The ritual is far grosser than A2 expected. She doesn't flinch at the idea of being smeared in blood; she's had worse. Applying it so meticulously is almost cute. The buzz of magic hums along her insides and she's not afraid, exactly, but on her guard the entire time. The hair on the back of her neck stands on end one final time, but this time A2 can understand where it's coming from. And then the ritual is complete, and the world is back to the one that A2 remembers. (Remembers from behind one eye. Remembers as a passenger. Feeling this all on her face, even if she's borrowing it from somebody else, is brand new. It's astounding. Salt fills what she's come to call her lungs as she breathes in deep.)
And she's taken out of her reverie by the press of a human body against her shoulder. Anna would know how to handle that sort of reaction from Dinah. A2 stands there stock still for a moment, then hesitantly presses her hand against the little human girl's back. Is this the kind of person that the one who shares this body has made of it? It must be, from the reaction of this person she saved. Anna must be, A2 thinks, very good at being a human. Complicated and angry and full of love at the same time as being afraid and cowering and begging for someone else to show her how love can be a shield all its own.
A2 doesn't know what any of that means. All A2 knows is that she's going to receive a good grade in protecting this human, something her programming assures her is both normal to want and possible to achieve. She watches Dinah go, then, off to whatever place she's going to go. And A2 steps away, into a town that she's lived in for a year and has never truly, actually known. The other humans here recognize her, but they don't seem too put off by any show of stoicism, which is for the best. Her footsteps take her along a path she shouldn't recognize, to a home with a fresh garden in front of it and a lock on the door that the key in her pocket knows.
She walks into a house that is only halfway hers, into a room with an unmade bed surrounded by the life of someone who only looks like her. And she finds the omni in her pocket, and she leaves Anna a message. A2 stretches out on a bed that doesn't belong to her and closes her eyes (no), and when she wakes up again, she doubts she'll still be in control. But she doesn't want control anyway, does she. Not right now.
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And she's taken out of her reverie by the press of a human body against her shoulder. Anna would know how to handle that sort of reaction from Dinah. A2 stands there stock still for a moment, then hesitantly presses her hand against the little human girl's back. Is this the kind of person that the one who shares this body has made of it? It must be, from the reaction of this person she saved. Anna must be, A2 thinks, very good at being a human. Complicated and angry and full of love at the same time as being afraid and cowering and begging for someone else to show her how love can be a shield all its own.
A2 doesn't know what any of that means. All A2 knows is that she's going to receive a good grade in protecting this human, something her programming assures her is both normal to want and possible to achieve. She watches Dinah go, then, off to whatever place she's going to go. And A2 steps away, into a town that she's lived in for a year and has never truly, actually known. The other humans here recognize her, but they don't seem too put off by any show of stoicism, which is for the best. Her footsteps take her along a path she shouldn't recognize, to a home with a fresh garden in front of it and a lock on the door that the key in her pocket knows.
She walks into a house that is only halfway hers, into a room with an unmade bed surrounded by the life of someone who only looks like her. And she finds the omni in her pocket, and she leaves Anna a message. A2 stretches out on a bed that doesn't belong to her and closes her eyes (no), and when she wakes up again, she doubts she'll still be in control. But she doesn't want control anyway, does she. Not right now.