[The reply comes easy, because he knows why such a thing bothers him. Why he lists it as a problem unresolved in his mind, lingering there for who-knows-how-long.]
Leaving one still... without conclusion goes against what I was designed to do. Even if I was never intended to investigate underwater caverns specifically.
[ She might be getting it? Maybe? At the very least, Lucina is beginning to understand that he's a servant to his own compulsions, and that there's really no reprieve from it. It's very different from her safety in secrets.
She doesn't bring up the caverns again, nor does she follow the thread of conversation he's dangling by mentioning them. It's best left behind. ]
Very well.
[ A faint smile. ]
Ask your questions. I will answer whatever you like.
["Prod". The connotation isn't a positive one, and it doesn't go unnoticed, but when he looks at her, she's smiling -- so it can't be all that bad. (There's only so much an RK800 can tamp down what's been so ingrained in him, after all.)
He places his hands neatly on his lap, straight-backed.]
Can you tell me about the history of your sword? Falchion, correct?
[Right to it. Give a detective an in, and he takes it.]
[ As Lucina uses it, prod is a neutral term. It's also fairly inarguable. From her perspective, the blunt questions - the questions he's not bothered to ease her into - have been consistent to the point of lacking any self-awareness. It's... it's just a quirk. She's known people with quirks.
So, she begins to speak. To answer, really. The words are slow and measured at first but the more she says, the easier it comes, like a blockage clearing - like a wound bleeding fresh so it can heal. ]
It was my father's, and his father's before him... [ fuck that guy though ] - and many generations back. Our matriarch, the divine dragon Naga, enchanted the blade and our line twofold. As long as we thrive, so will Falchion, and it will never rust or become dull.
[ Not that it stops her from taking freakish care of it. Girl needs a hobby. ]
I inherited it before I was even strong enough to properly lift it.
[ When the Exalt's line was fodder for the Grimleal, in the scant years of her childhood when titles and politics still mattered - before it was nothing but scorched earth and survival. ]
There was a dreadful war, [ she clarifies. ] Our westerly neighbours were ruled by malevolence and worshipped something very dark. They amassed enough power to spread their horror. My father passed away when I was just a girl. My mother survived a few years more. [ In truth, she has more memories of a childhood with Lady Lissa as a solemn guardian, her childish impetuousness tempered by grief - an unending, unflinching stream of grief, the sort that put lines on her face when she was barely out of girlhood... although Lucina doesn't say that. It has nothing to do with Falchion, after all. ] Learning to fight was imperative and I would have no weapon but my father's.
[So it’s a tale wrapped up in tragedy and loss. The Falchion being more than just memento, but a symbol — the promise of a bloodline kept alive, the weapon itself kept keen as long as it did. It doesn’t take logic or rationale to understand why Lucina would keep it safe and close. Why she would let it rest on the lake’s edge while they both tumbled into the water on that day. Sentimentality, emotion, duty all dictated it.
His expression has gone solemn, suited for the conversation at hand. Smile faded into something that tugs his lips downwards instead.]
…Thank you for telling me all of this, Lucina. I know it can’t possibly be easy.
[She’s given him a lot of information, plenty for him to parse and pick at. His LED spins at his temple, and while the inconsistency of is versus was still exists in his head, the memory of their conversation after they had been pulled from the lake still clear in his mind...
One thing at a time, however.]
You said this other nation worshipped something dark. Does this have anything to do with the undead?
[ Well, there certainly isn't any point in being coy now, is there? He's like a wyvern with a bone. Lucina breathes in, steeling herself, and then answers, eyes open - ]
Not at first.
At the beginning, it was merely war. I - I could understand Plegia's anger, despite how much it cost me. My grandfather had not been a gentle ruler. Perhaps if he had been, things may have turned out differently.
[ Instead, Chrom's father - Emmeryn's father - her own grandfather - had conquered through bloodshed and smiled, toothy, like a skull, through it all. It's no wonder that Chrom strove to make friends with everyone he met, to the point of jeopardising his own safety with (what Lucina considered, and still somewhat considers) undeserved loyalty. ]
Turning their army as they did... I don't understand that at all. For every soldier of theirs we had to put down, they rose two more. They weren't alive. I knew that by looking at them. Their eyes, the smell - [ Well. Least said, soonest mended. ] When you told me you weren't alive, it brought back memories of that time.
