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Post by Noa on Sept 22, 2019 18:43:15 GMT -6
It was a folding knife, not one of those fancy multipurpose ones they sold elsewhere, and his was old and dull and honestly not really worth thinking about. He held onto it for mostly sentimental reasons, or maybe out of habit. It wasn't even really his, exactly--- he'd stolen it from somewhere, though he couldn't remember specifically where or whom or even how he came into it.
Then again, he wasn't trying particularly hard to remember anything. He really didn't care to, if he was being honest. Even a little, innocuous memory like this might lead down the rabbit hole to something worse, so if he didn't have to hold onto it, then he put everything in his past behind him, like it was something in a lock box, or behind a wall.
There wasn't much in his past worth remembering anyway.
Rhys eyed the knife. {Are you going to let me?} he asked.
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Post by Noa on Sept 22, 2019 18:47:44 GMT -6
Aster eyed Rhys sidelong. Rhys was looking at him with a curious expression. It was an interesting thing, trying to read the face of a creature rather than a person. Not that Aster was very good at reading people, and e much preferred to spend his time with creatures, but despite his best efforts, people were still what he had the most experience with, and what came most naturally to him given that he was a person himself... And animal expressions were naturally different from human ones, especially in terms of their body language. Not so much of the message was hidden in the face and voice, among creatures.
Rhys's bearing was a little more... human though. Not to say he was human, but he hadn't been raised among his own kind, or... raised at all, possibly. Summer was a little similar, though he had no idea where she could possibly have come from.
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Post by Noa on Sept 22, 2019 18:50:17 GMT -6
Creatures from the 'Veil'--- that was what Shijin were, he'd learned later--- weren't lab-made, and their origins were shrouded in mystery. But she was intelligent, like Rhys was intelligent, in a way that Avander and Grunty weren't. And their expressions were a little different for it too.
In Rhys, Aster could read something like cautious curiosity, though it was held in reservation, as though he didn't think Aster was really going to go through with it. Maybe he was right.
Aster shrugged. "We'll find out. If I don't keel over dead in the next five minutes, I'll think about letting you have some." He sank the blade of the knife into the apple, cutting himself a thin slice from it, before popping that into his mouth.
He bit down, and tasted juice. It was sweet, a little tart, just like any regular apple that he might have bought or had from a regular sort of place.
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Post by Renathan on Sept 22, 2019 18:54:38 GMT -6
Two of the prettiest plums were nearby, a nice yellow color that nearly shone. Leaned up against a tree nearby is a rusty ole rake.
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Post by Noa on Sept 24, 2019 13:58:18 GMT -6
Aster waited for the other shoe to drop, but moment after moment went by, and nothing happened. Or at least nothing that he wouldn't have otherwise expected from a fruit, anyway. He… didn’t know what else he'd expected. It was, as far as he could tell, just an apple. There was nothing wrong with it; in fact, there didn’t even seem to be anything special about it. It didn’t even taste different from a lot of other apples he’d had. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t so amazingly special or good or anything.
{You’ve been staring at that apple for a while,} Rhys said. {Why? Did you get sick?}
“No,” Aster said. He held out a moment longer, then sighed. “Fine, if you want it so bad, have some.” He cut another slice for Rhys, this one even smaller than the one he’d cut for himself.
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Post by Noa on Sept 24, 2019 13:58:43 GMT -6
Rhys, catching sight of this, said, {Miser.} His tone didn’t have any real bite to it though, and he took the slice easily enough when Aster offered it to him. Holding it in his forepaws, he sat up on his haunches and began to eat, the sight of it invoking the image of… a squirrel. Not what Aster would have expected, but then he supposed this was better than eating it off the ground, if you could manage it. And evidently, Rhys could, even without the thumbs that Felusine usually had. One side effect of his extensive modifications was that those things had been lost.
At least Rhys didn’t seem to miss it. But maybe you just don’t miss something you’ve never had.
“Well? How is it?” Aster said. Rhys had been eating without comment for a while now, and he was curious as to whether the Felusine was deriving any enjoyment from it.
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Post by Noa on Sept 24, 2019 13:59:08 GMT -6
Although, he must be, mustn’t he, if he was still eating? If it tasted bad, he would have stopped by now.
{It’s alright,} said Rhys. {Sweet and sour.}
Well, there it was. A plain and simple answer to his question. Aster didn’t know what he had been expecting there either, but that apparently wasn’t it. He let out a singular, slightly self deprecating huff of laughter, shook his head, and cut another slice for himself.
For a while, neither of them said anything, preoccupied as they were with the task of eating. Not that they really needed to have their mouths free to talk, what with Rhys’s mental abilities, but it was more like there was nothing to say. For Aster’s part, some of it might have been force of habit--- feeling like he shouldn’t have his mouth full while he conversed. But even then…
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Post by Noa on Sept 24, 2019 13:59:39 GMT -6
When the apple was done, Aster stood and brushed himself off. Rhys took that as his cue to hop back onto Aster’s shoulder, though he peered questioningly down at the ground. {You’re not going to take them home?} he said.
“Take them home? Why?” Aster said.
