Jabonicus
Member
YSS Kaiyō II
Observation Deck
There was a solitude about the observation deck that permeated even the most honest and open of conversations on the observation deck. And, to many, there was an ease in finding a sense of peace with that solitude, whether alone or—almost impossibly—with others.
Eden sat waiting for that feeling to return to her while on one of the lounge chairs of the observation deck. She sat on the edge of her seat with her fingers gripping the corner, yellow eyes searching the sky through the transparent Zesuaium window.
Care's time aboard the ship had repetitive, predictable patterns. Rarely in her bunk room, she spent a majority of her time either in the Medical Office or the Observation Deck, only infrequently straying from such a pattern. She had stuck almost rigidly to it once they had passed between Universes, taking solace in the consistency during the travel. While such distances meant little to her in how she viewed things, it was still a new, and frankly terrifying prospect during the journey itself.
Her stride was clear and quiet, footsteps only making the softest sounds that her weight could allow. Even here, she was unused to the new sights present at the window, and she approached it with rapt attention, her hands holding one another in an almost fidgety nervousness. Her eyes glanced about the room, pausing as she spotted Eden sitting quietly, observing the same sights she had come to see.
"Good evening, Ma'am." Her synthetic voice called out, a certain light tone to it.
Eden, broken from a slight reverie, looked up to the medic's position near the entrance of the room, and looked down and away, as if her eyes were re-training on the bonsai trees below the window. She breathed in slowly before looking back up, a newfound spark of something akin to happiness in her own eyes, though Care didn't have to know Eden too well to be able to pick up on the facade that the smile likely was.
"Evening to you," Eden replied.
The soft glow of Care's eyes remained just a few moments longer as Eden looked away, the facial plates stiff in an almost doll-like smile. With a few adjusting clicks, they shifted to the window once more, her posture stiff and rigid in its overly proper stance. Her gaze shifted more, as if examining each part of the view the window had to offer. After a moment, she softly shook her head, facial plates on each side of her head quivering slightly.
"You'd think it would look more different. Being so far away you'd assume it would look more foreign. It's a Universe away and it feels like nothing more than a day trip." There was a lack of awe in her voice, more akin to some form of slight exasporation. "It's hardly a change at all."
Eden's gaze met Care's facial features as she studied the Automata with a half-smile. It faded slowly as she listened and then spoke out in turn.
"We're the ones that remain changed throughout the shifting universes," Eden said, "that we find ourselves in."
The Automata's gray face was divided into many tens of mobile plates, that shifted and shivered in the place of emotions. With close attention, even without knowing her many emotions could be told, and even with the false smile she put forth the look of her face showed a constant, hardy discontent. "We've changed?" She repeated, almost incredulous with her artificial tone.
"Maybe. I haven't noticed much change. Maybe things are a bit lonelier, but I'm still me."
Care had caught Eden's attention while she was deep in introspective thought and she asked, "How do you find yourself not ever-changing?"
"Perhaps it's a matter of not noticing small changes over time that add up, but I doubt that possibility." She paused, her brow shifting. "But regardless, I face the same problems, the same issues, and my beliefs and attitudes hardly shift. Maybe I'm not social enough to induct such change." Her shoulders slowly lowered. "It feels like a loop, each one just a tad more hopeless."
"It is a bit hopeless," Eden said, latching on to, perhaps, the wrong thing. "Is that how you feel?"
"It's one of the things I feel." She responded after a moment, ignoring the odd pressure in her chest. "It's inspiring to see how cheerful people like Hoshi are at times like these, but as time goes on I start to blame myself for not matching that optimism. It's difficult for me to even pretend to have that level of optimism. I just lock a few of my facial plates into a smile and give the most artificial responses I can." She paused, shaking her head. "I apologise if I'm putting my own problems on you."
"Your perspective," Eden sighed, "is as important as my own, if not an echoing of the same vein."
Care's face slowly turned to face Eden, her lens-like eyes adjusting as the soft glow dimmed, a wary look on her face. "Then you feel the same?" She questioned after a moment, as if perturbed that someone like Eden could share such pessimistic thoughts.
"I can only say that I do," Eden said in response. "There is little I vary on from your assessment of the situation, Care-chan."