[That explains quite a bit, actually. Connor remembers her reaction to him quite clearly when they first met; how she had gone tense, how her hand leapt to the hilt of her blade. Falchion, the legacy of her family line, made to fell their enemies.]
I don't blame you, Lucina. Maybe the fault was mine, for not having gone into specifics at the time.
[Connor had been starting to label himself in broad strokes, because he had found that when going into detail, he often loses people somewhere along the way -- Lucina seemed to especially qualify for simplified explanations, given her unfamiliarity with technology. He was wrong in that.]
Was this war still ongoing when you were summoned to the Circle?
[ In the past, hard earned peace. Her own tremulous future burned off the pages of history, scorched clean out of time, scrubbed - and her life, all their lives, her comrades from that same future, preserved by some benevolent quirk of fate. By a snap of Naga’s fingers.
That doesn’t mean Lucina will ever leave it behind, though. The world they won would never be for her, but if she can’t crawl her way back on her finger tips to her future and die with her people, then she can at least be of use here. ]
We turned the tide of it, eventually - but there are days when I have to remind myself that it’s over, that no further catastrophe awaits me.
[ Seeking an anchor against her own words, something strong, her gaze skims the fighters training below, and holds on a particular figure unrealising. (Shut up, Connor.) ]
Then I'm glad for the war having ended. If that's any consolation at all.
[He pauses, following her gaze down to the figures in the arena below. Weapons clack and clash, voices at a distance sound so small. Funny, how the intensity of what an individual might feel, down in that ring, seems so diluted up here.
An idle observation, while he processes what to say next.]
Though I understand that memories of a hard-fought war are not so easily written off as 'finished'. Experiences that linger with a human mind long after it's done. And being brought here, in a place full of unknowns, sent off to worlds where there might yet be fighting still, I can't imagine you really feel at peace with any of it.
Though please correct me if I'm assuming too much.
[ Indeed, calling it a war seems too small a word. Connor will never know about those last few months. The depletion of crops, grain, livestock - consuming roasted insects just to stay alive. Sleeping in the dirt, when they could sleep at all. Spending more time digging graves than picking up weapons. The slow, disquieting fall of the population beyond salvageable levels. And, all that, while she was supposed to lead, supposed to protect.
She knows she'll need to set all that aside. Someday, hopefully soon, she will. It's a remarkably heavy burden, and her own shoulders so slight. ]
You've described yourself as a... detective? As in, you solve crimes. [ It's still an odd concept to her, as evidenced by the somewhat stilting, contemplative way she puzzles out the words. ] You must have seen some things you found unconscionable.
[You must have seen some things you found unconscionable.
Connor doesn’t detach his gaze from the figures below, their small movements hard to discern in a satisfyingly analytical way from this high. The sound of laughter buoys up, just a whisper of a thing once it reaches his audio processing.
Unconscionable. A wide, far-reaching term that could be applied in a manner of ways, and yet it stirs something in him. Makes him frown more deeply, seen clearly as it changes the curves of his profile.]
I was created to focus on very specific cases, admittedly, but yes. Murder is often considered unconscionable by anyone’s standards.
[ As usual, Lucina hangs sharply onto every word he utters, letting no turn of phrase go unexamined. Perhaps it's a holdover from her time in the Shepherds, desperately trying to uncover the identity of her father's killer, ears pricked for anything - any sound, the coarse note of the match lighting before it could burn them all down.
She wonders, again, for the gods-know-how-many time, why Connor removes himself from every sentence. Why he picks out every last bit of himself from his own contemplation. ]
I wasn't asking about anyone, [ she says, a bit sharper than she might have intended. ] And there is no need to condescend to me like that.
[ That said, she continues on without missing a beat, marshalling the conversation like someone practiced in pulling rank. ]
For someone who asks as many questions as you do, you rarely offer the courtesy of answering them in turn.
