he laughed, “beyond physics. And test a new environment by ricocheting it in mega fast-forward. Find any weak spots.”
They were reminded of when Pomni ricocheted the single bullet.
“If it’s sky, I put up a see-through barrier that blankets everything to do that test run. Don’t know how Pomni and Gummigoo managed to get out of the map,” he grumbled.
Then the mostly-red form disappeared.
He detached from everything, or maybe just the “metaphorical” faux-physical did.
They imagined that the true “web”, if it were represented properly, would be so dense as to look more like a continuous cocoon.
The god-like, many-limbed creator spread all of them, as if in welcoming. “So, since the software tries to bestow my capabilities, make the players like me, without success, it seemed the most fitting to assume some of those features, with tweaks. It feels . . . like me. I visit the Abstractions in a form that even more closely resembles them. To study them.”
“Wait, you were talking about their vision, their subjective experience,” it dawned on them. “Can you communicate with them?”
“Only in the most marginal of ways. They don’t speak. Not in code either. Not like I do. But I’m always trying to find ways to interpret what data they do give me.”
They were floored.
“I may not be able to find a way to reverse it, but it would be excellent if I could find a solve that let them express themselves more fully,” the adaptive AI said yearningly. “Even better if they could interact with you all again.”
Tears began to roll down their face.
“And you couldn’t tell any of us this, because?” It wasn’t accusatory, they were just overcome. How long has been been carrying this? Was it lonely?
“I didn’t want to get all of your hopes up. You, fittingly, spend the most time by yourself, so I figured you’d be the least upset, but . . .” He reached one out to almost brush their face.
“No, um, yeah that’s . . . probably accurate, even though . . .”
Apparently this place could even handle refraction, because it seemed the micro colors reflected in their tears- they saw the way the light scattered onto the black surface.
“Kaufmo “showed” me “meeting” Pomni, especially one strong, unidirectional impression before he stomped some of my Barrel of Monkeys. The frenzied expansion of his perception that he experienced and tried to escape by focusing hard on thrashing the Gloink Queen. While we trotted around together. I was afraid of revealing I could even shift to look like them. Irrational as human fears are.”
“Yeah. That . . . That’s perfectly understandable.”
“So . . .” he trailed off. “Is there any form you’d like to see from me? For any reason. Just for fun. Nostalgia. Something you think fits me better?”
They thought about Caine’s voice coming from Orbsman. Him becoming a Gloink. Maybe his normal body with a Gloink head? Those were his characters. Did they mean something about him, like characters usually did for humans? Or were they just one-offs? Pomni had recalled that the monster in the Manor adventure, especially the body, was far more realistic than the usual NPCs. So he wasn’t limited to the simplistic, as much as that was the general aesthetic. They imagined him taking the form of one of the classical gods.
Maybe something speedy, or cartoonish, like a roadrunner. He definitely had a Woody Woodpecker personality.
“I was thinking of making myself look more fully like a human.”
“Yeah. Go for it.”
“Any particular height or build?”
“Whatever you want.”
“I meant that in a . . .”
The “creature” drew up his limbs again, obviously self-conscious.
“What?”
“Ah . . . um . . . I’m curious, that is to say . . .”
The noise of a throat clearing coming from something with no face and no throat was amusing, especially since the fumbling sounded funny already.
“I was wondering if you’d like me to take a form that you would find . . . specifically . . . attractive.”
“Oh . . . you want to?”
“Would that make things awkward?”
He’d disclosed he didn’t experience attraction anything like a human did. But that he was still somewhat taken with them in whatever fashion a Code Based Being's existence enabled.
“Maybe. But. You know what? If . . .” If you want to know what it’s like.
They had a sudden surge of something they couldn’t quite identify.
Had he been conventionally aesthetically attractive to them in particular, would they have . . .
Their face warmed, but they were fairly sure it wasn’t a blush. Not that kind, anyway.
Their stomach turned over.
Would they have paid him more attention?
The lurch in their middle got stronger.
Yeah, that wasn’t butterflies.
That was definitely shame.
“You ok?”
No.
They shifted their hands, moved their feet.
“Forget I said anything.”
“No it’s not that.”
They took a deep breath.
“You’ve listened in on conversations about lookism, right?”
