I love the way you call it art

[verymuchalive]

Characters: OU Aradia and OPEN
Setting: Art Gallery floor
Format: Starts in action, but will follow either
Summary: Aradia's taking in a little of the tower's version of culture
Warnings: Grim art? But otherwise not much yet.

[Up until now, Aradia hasn't really spent much time perusing the art gallery that appeared when the tower grew a few floors. Today she's decided to rectify that.

And so she wanders aimlessly about the floor, looking at the various artworks on display and lingering in front of those that catch her eye. Probably one of the more morbid ones, but she seems far more fascinated than she does horrified.

Pester her?]

Comments

[thebigsister]

Oh, does time flow differently for you? Or do you measure time in a different scale?

[verymuchalive]

We measure it differently. For example, we age in sweeps instead of your human years and I think a sweep is longer than a year.

[thebigsister]

Oh. That ought to be confusing.

[Eleanor shrugs.]

To be honest, I've measured time in day and night all my life, but. This place is the closest thing to actual "days and nights" I've ever experienced. It's almost jarring.

[verymuchalive]

Well it is, a little. But if I couldn't handle that sort of thing I wouldn't be a very good Maid of Time, would I?

[She giggles at that, even as she's the only one of the two who would get that]

Really? How so?

[thebigsister]

[The head tilts in that unnatural angle again.]

Maid of Time?

[But then Eleanor shook her head.]

I was born and raised in Rapture, a city built so deep in the ocean the sunlight didn't really reach us.

[verymuchalive]

[Oh, right. Not everyone knows about the game]

It's a long story and complicated to explain. But basically, I have time powers...and time responsibilities I suppose you could say.

[As Eleanor talks about her home city, Aradia's expression becomes a mixture of wary and excited that she has some frame of reference for this]

Oh, so you're a sea dweller! I didn't realise humans had those.

[thebigsister]

A seadweller?

[Eleanor seems to think for a moment.]

Well. Yes. I suppose I am, given I am capable of surviving in the ocean floor but...

[Well, she's not sure if she deserves to call herself human.]

[verymuchalive]

But?

[Her head tilts in curiosity]

[thebigsister]

Mmm, it's nothing.

[She shrugs again.]

I just wonder if I still qualify as human.

[verymuchalive]

Why wouldn't you?

[thebigsister]

I think there's a point where you stop being human, and I passed it a long time ago.

[verymuchalive]

I don't understand. Why would you stop being the species you were born as?

[thebigsister]

Oh, I suppose this is a cultural convention... humans do not define themselves merely for their species, but for their actions and intentions.

[Eleanor tilts her head to the side.]

To cease to be human could be considered anything from an act that the entirety of humanity rejects. Or perhaps to modify your genetic structure until it no longer fits the bill.

[verymuchalive]

Oh really? You can do that? We don't have anything like that.

[Waaaait]

So are you a robot?

[thebigsister]

...What?

[No, really, what?]

[verymuchalive]

Oh. Sorry. Just, I've been a robot before, so I thought maybe it was that. And before that, I was a sprite that had also been prototyped with a frog.

[thebigsister]

[Eleanor tilted her head to the side.]

Is... is that a troll thing to do?

[She sounds fascinated rather than confused, though.]

[verymuchalive]

No, that one's pretty much a me exclusive...it's a long story.

[thebigsister]

Oh. It sounds fascinating.

[Eleanor catches herself.]

...not that I mean to pry, I'm sorry.

[verymuchalive]

[She giggles]

It's fine. I've been asking plenty of questions myself.

[thebigsister]

Would you tell me, then? If you don't mind? I just think it's interesting.

[verymuchalive]

Well, okay. But don't say I didn't warn you.

Basically...I died, but I came back as a ghost to help my friends find and play a game. Someone I know made me a robot body so that I could have a physical form again.

[thebigsister]

Oh, that's really something.

[Eleanor nods.]

Were you just memories, or were you yourself?

[Because the ghosts she knows... well, they're different.]

[verymuchalive]

I was me. Or, well, sort of. I became very detached from everyone but I was still me.

[thebigsister]

Oh. I have... ghosts, in me.

[Eleanor taps her chest a little, shaking her head.]

But they're little more than memories I've inherited.

[Sometimes they were voices, or visions, or impulses. But that wasn't the same as what this girl was describing.]