[ True and not true. Easy questions, guiding questions - yes. He'll fall all over himself to provide assistance. Dig a little deeper, though, and he sidesteps in magnificent fashion. Over her shoulder, just so, Lucina's expression is a touch quarrelsome. (Really, though, her face is just like that.) ]
[At her tone, the mention of condescension, he turns his head to look at her — almost immediately, his face has shifted into something apologetic, something imploring.]
I’m not trying to sound condescending, Lucina. I apologize if that’s how it came out. And I don’t mean to be unclear, either; ask any question of me, and I’ll answer to the best of my abilities.
[He sits a little straighter, his attentions no longer on the arena below. Looks directly at her, his attentions honed. Distraction, letting his tone go unchecked — not something he should allow, and when he speaks, there’s an automatic-sounding delivery to his speech. A loss of that spark of... something else, hard to pin down.]
The set of morals that I abide by are more like... tenets of my programming. Free movement within a certain set of boundaries, but never overstepping limitations clearly implemented.
[He supposes if he must point out a difference between himself and other androids, that would be it. That the RK800 was CyberLife’s hound, free to hunt as it pleased, yet choked with a leash around its neck if straying too far.]
When I mentioned murder, it’s simply because it was one of the more unconscionable acts I had seen the consequences of, as an investigator working with the DPD. Humans, attacked or even killed by their own androids.
[ Again, there are little pitfalls, things that not even Lucina's perceptiveness can really uncover. Subtle changes in his voices go unnoticed. His words don't make much sense to her again, as if he forgot to translate them for her benefit. Seeing the look on his face, though - that's there, realised, perceptible in her mind - she's messed up, she was too condemning, too brusque. Her own expression loses some of its tightness as she listens, patiently, to his words. All of them.
It galls at her sensibilities, certainly, to hear about these tragedies he speaks of. In hindsight, her moments-ago snappishness is almost embarrassing. ]
That sounds awful. [ A pause, her breath marking it with a touch of uncertainty - ] I don't mean to imply you are so removed from what you've witnessed...
[ Except... that's exactly the problem, isn't it? Waiting for him to display a single shred of empathy that he hasn't calculated out or framed in such technical terms. ]
Do you think about the, ah - [ how does she word this ] - crimes you've investigated? [ nailed it. ]
[It's easier to deal with memories from home when the explanation is delivered in a mechanical way. It's a little harder for him to escape the rhetoric that comes with explaining who he is, what he is, especially in relation to something as human as morality.
He should be removed from what he's witnessed. He should only care about a successful mission, a successful end to the deviant uprising, finding them, hunting them down and returning them to CyberLife. His directives are clear, straightforward. They're the walls on all four sides, declaring that he can move around freely in the space provided to him -- but only in the space provided to him. Thought of whether what he's doing is right or wrong shouldn't matter. Doesn't matter.
Errors at the back of his mind dancing, cajoling, laughing. Self-diagnostic testing and results always coming back less than satisfactory.
No, he's getting distracted again.]
I do. They're the backbone of a current on-going investigation into the growing appearance of deviants. Androids that no longer adhere to their core programming and base objectives. I obviously haven't been able to further this investigation while I'm here, but it's difficult to not reflect on it during our considerable downtime.
[ It's a very precise, exacting answer. That, in itself, isn't a problem. Laurent speaks in much the same manner. The difference is knowing someone - knowing there is warmth underneath - as opposed to being told, consistently, that the individual is not a person, not alive, not - ]
And the victims?
[ It's softly asked. She's going somewhere with this, honestly. She isn't just pivoting in order for him to talk about himself so she doesn't have to talk about herself.
[His mind flashes back to the victims she refers to. A police officer shot, a man with multiple stab wounds, another strangled. All of them at the hands of androids newly "awakened", newly turned deviant, their programming translating compounding errors into fear, panic, and anger.
If there's somewhere she's going with this, Connor is allowing himself to be led. He meant it when he said he would answer her questions dutifully enough.]
I do think about them, yes. [How to expound upon that?] My mission exists to protect humans. Of course my thoughts will circle back to how and why such a thing happened to them.
How and why... I asked myself those same questions near daily, once.