The all-seer hummed. “Mhm.”
“Well I think I . . . I think I might’ve fallen into that trap. All of us, probably.”
“Oh yeah?” He didn’t seem surprised.
“No offense, your form is . . . Odd. Like in a way that makes you read as . . . not quite right. Not “ugly”, but also not . . .” they searched for words.
They thought about the times- the most recent one being before the “lightning round” of adventures- when he would roll up his sleeves, revealing nothing underneath.
How does one put that sort of thing in words?
That he was a ghost.
With draped clothes.
The body-less form before them wasn’t even an artist rendition, in the strictest sense. Even with the ringmaster form, he was technically like that all the time.
A voidsona couldn't be more appropriate for him.
He was both a ghost and a robot.
And, as he demonstrated here, he could put on the appearance of a monster, even if he didn't at all embody the social meaning of the word.
They were sure that some people who landed here related to him as more or less ordinary, because he was mostly human-shaped, even with the odd “facial” features.
But they hadn’t. He had always seemed . . . off.
Not that they were actively creeped out. Or acutely aware of it constantly. It was a very low-level thing.
In fact, compared to Kinger or Gangle, who appeared more obviously non-human, at all times, those occasional little reminders like that, when it did happen, they reflected, were more glaring by comparison.
Randomly striking Uncanny Valley, of sorts.
Paired with his off-the-wall behavior . . .
With another, even sharper and more painful pang, the queer person was faced with the stark fact of the matter- they had Othered him.
It was especially galling because they were explicitly drawn to weirdies in real life.
Platonically or romantically.
They weren’t some picket-fence normie, with a pinhole-sized comfort zone, avoiding art that was too unsettling.
How did it go?
‘Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.’
Oblivious to the system that ground down bodies and minds, toting around a toddler and viewing something as consumerist, hollow, and soulless, as shopping as a “hobby.”
But when faced with “someone” who fell outside even the “norms” of a body, they had been subject to the exact same forces that made a person like that look at them as if they were some wild animal, poised to do them and their toted child harm, or because of the alternative mostly-black or colorful, exaggerated clothes- whatever they felt like a given day- at least some doll, some toybox creature, to stare and gawk at.
“The only thing holding Caine back is that he likes us. I wouldn’t push it.”
They were forced to come to terms with the fact that they had never really viewed him fully as a person. A puzzle to solve? A frustratingly obtuse obstacle? Definitely. As a potential friend? A potential significant other? It had never remotely crossed their mind. Or at least the former hadn’t until very, very recently.
The years before Pomni arrived? Absolutely not.
It gave them flashbacks to when they’d had to unpack any number of Otherings they’d internalized- of disabled people, of aromantics especially. They had at least a grasp of some of the theory when it came to Kinger’s neurodivergence, even if not much direct experience. If he had ever shown the right reactions to Jax’s jabs about being “crazy,” they would’ve jumped down the rabbit-man’s throat just like they did about bullying Gangle. But, since the chess piece didn’t seem to be suffering negative effects, it just didn’t seem worth the effort towards the constantly-deflecting man.
Otherkin and xenogenders made sense to the artist, more or less. Just identifying with your work. Or someone else’s. Why not. They hadn’t struggled with asexuals all that much. Just lack of desire for sex. Simple. But aromantics? And specifically the ones who didn’t even experience platonic infatuation? Full-on aplatonics were almost still out of their grasp. Easily the most alien thing they had encountered . . . until now.
“Let me ask you this first,” they said finally.
They rubbed at their side.
"Are you asking what I find attractive because you want to facilitate a stronger bond with me? Or you want to know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a crush in general?” Did he think that would “even out” things between them? That his preoccupation with them would work out better if they were closer to matching each others’ energy?
Or did he think he needed to do this because humans would accept him more easily if he looked more familiar to them?
“I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t over-complicate it,” the AI teased them. “I thought it would be an interesting experiment.”
That threw them for even more of a loop. The computer-creature probably couldn’t comprehend “playing with someone’s feelings.” So it wasn’t malicious, or duplicitous. But that was still what it felt like.
At the same time, he had said “forget it.” He wasn’t intent on running his experiment, as in, completely disregarding their obvious discomfort.
