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The girl is small. As she stares at P1-NOC-22 with big gray eyes, she has to crane her neck to look up at him, and it seems wrong. It seems like she should be bigger or… no. That he should be smaller.
He suddenly feels very high up, dizzy all over again like he was when he first woke up in his metal body.
There used to be a girl he was only two and a half inches taller than. She always stuck her tongue out and said that when they grew up, she'd get taller because she always ate her vegetables.
The memories are hazy, far away. He remembers a fishing shack on a rocky shore, a woman's strong hands over his small ones, guiding him as he tied a knot. He remembers the rough weave of a handmade rug under his feet and a man at an old-fashioned loom. Then a flash of teeth, a wolf of a woman, a cavernous room so hot sweat poured down his limbs.
He doesn't remember the pain well.
After that, things start to make more sense. A man with cruel eyes but warm words of praise for success, always near as P1-NOC-22 learned to move around again in his boar's body, and then how to do it with the grace of a lynx. Teaching him to spot a threat and then end it. Reminding him of all he'd forgotten, especially about the Empire and about His Majesty. Reminding him what he must have always known— that it was the highest honor to be chosen to serve him personally.
P1-NOC-22 had been excited when the cruel-eyed man had told him he was ready, but after only a few days in Zantine, he's not quite so certain. The palace is larger than anything he's seen in his life. Everything in it seems to gleam like a scalpel. He sees the outdoors much more often than he has since he began his new life, but it's a strange outdoors, with every plant perfectly placed and not a cicada, bee, or any other insect in sight. His two new siblings are just as large as him, metal faces set into the same scowl, but both of them wield it far more frighteningly than he knows how to.
And now there's a strange little girl who shouldn't be so much smaller than him, who is clearly awaiting an answer to a question he didn't hear her ask.
He couldn't answer even if he'd heard her. The most sound he can make is a grunt, and he isn't supposed to do even that. He's supposed to be still and quiet, or he gets into trouble.
Instead, he stares at the girl. She wears a beautiful red dress with a puffy skirt, but the bow tied at the front is loose and crooked, and her shiny black shoes have a bit of mud on them. Her teeth are small and even, babyish. Her hair, falling out of its style, is the same glossy black as the girl from before, though this girl's skin is pale, with none of the warm goldenness she had.
The girl shifts. "Did you hear me?"
He stares. Then, slowly, he shakes his head.
"That's okay," she says. "I asked if you like it here. Godfather said you came all the way here from Dogfish."
P1-NOC-22 doesn't think she pronounces it correctly. A flash goes through his mind, a twisted frown and a sweat-soaked rag of a wig. He quickly tries to think of something else.
He doesn't know how to respond to the question. He isn't even supposed to be talking to people (or listening to them, he guesses). He's supposed to be watching the hall outside the room where His Majesty is doing some important kingly business. But it feels rude to ignore the girl, so he shrugs.
There are nice things about it. The constant, distant humming of shuttles and spaceships is almost like the roar of the ocean. It's good to be doing his duty after all that time of training. And His Majesty is nice to him. Gentler than the man on Doagfiithg who trained him. P1-NOC-22's siblings sometimes seem uncomfortable with the king, but he hasn't been able to figure out why.
He likes it here better than anything else from his new life.
"I like it here," the girl says. "I like looking out at the lights after it's dark. You can see the whole city from the big window in me and Rose's room. It's really pretty." She bounces. "Maybe sometime when Godfather visits, you'll come with him and I can show you."
P1-NOC-22 finds himself smiling, or trying to. His metal face doesn't move very much.
There would be no reason he should be allowed that. His duty is to be at King Cole's side. But it does sound pretty.
"Snow!" another small voice calls from down the hallway. Another child comes running, this one with a mess of chin-length red hair. Her face looks the same as the first girl, right down to the big, serious gray eyes. She wears a shirt and pants in similar colors to the first girl's dress, but her shoes are entirely gone. She skids to a stop beside the first girl (Snow? Is the girl called Snow?) and looks up at him.
"What are you doing?" she asks, nudging Snow.
"I'm talking to them," Snow says. She leans in to whisper in the other girl's ear, cupping her hand over her mouth. It doesn't stop P1-NOC-22 from being able to hear her. "Godfather said they're new."
The other girl shakes her head. "The pigs can't talk, dummy. You can't welcome them." She glances up at him, though, clearly curious.
Snow crosses her arms. "Not everyone can talk. That doesn't mean you're supposed to ignore them."
The way they talk to each other gives him an odd feeling, an ache in his chest. He thinks again about the golden-skinned girl who was two inches shorter than him. About what her face would look like twisted into an annoyed scowl. He wishes that girl was here, too.
"You're also not supposed to distract people while they're working, remember? Mum said. Godfather's guards are doing an important job— what if someone tries to kill him?"
"Don't say that!" Snow pushes at the other girl a little, upset. But then her shoulders fall. "Sorry I distracted you," she tells him.
P1-NOC-22 doesn't mind. He doesn't know how to tell her that.
He shrugs again.
He should mind. The second girl is right (does Godfather mean King Cole? It must). Someone could threaten His Majesty. They couldn't really kill him— nothing can. But they could harm him, cause him pain, sideline him for a time as he recovers from wounds. P1-NOC-22 is supposed to prevent that. He should be focused on that. His siblings wouldn't get distracted by this.
The second girl tugs at Snow's hand. "C'mon. Fei is finally back from her cousins' and she promised to show us all the games they taught her. Let's go find her."
Snow starts following, but then she pauses to look up at him.
For a moment, some tiny part of him hopes she'll invite him to join them. She's so much smaller than him, but maybe he could play with her and these other children. Maybe there would be some closer to his age, too.
But none of that makes any sense. Why would he want that? The impulse feels invasive, foreign. He's a bodyguard. Why would he want to go and waste time playing with a bunch of tiny royals, rather than do what he was made to and protect the Empire?
"Bye," Snow says, offering a tiny smile. "I'll see you later."
She lets the other girl pull her down the hallway then.
She doesn't turn around to see how he slightly raises a metal hand to wave goodbye back to her.