[ Keeping her eyes on the interior of the ring, as before, but no longer directed at any singular individual. At a safe spot in the ground, rather - a place to bury her words once she's said them. ]
I try to think about everyone, every day. All our dead, all those innocent lives. It gets harder to remember the names I had learned, of magistrates from the villages, or clerics who blessed me. I should think of them. I -
[ crumbled, a thoroughly unworthy descendant of the Hero-King -
- fled for safety backwards through time -
- failed them and didn't have the courage to die with them -
But that's wrong, isn't it? Lucina has never thought that her small wish of happiness is so selfish. She's done everything she could. Now, she's here. Daring to be content isn't dishonouring anyone. Refusing to let despair cling to her heels may be her one singular act of rebellion against her fraught childhood.
Her voice changes somewhat as she finishes her sentence. ] I'm not so far removed to be comfortable, but sometimes I am focusing on something menial, or speaking to someone here, and I forget that my life didn't begin here. Like everything else was merely a nightmare, slipping away in the daylight. The sense of guilt that follows is... uncomfortable.
Edited (gives you some hipster edits) 2018-11-04 17:17 (UTC)
It makes something in him sink, feeling guilt’s fingerprints stick along the surfaces of synthetic insides. Is he doing that, forgetting himself in this place, lost in the Circle’s goals? Casting his eyes back to the fighters below, his eyes ground to a similar, nondescript spot. He’s made friends, he’s expanded his horizons in the way of new experiences. Learned of magic, abilities, people, things that CyberLife could’ve never prepared him for, and he’s still here. Still functioning. But is he better for it?
Can he ignore his mission, when the mission is so… beyond him now? Amanda would still look at him with disappointment glittering in cold eyes, as she clipped a rose’s head off of its stem. No, he’s not doing enough. No, he’s straying too far. No, maybe he’s not doing like what Lucina is telling him, thinking back on the faces of the dead every day, or the look in each deviant’s eyes as they declared to them their reasoning, strained with anger or desperation or sorrow. Their breaking points. Maybe he should, but when he does, the world tilts a little. Doubt rakes at him. It scares him.]
You're stronger than me. [The words come almost unbidden.] You’ve lost more and you still… have perspective, Lucina. Even if the guilt is inevitable. I find that admirable.
[Could he keep himself in that feedback loop of memory? Some small, treacherous part of him realizes that he’s gone to lengths to avoid it.]
[ Alongside a faint warmth in her stomach, like something pleasant and sticking, honey-tinged, there's a sharp discomfort to be gotten from his accolades. The contrarian nature of the two sensations leaves her more unhappy than happy. Slowly, Lucina is realising that she doesn't want to take anything - not one compliment, not one gesture - from anyone who wasn't there with her, back then. She'll have to let it go. It's unfair to resent Connor for not being Laurent, or Ephraim for not being Gerome, or Sheryl for not being Severa.
She isn't sure she even feels that way, in truth, but the potential hovers - a sliver of something in the back of her mind that, if not let go, could fester into something ugly. Ugliness is another thing she's tired of.
Her next words, when they come, are bordering on grave - not without her typical blunt earnestness, but with a thin edge of something guarded. She feels rather drained, following her words. The emotional toll is something she'll recover quickly, with her typical resilience. That’s different from it being insignificant. ]
Thank you. Your kind words are a comfort.
[ The funny thing? They actually are. Even in her contrary bout of adolescent discomfit, even if she has to wrestle with herself to accept them.
....Something catches her attention at the corner of her eye. For the first time, Lucina turns to him a little, frowning curiously. ] Connor - [ she reaches out a bit, almost touches him, doesn't ] - what's this? [ It shouldn't be hard to figure out what she's asking about, as her hand falls away from the vicinity of his temple. ]
[Words gone heavy in reply, and it’s hard to know if he’s said something wrong in what was meant to be a compliment. Not one only done-up in niceties, but one sincerely meant. Perhaps it only settles strangely, for whatever reason — maybe she doesn’t feel as strong as what Connor had declared, though he would say it again. In comparison, Lucina seems like tempered steel. Himself? Material malleable by outside hands and influences, by governing commands, as he was designed to be.