{Well, you said they were okay to eat. And no one’s stopping you. That makes this free food, right?} Rhys presented his point as though it were the most reasonable thing in the world. Then again, maybe he wasn’t wrong on that point; laid out like that, it did seem at least to be a logical sort of conclusion.
“I could take some, but I hope you’re not expecting me to bring this whole lot home with me,” Aster said. “I can only carry so much, you know. Besides, even with me and the Hara all eating, this would be way too much for us."
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Post by Noa on Sept 24, 2019 14:01:37 GMT -6
He'd said 'me and the Hara', but to be honest, even between all of them, the Hara living with him didn't eat even the equivalent of one person's worth of food. They were pickier about what they did eat, but it wasn't the cost of it that made feeding them difficult, that much was for sure. "It’d go bad before we finished," he said. Early on, when he had been heady with the prospect of having money to spend and eager to lessen his trips to the markets, he'd often overbuy things like food only to have it go to waste in exactly that manner. Now he knew better, and took only what he knew would be used.
{Then you should sell some. Maybe there’s someone who doesn’t have time to come here and get apples. Or you could give them to your neighbors! That’s a nice gesture, isn’t it?}
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Post by Renathan on Sept 24, 2019 14:05:16 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on Sept 24, 2019 14:21:39 GMT -6
Aster briefly fought the urge to grimace, then decided that there was no need to pretend with just Rhys around. “Maybe it is, but I’m not going to do it,” Aster said.
{Why not?} said Rhys, blinking wide eyes at him.
Aster sighed. How did he explain…? He supposed he did owe Rhys some kind of explanation, if only to lay down the unspoken rules about his own lifestyle. If he was being honest, he had been hoping that Rhys would have picked it up on his own, but he could hardly fault the Felusine for not doing so. It wasn’t like he had a great deal of experience or context to inform his observations, being stuck on the property with just Aster and all.
“Look,” he said. “I know you probably mean well, but my neighbors…” No, that wasn’t the best way for him to start, was it?
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Post by Noa on Sept 24, 2019 14:21:55 GMT -6
He decided to just cut to the heart of the matter instead. Hopefully it made things simpler, going forward. “I don’t like dealing with people,” he said flatly. “If I can avoid it, then I will.” He didn’t say that, given how out of the way and rambling the properties were in his neck of the woods, his so called neighbors were probably of a similar disposition, but that was true too. No one who loved the hustle and bustle of society would choose a property all the way out there.
{Oh,} said Rhys. He’d inclined his head, and the tone of his voice suggested that he was thinking now, turning Aster’s words over in his mind. {You don’t… Ah, I guess a lot of things make more sense now.}
So he had noticed, or had at least gotten an inkling, just not enough to have drawn a definite conclusion.
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Post by Noa on Sept 24, 2019 14:22:38 GMT -6
Aster was, in a way, a little relieved. He hadn’t thought he was ever a particularly cryptic individual when it came to how little he enjoyed humanoid company, but---
{Then, what about Rabbit?} said Rhys.
Now it was Aster’s turn to be caught off guard. For a moment he couldn’t do anything but blink at Rhys, trying to figure out why Rhys would bring up a TROD, of all things. Then it dawned on him--- Rabbit had her own… thoughts, in the manner that robots had thoughts, and she looked humanoid enough. If Rhys hadn’t encountered a great deal of other humanoids, then he might well make the mistake of thinking that Rabbit was one.
“She’s, uh… not a person, exactly,” he said. “She’s one of those robots. I… got her from a shop in town." It was so long ago that the exact details were a little blurry now.
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Post by Noa on Sept 24, 2019 14:23:44 GMT -6
"You get this little implant in your head to let you communicate with them, and they’ll run errands or train creatures for you if you need it," he explained. "I hear a lot of the shops don't like dealing with them, but at least they won't refuse to sell to them outright."
Spoken aloud, it seemed kind of an uncomfortable arrangement. Aster didn’t say ‘control’, but that was what the implant was actually for. He had deliberately gotten one of the newer models, the ones with more autonomy, specifically because he didn’t want to be issuing orders so much as vague instructions. And so far, despite having been warned about a defect with the one he had received, he had found that the arrangement suited him perfectly well. And if Rabbit had any serious complaints, she had never given voice to them. Though he supposed maybe she wasn’t built to quarrel with her purchaser.
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Post by Noa on Sept 24, 2019 14:25:00 GMT -6
{A robot…} Rhys didn’t refute Aster’s assertion, but he didn’t exactly seem like he agreed either. Something must have still been bothering him about it, even after Aster's attempt at explaining the matter.
Aster wasn’t in a hurry to have him accept the fact though. In the end, the distinction that mattered to Aster was still his own--- which was a little selfish, but all the same, still true. He was comfortable, or at least, not uncomfortable around Rabbit; he didn’t feel the same level of ease in the presence of other humanoids. That was all there was to it, as far as he was concerned.
{But you treat her like a person,} Rhys said. {She still walks around and does things, and you talk to her like you talk to me, only you don’t tell her not to go anywhere, or that something’s dangerous.}
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