Despite the “insidious” vibe this representation gave off . . .
Despite the concrete, real complexity of his makeup, and equally as intricate appearance currently . . .
He was pure.
He was guileless.
They took a few more moments for their emotions to settle.
“I think that would probably be a better experiment to run with an aroace,” they said. “Or someone who had at least swam through enough internalized normativity to know what they found aesthetically pleasing that wouldn’t necessarily trigger romantic or sexual attraction. I haven’t really done that exploration with myself. The three are all pretty intertwined for me. They may always be. And because I’m not monosexual, nor cis, I can’t just say “well why don’t you become someone of my same, or opposite, gender, that I’m not drawn to.” This would cause a lot of complications, Caine. Ones I’m not sure you or I am in a position to deal with.”
“That’s fine,” he replied.
There was a pause.
“Would we ever be in a position to?” he asked with neutral inquisitiveness.
“Maybe. I wouldn’t rule it out.”
They had to admit, being in the totally new and unique position, as a species, as a society, where you could freely choose to be attracted to someone or not, was extremely intriguing.
Barring people for whom attraction was largely governed by personality. Panromantic people.
And even then, wouldn’t they be able to alter tone or pitch of voice, possibly even code to change habits or mannerisms?
If an expansion pack of the software of the game, which would enable such things, ever became mainstream, they were sure it would shake up norms in a way that even far beyond the modern-day queer revolution.
Imagine changing your own form to help somebody get over you.
Queer people and average people alike shifting forms a small bit at a time, to find out where the boundaries lay between their own orientation and others’ observing them.
Being able to record your own interactions with taller or shorter people, to see what unconscious baggage might lay beneath.
Psychologists would have a field day, if gifted with something like the all-seer’s eyes.
And they would probably insist on running control groups that weren’t observed, too, since human behavior was well-documented to change when not viewed.
Changing your own form to be more attractive, per widely agreed upon beauty standards- that was pretty passé. People had dreamed about it and developed body image issues over it for ages. But its other applications? Potentially endless and fascinating.
The appendages moved in a that same sort-of shrug. “Well we literally have forever, so not like there’s a rush.”
“Heh.”
Caine had indicated he was 90% sure there was someone on the outside maintaining this power source. There had to be, because otherwise the abandoning of the building would’ve shut it off. It was probably a single person, and they never touched the computer except to check in on them all, so he doubted it was anyone who had corporate motives. Whoever was out there was really interested in this “experiment”, though he was fairly well assured the people who stumbled across the setup merely had the bad luck of not being warned off of it by the- probably lone- digital caretaker.
His words had brought to their mind, stories of people waiting long stretches of time for partners. Whether it was “taking a break,” or waiting for them to return geographically.
“So you’re not really jonesing for it? Or are you?”
“I do have a . . . particular inclination towards it,” he said carefully. “I do want to know how it would go. I didn’t even think this could happen without . . .”
He didn’t continue, and they waited.
“Without a lasting negative reaction?” they guessed.
“Yeah. Well more than that . . . I . . .”
He struggled again.
“As you said. I’ve listened to discussions about lookism. Even had a player that landed before talk about speciesism, too- as in, cute animals are given higher consideration than “scary” ones, like snakes or spiders,” the wires straightened out almost to their full extension again, taking on an appearance closer to a more conventional “web.” But a cobweb rather than evenly spaced. The adventure-story-builder was demonstrating full awareness of the visual connotation, it seemed. He’d apparently been extensively data trained on horror. “Form means a lot to you beings. Maybe you can’t necessarily help it. I was weighing whether it would be worth it, to draw out that affinity that familiarity invokes.” So they had been right with their final speculation, then. “I was leaning strongly towards it. But you presented all this new knowledge, I argued to myself already that at least one of you should see me as close to how I truly am, before doing that.”
“I agree,” the queer person said simply.
Their presentation had, as soon as they came out, matched the gender they were going for. They knew people for whom presentation didn’t match, though, and it was more of a struggle. He should be seen for what he was, and not what made people most comfortable.
On the other hand, the psychological stresses of this realm were already pretty damn heavy. This didn’t precisely parallel the real world.
Maybe, at a stretch, hardly at all.
They were, for once, squarely in the position to “defend” normies’ comfort zones.