He swallows. It’s a learned gesture, one that’s relatively useless for an android, but little tics that he’s picked here and there, departed from his experiences within the confines of CyberLife. Her gesture, stopping just short of his temple, causes him to blink. The shift in conversation jarring him into the now.]
My LED. A light-emitting diode that all CyberLife androids are equipped with, in compliance with the law.
[But he knows that won’t suffice as an explanation, and he continues without missing a beat. Connor even cants his head at a slight angle, as if to better illustrate the circling light at his temple.]
Indicative — in a very generalized way — of my status.
[It’s blue, currently! Flickering time and again during the length of their conversation.]
[ He's right. Lucina doesn't understand the first sentence in the slightest, blinking patiently until he elaborates. At the tilt of his head, some faint sunlight bounces off his LED, washing out the blue. Bluntly, she says - ]
It's pretty.
[ ? ]
I like the colour... when it's like this. It changes, doesn't it?
[ She's seen it flicker yellow once or twice. Most notably during their little splash in the caverns, and her fraught response after. ]
['Pretty' is not an adjective he's sure he would ascribe to it, nor expect. Though he won't correct her; it's a compliment in its own way, even if it's just another component in his design. Something required to designate him as an android within human society.]
It does. Blue, yellow, and red.
[A finger to indicate at his own temple, before dropping his hand back down into his lap.]
Blue is a default state. The higher the strain or the more taxing the mental processing -- whether due to internal or external factors -- the more likely the color will change. Extreme stress will lead to a red LED, though I obviously hope to avoid that as much as possible.
[ It's a bit of bias on her part. Blue is the official colour of the livery of House Ylisse, and she's rather heavily on the blue side herself. Watching the calm glow of his LED as he talks helps take her away from the tension of a few minutes ago, but she knows she likely shouldn't stare.
Something in his wording catches at her, and Lucina requests he elaborates. ]
Internal factors? What sort of internal factors?
[ It's a fairly intrusive question. Sometimes, Lucina displays a remarkable amount of privilege in accordance with her rank, and seems so blithely unaware of it. ]
[Lucky for Lucina that Connor doesn’t consider it an invasive question, so much as one that he takes a moment to word very purposefully.]
Internal factors, such as stress levels or overexertion of processing. When faced with dangerous situations, and having to analyze and assess risk accordingly, the color is more likely to shift.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[The reply comes easy, because he knows why such a thing bothers him. Why he lists it as a problem unresolved in his mind, lingering there for who-knows-how-long.]
Leaving one still... without conclusion goes against what I was designed to do. Even if I was never intended to investigate underwater caverns specifically.
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[ She might be getting it? Maybe? At the very least, Lucina is beginning to understand that he's a servant to his own compulsions, and that there's really no reprieve from it. It's very different from her safety in secrets.
She doesn't bring up the caverns again, nor does she follow the thread of conversation he's dangling by mentioning them. It's best left behind. ]
Very well.
[ A faint smile. ]
Ask your questions. I will answer whatever you like.
[ Probably. ]
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He places his hands neatly on his lap, straight-backed.]
Can you tell me about the history of your sword? Falchion, correct?
[Right to it. Give a detective an in, and he takes it.]
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So, she begins to speak. To answer, really. The words are slow and measured at first but the more she says, the easier it comes, like a blockage clearing - like a wound bleeding fresh so it can heal. ]
It was my father's, and his father's before him... [ fuck that guy though ] - and many generations back. Our matriarch, the divine dragon Naga, enchanted the blade and our line twofold. As long as we thrive, so will Falchion, and it will never rust or become dull.
[ Not that it stops her from taking freakish care of it. Girl needs a hobby. ]
I inherited it before I was even strong enough to properly lift it.