Care solemnly nodded, chest tightening against the build up of the feeling. There was a pause before she spoke again, a sharp, frustrated tone to her voice. "I believed that finding someone who felt the same would allevate some of these feeliings." Shaking her head in a much more sturdy way, her chest shifted as if to sigh, but as she could draw no breath, no breath could exit. "What do you do when you feel this way?" She asked, almost in desperation.
"I found someone..." Eden said assuredly, then her black brows pushed towards the center and her lips trembled.
Care stood in contemplation, her facial pates softening in their rigid stature as her eyes softly observed Eden. While Care might not be able to produce many emotions with physical ques, she could certainly read them. "I take it they aren't here." Her voice was soft, a tinge of warmness despite the artificial hum that accompanied every noise.
The crown of Eden's black head could be seen as shaking to denote, "No," as Eden looked the other way. "She is not here," Eden said, finally. "Not here with me any longer."
It took a few moments before Care could muster the confidence to speak again, and even then she felt unsure of what to say. A simple 'I'm sorry' felt shallow and she seriously doubted she could express knowledge of how it felt. She had left people behind but 'friends' likely wasn't the term Eden would use to describe who she had lost.
"I want to say I'm sorry but that feels shallow." Her hand briefly rested against her own chest, quelling the unwanted feeling. "I don't think I could begin to understand how that feels."
Eden's response was slow-moving as her own breathing became labored and she shuddered slightly as she spoke next, "I don't think it is like anything else I have experienced before and nothing I want to feel again." The XO of the YSS Kaiyō II was dismal and looked down at her hands as she held them in her lap, near her knees. "There is nobody watching over me, anymore..."
Tinges and spikes of painful and uncomfortable emotions swept through the medic, and it felt almost wrong to stand there, unable to offer the kind of empathetic condolonces that seemed to be needed. "I..." She was about to say 'I'm sorry' but once more it felt shallow to apologize for something she didn't understand. "I didn't know. Is there... Anything I can do to assist you?" She paused, trying to weasel in some justification. "As a medic it's my duty to keep people healthy, and that's more than physical. I care about the people here and seeing someone in distress-" She paused, suddenly finding it hard to justify, as if she couldn't even explain it to herself. "It makes me want to help."
Eden's lips wavered and moved on her chin. "I want to not need help... I don't want to have to need that, Care."
"That's something I do understand." Her voice rose slightly, as if she finally struck a chord she knew how to play. "I... I need help too, I need it badly and I've been refusing to ask because I don't want to bother others, and I don't want to have to rely on other people for my own problems." Stepping closer, she kneeled down, so her own height matched that of the sitting Eden. "But some problems can't be handled alone. It's not easy to admit, and even when you know it's true it feels impossible to act on, but I can be there for you." Her eyes clicked as they shifted away. "...But only if you want me to be."
Eden's eyes remained on Care's even when the Automata looked away and Eden then closed her shining golden pupils and said, "I do need someone, I can let you be there for me. And since you need someone, I can do the same for you."
Care's facial plates shifted as Eden spoke, her eyes returning with a curious gaze. With Eden's statement, her facial plates shifted into a lively smile, very different than the standard, solid look she often gave. Her face shifted almost organically, a warm, lovely smile taking over. "Thank you, Eden. I'll try and be there for you whenever you need me."
A few tears had managed to dribble from Eden's eyes and she even made a sort of half smile and half grimace as she whiped them with a finger. She almost spoke, then couldn't find the words and shook her head so that her black hair whipped from side to side gently on her cheeks.
"I shouldn't be this upset... Do you feel your own pain is valid, Care?" Eden asked.
"My own pain is... Difficult to measure, but I can't discount it simply because it doesn't show up in numbers. It took many a deal of time to understand what the pain was, and even longer to understand it. Regardless of how much I wish it away or need it to not hinder me, it's as valid as it is crippling." Care replied after a pause. "It's as valid as anything else I feel."
"As valid," Eden said, "as it is crippling." Her black brows furrowed and she said, "I can only imagine a future in which I live the life I used to live. I cannot imagine that life anymore. Do you feel it is a crippling illness or disease?"