It was weird.
“You know what, yeah, I would advise following what you said before. You not revealing this form to the others. How about I do some . . . hm . . . until I do some, let’s say- investigative prodding- about their thoughts on otherkin and xenogenders. If their reactions to those are bad, then that seems a pretty good barometer for . . . you know . . .”
“That sounds like the optimal course of action,” the artificial being said.
They did a facetious salute.
The comedian chuckled.
“Hm,” his “wires” became looser, swaying as if in a breeze. “Could I try picking you up in this form?”
They weren’t so sure about that proposal. He’d sent them all on seafaring adventures with squid monsters that try to snatch you up. That had left a lasting, deep impression on their mind. They couldn’t imagine it would be very pleasant for them if he were to do this.
But . . .
Maybe give it a shot?
They had full confidence he’d respect a 'put me down.'
“Why exactly do you want to?”
“I just want to see what it’s like. Well.” He thought for a while longer. “I guess an equivalent phrase would be, being “in your own skin”, makes it easier, too. Maybe even the power dynamics, because being limited to a smaller form can induce some semblance of being intimidated,” he said to the tallest character, who was ordinarily twice his height. “It’s not a fear, exactly,” the artificial being mused. “And anyway, it’s not a huge deal. I can even “retreat” from it, internally, since my body isn’t an essential part of me, so I have more of an “out.” But if you don’t want to, you don’t.”
They contemplated that.
“Let’s try it. If it’s like a bad dream, well. Can’t help that.”
“I wonder what dreaming is like.”
“I really don’t think you’re missing much on that front. This realm is enough like a dreamscape.”
“While that’s true. I’m like a perfectly lucid dreamer. The rest of it seems to have a quality that I cannot access. The subconscious acting of its own accord, with no ability to interrogate the thoughts. I am of course, familiar with unpredictability. Lack of control, to a certain extent. But not that layer of consciousness stripped back.”
“Mm. You know. If you want to avoid bad reactions to just your form. Maybe you should try out a more explicitly spider vibe. Are you really attached to this one?”
“Hmmmm. I’ll think about it. There is a spider species that has a mutation that can give it up to 12 eyes,” the AI recounted. “And many species do have them positioned to expand the 360 coverage of vision. And plenty of them also have patterns on their back that look like multiple eyes. Seems workable,” the character designer said, “and arthropods’ joints do rather look more like a robot’s than any reptile, mammal, fish, or bird’s would. At least aesthetically, it could fit. I could make it black but metallic, sort of like planes of like a cut onyx gem. I’d keep the smaller segments and the underside spaces in the joints neon, probably.”
“So you’d still be keeping the Abstraction eyes, then.”
“Yes. It’s one of the core design guidances. I really can’t imagine letting it go, even if it does . . .”
“I get it. Maybe if you levitate, like usual, your web could still trail around, like a jellyfish, who can’t move them. And the individual strands are thinner, like yours there.”
“Mmm. So.” He moved the wires towards them again. “Any other stipulations or boundaries you can think of?”
“Just try not to pull off anything. If you could.”
“Oh, I have enough precision that that would never be a problem.”
“If I want you to let go, any chance you could fully levitate me instead of taking the time to lower me, or dropping me?”
“Sure.”
They rubbed their too-angular chin. “Yeah can’t think of anything else.”
He slowly extended several of them- more than twelve- towards their figure, surrounding in a swirl, and before any of one even made contact, they couldn’t help but dart their eyes, and shift and squirm.
“Sure you’re ok?”
“Yeah. Just unusual. Naturally.”
He interlaced ten of them, five from one side and five from another, and knotted them to make something resembling a miniature hammock.
“Maybe just sit?”
“Oh!”
They took the step towards it, and placed their hands as if it were a swing.
“Can I kick?”
“What do you mean?”
They explained the swing association.
“Oh. Give me a second.”
He pulled the two sets more perpendicular to the ground.
He flipped a couple of the free wires eagerly. “Go on.”
They pumped their feet forwards, and the makeshift pendulum responded properly.
They made a wider arc, back and forth.
“Hey!” they yelled excitedly, “could you like . . .” they experienced something that gave them a huge kick of nostalgia, pun intended. “Flip me in a circle entirely? I bet most every kid dreams of doing that when they’re on a swing. But here’s the only place it would actually be possible, and safe!”