[ When the Exalt's line was fodder for the Grimleal, in the scant years of her childhood when titles and politics still mattered - before it was nothing but scorched earth and survival. ]
There was a dreadful war, [ she clarifies. ] Our westerly neighbours were ruled by malevolence and worshipped something very dark. They amassed enough power to spread their horror. My father passed away when I was just a girl. My mother survived a few years more. [ In truth, she has more memories of a childhood with Lady Lissa as a solemn guardian, her childish impetuousness tempered by grief - an unending, unflinching stream of grief, the sort that put lines on her face when she was barely out of girlhood... although Lucina doesn't say that. It has nothing to do with Falchion, after all. ] Learning to fight was imperative and I would have no weapon but my father's.
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His expression has gone solemn, suited for the conversation at hand. Smile faded into something that tugs his lips downwards instead.]
…Thank you for telling me all of this, Lucina. I know it can’t possibly be easy.
[She’s given him a lot of information, plenty for him to parse and pick at. His LED spins at his temple, and while the inconsistency of is versus was still exists in his head, the memory of their conversation after they had been pulled from the lake still clear in his mind...
One thing at a time, however.]
You said this other nation worshipped something dark. Does this have anything to do with the undead?
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Not at first.
At the beginning, it was merely war. I - I could understand Plegia's anger, despite how much it cost me. My grandfather had not been a gentle ruler. Perhaps if he had been, things may have turned out differently.
[ Instead, Chrom's father - Emmeryn's father - her own grandfather - had conquered through bloodshed and smiled, toothy, like a skull, through it all. It's no wonder that Chrom strove to make friends with everyone he met, to the point of jeopardising his own safety with (what Lucina considered, and still somewhat considers) undeserved loyalty. ]
Turning their army as they did... I don't understand that at all. For every soldier of theirs we had to put down, they rose two more. They weren't alive. I knew that by looking at them. Their eyes, the smell - [ Well. Least said, soonest mended. ] When you told me you weren't alive, it brought back memories of that time.
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I don't blame you, Lucina. Maybe the fault was mine, for not having gone into specifics at the time.
[Connor had been starting to label himself in broad strokes, because he had found that when going into detail, he often loses people somewhere along the way -- Lucina seemed to especially qualify for simplified explanations, given her unfamiliarity with technology. He was wrong in that.]
Was this war still ongoing when you were summoned to the Circle?
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[ In the past, hard earned peace. Her own tremulous future burned off the pages of history, scorched clean out of time, scrubbed - and her life, all their lives, her comrades from that same future, preserved by some benevolent quirk of fate. By a snap of Naga’s fingers.
That doesn’t mean Lucina will ever leave it behind, though. The world they won would never be for her, but if she can’t crawl her way back on her finger tips to her future and die with her people, then she can at least be of use here. ]
We turned the tide of it, eventually - but there are days when I have to remind myself that it’s over, that no further catastrophe awaits me.
[ Seeking an anchor against her own words, something strong, her gaze skims the fighters training below, and holds on a particular figure unrealising. (Shut up, Connor.) ]
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[He pauses, following her gaze down to the figures in the arena below. Weapons clack and clash, voices at a distance sound so small. Funny, how the intensity of what an individual might feel, down in that ring, seems so diluted up here.
An idle observation, while he processes what to say next.]
Though I understand that memories of a hard-fought war are not so easily written off as 'finished'. Experiences that linger with a human mind long after it's done. And being brought here, in a place full of unknowns, sent off to worlds where there might yet be fighting still, I can't imagine you really feel at peace with any of it.
Though please correct me if I'm assuming too much.
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She knows she'll need to set all that aside. Someday, hopefully soon, she will. It's a remarkably heavy burden, and her own shoulders so slight. ]
You've described yourself as a... detective? As in, you solve crimes. [ It's still an odd concept to her, as evidenced by the somewhat stilting, contemplative way she puzzles out the words. ] You must have seen some things you found unconscionable.
[ #still not getting the robot thing ]
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Connor doesn’t detach his gaze from the figures below, their small movements hard to discern in a satisfyingly analytical way from this high. The sound of laughter buoys up, just a whisper of a thing once it reaches his audio processing.
Unconscionable. A wide, far-reaching term that could be applied in a manner of ways, and yet it stirs something in him. Makes him frown more deeply, seen clearly as it changes the curves of his profile.]
I was created to focus on very specific cases, admittedly, but yes. Murder is often considered unconscionable by anyone’s standards.