Care paused, as if regarding the terms carefully. "An illness often implies temporary, but my pain is chronic, more likened to a disease to an organic." Her face shifted, contemplating the meanings, and more likely trying to liken them to something that directly affected her. "I'm unsure of the correct description, but my mind is not properly connected to my body. Routes of my mind connect to dead ends in the body, meaning they are incompatible. I am... Caused distress by emotions, particularly ones with notable physical outputs. The need to cry results in pressured pains, the need for touch insubstantial, translations not quite enough." Her face shifted lower, as if disappointed, yet she only spoke of herself. "And I am too fearful of change to rectify such problems. I am somehow more comfortable with the pains and discomforts that I know, rather than potential ones I know nothing of."
"Sometimes I wonder if my pain receptors can be turned off for manifestations of it in my thoughts, but I don't want to try... For the same if not similar reasons to yours." Eden was quiet for another moment, then said, "I don't want to try to turn something off when I know the hole will still be in my heart."
"I've heard a metaphor, a saying for situations lke that. Quite simply it goes, 'The devil you know is better than the devil you don't.' It's often used to justify why people don't take further strides to remove themselves from negative situations. While a situation may be harmful, it's also predictable, and people often choose pain over change." Care described after a moment. "It's a self-feeding cycle, and one that is difficult to break. I have not... Felt love, much less in the way you have, and I am uncertain of how loss feels in that regard, but I'm certain it can be overcome, and if you must reach a hand out for comfort, then I'll be there to provide it. If I don't know how to help you..." She paused, as if not wanting to consider the possibility. "We can find someone who knows how."
"Th-thank you, Care," Eden said genuinely. "I need that... That help." She looked away from the Automata as she said so and another tear flung itself from her eyes. "I don't know how to change my situation, though."
Care paused, and it was abundantly clear to her that how much she could help was limited. She didn't know the answers, this wasn't like some wound to be patched and she wasn't sure if this was something that simply got better.
"Neither do I." She admitted, the fault weighing heavily in her voice. "-But maybe time will tell, or maybe if I study enough I can figure something out." Both concepts carried a tone that Care audibly wasn't comfortable with. It was like not knowing the answer to someone elses pain bothered her.
"I don't think studying," Eden said, sniffling now as she wiped her nose on her fuzzy sweater's sleeve, "will fix it, but I do think nights like tonight..." The XO of the YSS Kaiyō II sighed. "Nights like tonight get each of us closer to figuring out what we need to figure out."
Care briefly nodded, but the prospect still seemed to eat away at her silently. "It's a problem with emotions, they can't be treated like physical wounds." Was a brief complaint. "But you're right. Isn't it a suggested solution for more physical issues? When people can't figure out what's wrong with an equation or a piece of code they walk through it step by step, explaining it to someone who won't understand it without help. Like, by helping someone else understand what you're thinking, you help yourself as well."
Care paused, looking down once more. "...I've done an awful job at using this method. I've spoken very little of my issues, I believe you may be the second person to know as much about it. The other is not present."
The small bit of hope that Eden had gotten when hearing that Care had opened up elsewhere was extinguished when she found that the friend that had been made was no longer present and there came a sour look over her face as she thought of all those long gone.
"I want to help others again," Eden said and after a moment of trembling breath, went on. "I want my family."
Care blinked slowly, as if digesting the information before responding. Her dimly lit eyes adjusted as they cautiously looked to Eden. "Who do you consider family?" She asked after a moment, but the tone of her voice felt as if she was truly uncertain of whether or not it was a good question to ask. "Family seems important. People seem so happy when they're with family. How do you make family?"
Eden seemed less than resolute in her stance as she simply made a soft moan and then her eyes fell down. She didn't know how to answer that.
The response, or lack thereof, more than confirmed Care's own doubts of the questioned. She looked away as her voice lowered to a sincere, regretful tone. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say something hurtful. I can just look it up, I just need more information than the definition."
Her eyes clicked in movement repeatedly before she moved onward, clearly trying to get the uncomfortable moment to pass. "I don't know why I was made with a flawed body or mind, but both are possible given the circumstances of my creation. It is illogical but clearly there was some purpose behind each. At night when I'm alone in the medical office I find myself thinking worrisome thoughts like whether or not I was meant to be broken."
