i'm almost sixteen

[autokinetic]

Aegis has her Sue back. Sort of.

She also has her Jane back, less sort of, and right now that's way less complicated and way less sad and Aegis doesn't, actually, have anything to do apart from reading to catch up, which she can only do so many hours in a row.

So she's dug up her old save file and she's playing with her animal-people. With Jane, although Jane says she's mostly running the original software, not inserting her mature personality. (She does commentate, for color.)

Clearing the jellyfish for the seahorses.

She remembers it like it was yesterday.

Her bird stopped playing before she did, so she doesn't even slightly expect him to show up all candleflame and join her, when she's doing this.

Comments

[cross_and_bow]

"Aegis went home to a relatively more minor discomfort than Amariah did and even that has now been fixed, so yeah."

[eversomuchfun]

"What an odd lot you Bells are."

[cross_and_bow]

"We make sense to us. Is it really that strange?"

[eversomuchfun]

"I've never spared a moment's envy for Pearl or Steel, and I don't imagine they have for me."

[cross_and_bow]

"At all? About anything?"

[eversomuchfun]

"I can wish I had escaped certain things that never happened to them in the first place, but that doesn't make me angry with them. And in the other direction - I'm sure every Sherlock has spent an idle moment or two wishing to hate themselves just a little bit less, but they wouldn't take it at the price I paid. I remember."

[cross_and_bow]

"Inter-Bell jealousy doesn't usually result in anger. Amariah is just in an extreme situation of thing should not have happened, no appropriate fixes or outlets."

[eversomuchfun]

"What does it result in, then?"

[cross_and_bow]

"Competitive furor."

[eversomuchfun]

"Hah. Yes, you won't get a lot of that from us."

[cross_and_bow]

"In theory I should remember what it was like not to want to show up to a party going, 'Look at what I did! Look at what cool stuff I have! Look at how totally together my personal life is! Look at what clever ideas I have had! Am I not an excellent example of this thing we all are? Beat that!', but the things I did before this kicked in were relatively less interesting."

[eversomuchfun]

He kisses her.

"Mystifying, but adorable."

[cross_and_bow]

Kiss!

"And at the same time we copy off each other a lot, because, one, we actually care about achieving the ends of our various projects and not nearly as much about doing them in original ways so tested solutions are good, and two, because there would be way less point in trying to impress each other if we did not in fact flatter each other with imitation when we do cool stuff, so we are being cooperative."

[eversomuchfun]

"Interesting," he says. "When Tonies get competitive, they try to outdo the results without directly copying the methods. But not for some particular end as much as just to say that they could. I'm sure if one day we found an urgent reason why every Tony has to have a suit of flying armour by approximately yesterday, they'd jump to it just like they did for installing a Jarvis in Chronicle. But until then, they're each fiddling with it separately for the bragging rights."

[cross_and_bow]

"It also allows us to sort of skip ahead for more interesting challenges that haven't been done yet. I'm not doing this so much since nobell else has my particular cornucopia of population segments to handle, but, like, Pattern's got farther than anyone else now on the 'colonize space, be a Good Samaritan to a basically standard Earth' strategy, so I bet Stella and Aurora and Cam crib her notes, see if they can do it faster and tidier and with niftier stylistic curlicues, and then when they're caught up they're on a level playing field."

[eversomuchfun]

"Right. Which is all noise to me, because Sherlocks don't seem to have a drive for material accomplishments."

[cross_and_bow]

"That is okay." Nuzzle.

[eversomuchfun]

Ooh, nuzzles.

[cross_and_bow]

Juliet's just such a nuzzly person. And Sherlock is so nuzzleable.

[eversomuchfun]

He is. He is that thing.

Nuzzle nuzzle.

[cross_and_bow]

Ooh, mutual nuzzles.

[eversomuchfun]

They are extra nuzzly!

[cross_and_bow]

Double the nuzzles. Best. Snuggle nuzzle love.

[temporal_affairs]

Meanwhile, in Aurum, "So now there's an extra Sue. It just keeps getting harder to count you all, babe."

[manofmyword]

"Mm, not sorry," the Joker says cheerfully. "Good for Sues, anyway. It's a nice trick, don't you think?"