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She wonders, again, for the gods-know-how-many time, why Connor removes himself from every sentence. Why he picks out every last bit of himself from his own contemplation. ]
I wasn't asking about anyone, [ she says, a bit sharper than she might have intended. ] And there is no need to condescend to me like that.
[ That said, she continues on without missing a beat, marshalling the conversation like someone practiced in pulling rank. ]
For someone who asks as many questions as you do, you rarely offer the courtesy of answering them in turn.
[ True and not true. Easy questions, guiding questions - yes. He'll fall all over himself to provide assistance. Dig a little deeper, though, and he sidesteps in magnificent fashion. Over her shoulder, just so, Lucina's expression is a touch quarrelsome. (Really, though, her face is just like that.) ]
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I’m not trying to sound condescending, Lucina. I apologize if that’s how it came out. And I don’t mean to be unclear, either; ask any question of me, and I’ll answer to the best of my abilities.
[He sits a little straighter, his attentions no longer on the arena below. Looks directly at her, his attentions honed. Distraction, letting his tone go unchecked — not something he should allow, and when he speaks, there’s an automatic-sounding delivery to his speech. A loss of that spark of... something else, hard to pin down.]
The set of morals that I abide by are more like... tenets of my programming. Free movement within a certain set of boundaries, but never overstepping limitations clearly implemented.
[He supposes if he must point out a difference between himself and other androids, that would be it. That the RK800 was CyberLife’s hound, free to hunt as it pleased, yet choked with a leash around its neck if straying too far.]
When I mentioned murder, it’s simply because it was one of the more unconscionable acts I had seen the consequences of, as an investigator working with the DPD. Humans, attacked or even killed by their own androids.
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It galls at her sensibilities, certainly, to hear about these tragedies he speaks of. In hindsight, her moments-ago snappishness is almost embarrassing. ]
That sounds awful. [ A pause, her breath marking it with a touch of uncertainty - ] I don't mean to imply you are so removed from what you've witnessed...
[ Except... that's exactly the problem, isn't it? Waiting for him to display a single shred of empathy that he hasn't calculated out or framed in such technical terms. ]
Do you think about the, ah - [ how does she word this ] - crimes you've investigated? [ nailed it. ]
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He should be removed from what he's witnessed. He should only care about a successful mission, a successful end to the deviant uprising, finding them, hunting them down and returning them to CyberLife. His directives are clear, straightforward. They're the walls on all four sides, declaring that he can move around freely in the space provided to him -- but only in the space provided to him. Thought of whether what he's doing is right or wrong shouldn't matter. Doesn't matter.
Errors at the back of his mind dancing, cajoling, laughing. Self-diagnostic testing and results always coming back less than satisfactory.
No, he's getting distracted again.]
I do. They're the backbone of a current on-going investigation into the growing appearance of deviants. Androids that no longer adhere to their core programming and base objectives. I obviously haven't been able to further this investigation while I'm here, but it's difficult to not reflect on it during our considerable downtime.
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And the victims?
[ It's softly asked. She's going somewhere with this, honestly. She isn't just pivoting in order for him to talk about himself so she doesn't have to talk about herself.
(That's only part of it.) ]
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If there's somewhere she's going with this, Connor is allowing himself to be led. He meant it when he said he would answer her questions dutifully enough.]
I do think about them, yes. [How to expound upon that?] My mission exists to protect humans. Of course my thoughts will circle back to how and why such a thing happened to them.
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[ Keeping her eyes on the interior of the ring, as before, but no longer directed at any singular individual. At a safe spot in the ground, rather - a place to bury her words once she's said them. ]
I try to think about everyone, every day. All our dead, all those innocent lives. It gets harder to remember the names I had learned, of magistrates from the villages, or clerics who blessed me. I should think of them. I -
[ crumbled, a thoroughly unworthy descendant of the Hero-King -
- fled for safety backwards through time -
- failed them and didn't have the courage to die with them -
But that's wrong, isn't it? Lucina has never thought that her small wish of happiness is so selfish. She's done everything she could. Now, she's here. Daring to be content isn't dishonouring anyone. Refusing to let despair cling to her heels may be her one singular act of rebellion against her fraught childhood.