"More information..." Eden said, eyes looking to the bleakness of the space outside of the ship through the observation deck's expansive window, "More information on family. If you're meant to be broken and even if you're not, families are meant to fix you."
Fix you. It was words that Care had thought of before but they hadn't quite held the weight that they did until Eden said the words. It rolled off her tongue like every other word but it hit Care in a place that only tightened and spasmed with an inability to act out, to respond to the stimuli. "Then they are close. Close enough to help. It's more than love then." She mused after a moment, returning to a silent look for moments more.
"I won't ask you what love is, but I can't help but admit an infinite curiosity about it welling inside me. What it feels like to love and to be loved. Yet there's a fear with that admiration of the emotion, that the one who craves love most will only repel it. Emotions are complex and I don't understand them. Do you, or other organics, understand your own emotions?"
"It's more than love," Eden repeated after Care had spoken and then answered the newest question more fully. "When you have family, everything makes sense. Understanding your own emotions is more possible with them."
The answer completed more than a few problems Care had, but even with the knowledge that she had gained from Eden she felt no closer to fixing her own problems. Knowing that water existed did little to quench a thirst when you had no canteen. She was silent for a time, before she shook her head briefly, moving from a crouch to sit on the floor, eyes turned to the window.
"I want to cry sometimes." She said, a brief, unsturdy tone to her voice. "Sometimes I don't even know why but I know what the feeling is. It's like a burning pressure next to my eyes. But I can't cry. I don't have tears. It just sits there, waiting for me to let it loose. Burning."
Eden shivered and said, "I do not have that desire. I wish you didn't have to wonder, but I am also glad that you do not, too."
Care simply shook her head, looking more to her reflection than the actual glass of the window. "I don't mean I want to know what it's like. It's the urge, the emotional response of crying. It's there, the need to do it." A hand went to her face, facial plates shifting and opened as she carressed the less than smooth insides of her mechanical face. "Imagine a carbonated bottle, you shake and squeeze it and the pressure builds. Eventually it might pop." Her finger stopped next to the sturdy lens of her eyes. "But the bottle doesn't pop. The pressure builds, and it builds, and there's no release."
Moving her facial plates back into the proper position, she moved to inspect her own hands. "It's exhausting. I've wanted to request the ability to fix these issues but I lack the confidence to make such a request lest I be a bother, much less actually carry out such acts."
Eden moved to sit next to Care on the ground below the window. Closer to Care, now, the XO let out a soft exhalation, "Of all the things we can work on, you may have chosen the second easiest to overcome."
"In a group so used to the shifting of bodies it must seem ridiculous to fear such change." Care replied. Her body was silent and still save for her face, where her facial plates shifted almost organically, and her eyes softly clicked with their motions. "Being an easier problem than the others won't make an easy problem, but it's a start." Her eyes turned to Eden, her visual glow soft and tempered into a faded blur. "You and Hoshi act with such resolute will. I'm envious of the drive you show the crew."
"I'm thankful for a crew that can see me at my lows as well as at my highs," Eden said to Care as she looked into her eyes. "And I'm thankful for you being able to do that, specifically. Thank you, Care."
Care had once heard of a saying, a simple three word 'Kill your heroes.' It was niche and at first she scarcely understood it. But as she sat there with Eden a meaning, however personal it may be, dawned on her. Eden had appeared so strong and flawless in the time she had looked up to the XO. Yet here they sat together, both downtrodden in problems that could not be fought with tooth and claw.
It humanized the aspects of Eden she had so loyally admired from a distance, and it made her more than a name to speak of in revere. She could empathize with Eden, and understand she faced plights Care could not quite imagine. Eden was a person, someone who lived and loved and lost and hurt, someone with flaws and problems that evaded her grasp. Care could not say they were similar, but they were hardly as far apart as Care initially believed.
"I hope that one day I can understand all of this." She spoke softly, the burning pressure welling beside her eyes. "If only so I could help anyone among us who faced them."
"I hope so, too..." Eden said slowly as she felt another trickle of tears from either eye. "I hope so, too, Care."