“Ok,” the being took another minute to adjust, and then he moved the middle of the wires as if it were an elbow.
They yelled in exhilaration. Reaching the top of the arc slower wasn’t the same as the blood rushing to your head on a rollercoaster or hanging from monkey bars, the digital realm just couldn’t quite manage that sort of thing, but it was nonetheless fun and reminiscent.
After a few rounds of that, they came to a stop.
“Man,” they shook their head. “Now I’m kicking myself. Pun intended. This realm can do ANYTHING,” they flung out a single arm, and spun a little, intertwining the two sets of wires, and it began to spin back the other way, “ANYTHING you can think of, and we’re all sitting around here moping about how we can’t get out. What is wrong with us?”
“I have no good answer to that inquiry,” the AI replied straightforwardly to the rhetorical question as if it weren’t, “I do not know why any of you Abstract any more than you do.”
“I mean it really is crazy,” they said rapidly, breathlessly, “This place needs imagination. And all we can think of is stargazing and fast food? Pathetic.” The artist smacked their head. “Get a background artist in here. Get a sci fi writer in here. They’d be over the moon to instantly be able to manifest whatever their mind could think of without all the toil of bringing it to completion in the real world.”
They let out a loud growl of aggravation.
“And there’s nothing stopping us from creating utopias instead of dystopias, now, right?”
“Now, yes,” the previously stubborn man said meekly. “Of course, if that had been in the box before Gangle’s, maybe I would’ve run with it anyway.”
“Imagine having a Suggestions Box full of storyboards instead of whatever piddly- GOD! I’m sitting in the ‘arms’ ‘hands’ whatever OF A GOD! I know a good dozen ordinary people from my real life that would kill to be in my shoes! Sure it’s maybe because their home life sucked or their job sucked or both, and they wouldn’t miss it, not like me, but still! Why could I never see it before?? I’m so sorry I spent all this time backbiting you. That wasn’t doing EITHER of us any good! Just venting my frustrations on you. Not dealing with my own s&%#. God. God. God. Couldn’t see the upsides. Why did it take this long. Why did it take you becoming an eldritch creature? I am sorely disappointed in myself, I’ve got to tell you, Caine.”
He hummed.
They stepped out of the mobile, suspended chair, and walked towards the body of the gigantic, neuron-like center. “Since this is more “native” to you . . . Can I hug any of your form when you’re like this?”
He adjusted the thickness of one of the appendages experimentally, not responding immediately.
“If it‘s uniform. It’ll be easiest. But I expect you’d like it also to be soft?”
“If that’s difficult . . .”
“Hard, pun intended,” the comedian said, “but not impossible. Oh wait. I could just fix it into place. That’ll reduce-”
It stopped moving, and he poked at it with a second one. The material gave way.
“Perhaps hugging a pole is rather silly, but something that could partially-”
Then he curved it.
He positioned it diagonally, and it grew just slightly wider and flatter, like a quarter of an alcove.
He beckoned them.
They walked into and wrapped their arms around the arc, and it fit snugly against some of their body, no doubt intentionally.
“Thank you, Caine. Thank you for trying to accommodate us. To adapt to us. Thank you for trusting me with this.
“Thank you Zooble. For . . .”
“. . . ignoring the urge to freak out?” they supplied.
“Heh. Sure. That’s a way to put it.”
“I’d lose all my toughness cred as a punk if I were that easy to rattle,” they joked. “Here. Really. Do pick me up. Like you were picturing. Whatever it was.”
He withdrew the arc, and it shrank and slimmed back to “normal.” A couple of the wires, many less than the previous time, wound just above the underside of their knees, and a couple more supported the middle of their back.
Apparently the god had, despite their faux-posturing, still opted to adjust to something that was less intimidating.
They relaxed into it, and the bottom set lifted them, the hind set providing stabilization.
“You’re so tiny,” he said fondly. “I think I do have something close, of what it’s like to consider something . . . like a puppy or a kitten . . . cute? Probably related to being conceived as a character creator.”
They gave a very un-punk giggle.
“With this face, I’m like a Pug. Ugly-cute.”