Her voice changes somewhat as she finishes her sentence. ]
I'm not so far removed to be comfortable, but sometimes I am focusing on something menial, or speaking to someone here, and I forget that my life didn't begin here. Like everything else was merely a nightmare, slipping away in the daylight. The sense of guilt that follows is... uncomfortable.
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It makes something in him sink, feeling guilt’s fingerprints stick along the surfaces of synthetic insides. Is he doing that, forgetting himself in this place, lost in the Circle’s goals? Casting his eyes back to the fighters below, his eyes ground to a similar, nondescript spot. He’s made friends, he’s expanded his horizons in the way of new experiences. Learned of magic, abilities, people, things that CyberLife could’ve never prepared him for, and he’s still here. Still functioning. But is he better for it?
Can he ignore his mission, when the mission is so… beyond him now? Amanda would still look at him with disappointment glittering in cold eyes, as she clipped a rose’s head off of its stem. No, he’s not doing enough. No, he’s straying too far. No, maybe he’s not doing like what Lucina is telling him, thinking back on the faces of the dead every day, or the look in each deviant’s eyes as they declared to them their reasoning, strained with anger or desperation or sorrow. Their breaking points. Maybe he should, but when he does, the world tilts a little. Doubt rakes at him. It scares him.]
You're stronger than me. [The words come almost unbidden.] You’ve lost more and you still… have perspective, Lucina. Even if the guilt is inevitable. I find that admirable.
[Could he keep himself in that feedback loop of memory? Some small, treacherous part of him realizes that he’s gone to lengths to avoid it.]
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She isn't sure she even feels that way, in truth, but the potential hovers - a sliver of something in the back of her mind that, if not let go, could fester into something ugly. Ugliness is another thing she's tired of.
Her next words, when they come, are bordering on grave - not without her typical blunt earnestness, but with a thin edge of something guarded. She feels rather drained, following her words. The emotional toll is something she'll recover quickly, with her typical resilience. That’s different from it being insignificant. ]
Thank you. Your kind words are a comfort.
[ The funny thing? They actually are. Even in her contrary bout of adolescent discomfit, even if she has to wrestle with herself to accept them.
....Something catches her attention at the corner of her eye. For the first time, Lucina turns to him a little, frowning curiously. ] Connor - [ she reaches out a bit, almost touches him, doesn't ] - what's this? [ It shouldn't be hard to figure out what she's asking about, as her hand falls away from the vicinity of his temple. ]
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He swallows. It’s a learned gesture, one that’s relatively useless for an android, but little tics that he’s picked here and there, departed from his experiences within the confines of CyberLife. Her gesture, stopping just short of his temple, causes him to blink. The shift in conversation jarring him into the now.]
My LED. A light-emitting diode that all CyberLife androids are equipped with, in compliance with the law.
[But he knows that won’t suffice as an explanation, and he continues without missing a beat. Connor even cants his head at a slight angle, as if to better illustrate the circling light at his temple.]
Indicative — in a very generalized way — of my status.
[It’s blue, currently! Flickering time and again during the length of their conversation.]
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It's pretty.
[ ? ]
I like the colour... when it's like this. It changes, doesn't it?
[ She's seen it flicker yellow once or twice. Most notably during their little splash in the caverns, and her fraught response after. ]
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It does. Blue, yellow, and red.
[A finger to indicate at his own temple, before dropping his hand back down into his lap.]
Blue is a default state. The higher the strain or the more taxing the mental processing -- whether due to internal or external factors -- the more likely the color will change. Extreme stress will lead to a red LED, though I obviously hope to avoid that as much as possible.
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Something in his wording catches at her, and Lucina requests he elaborates. ]
Internal factors? What sort of internal factors?
[ It's a fairly intrusive question. Sometimes, Lucina displays a remarkable amount of privilege in accordance with her rank, and seems so blithely unaware of it. ]
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Internal factors, such as stress levels or overexertion of processing. When faced with dangerous situations, and having to analyze and assess risk accordingly, the color is more likely to shift.
Internal injury can qualify, as well.
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