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Observation Deck
There was a solitude about the observation deck that permeated even the most honest and open of conversations on the observation deck. And, to many, there was an ease in finding a sense of peace with that solitude, whether alone or—almost impossibly—with others.
Eden sat waiting for that feeling to return to her while on one of the lounge chairs of the observation deck. She sat on the edge of her seat with her fingers gripping the corner, yellow eyes searching the sky through the transparent Zesuaium window.
Care's time aboard the ship had repetitive, predictable patterns. Rarely in her bunk room, she spent a majority of her time either in the Medical Office or the Observation Deck, only infrequently straying from such a pattern. She had stuck almost rigidly to it once they had passed between Universes, taking solace in the consistency during the travel. While such distances meant little to her in how she viewed things, it was still a new, and frankly terrifying prospect during the journey itself.
Her stride was clear and quiet, footsteps only making the softest sounds that her weight could allow. Even here, she was unused to the new sights present at the window, and she approached it with rapt attention, her hands holding one another in an almost fidgety nervousness. Her eyes glanced about the room, pausing as she spotted Eden sitting quietly, observing the same sights she had come to see.
"Good evening, Ma'am." Her synthetic voice called out, a certain light tone to it.
Eden, broken from a slight reverie, looked up to the medic's position near the entrance of the room, and looked down and away, as if her eyes were re-training on the bonsai trees below the window. She breathed in slowly before looking back up, a newfound spark of something akin to happiness in her own eyes, though Care didn't have to know Eden too well to be able to pick up on the facade that the smile likely was.
"Evening to you," Eden replied.
The soft glow of Care's eyes remained just a few moments longer as Eden looked away, the facial plates stiff in an almost doll-like smile. With a few adjusting clicks, they shifted to the window once more, her posture stiff and rigid in its overly proper stance. Her gaze shifted more, as if examining each part of the view the window had to offer. After a moment, she softly shook her head, facial plates on each side of her head quivering slightly.
"You'd think it would look more different. Being so far away you'd assume it would look more foreign. It's a Universe away and it feels like nothing more than a day trip." There was a lack of awe in her voice, more akin to some form of slight exasporation. "It's hardly a change at all."
Eden's gaze met Care's facial features as she studied the Automata with a half-smile. It faded slowly as she listened and then spoke out in turn.
"We're the ones that remain changed throughout the shifting universes," Eden said, "that we find ourselves in."
The Automata's gray face was divided into many tens of mobile plates, that shifted and shivered in the place of emotions. With close attention, even without knowing her many emotions could be told, and even with the false smile she put forth the look of her face showed a constant, hardy discontent. "We've changed?" She repeated, almost incredulous with her artificial tone.
"Maybe. I haven't noticed much change. Maybe things are a bit lonelier, but I'm still me."
Care had caught Eden's attention while she was deep in introspective thought and she asked, "How do you find yourself not ever-changing?"
"Perhaps it's a matter of not noticing small changes over time that add up, but I doubt that possibility." She paused, her brow shifting. "But regardless, I face the same problems, the same issues, and my beliefs and attitudes hardly shift. Maybe I'm not social enough to induct such change." Her shoulders slowly lowered. "It feels like a loop, each one just a tad more hopeless."
"It is a bit hopeless," Eden said, latching on to, perhaps, the wrong thing. "Is that how you feel?"
"It's one of the things I feel." She responded after a moment, ignoring the odd pressure in her chest. "It's inspiring to see how cheerful people like Hoshi are at times like these, but as time goes on I start to blame myself for not matching that optimism. It's difficult for me to even pretend to have that level of optimism. I just lock a few of my facial plates into a smile and give the most artificial responses I can." She paused, shaking her head. "I apologise if I'm putting my own problems on you."
"Your perspective," Eden sighed, "is as important as my own, if not an echoing of the same vein."
Care's face slowly turned to face Eden, her lens-like eyes adjusting as the soft glow dimmed, a wary look on her face. "Then you feel the same?" She questioned after a moment, as if perturbed that someone like Eden could share such pessimistic thoughts.
"I can only say that I do," Eden said in response. "There is little I vary on from your assessment of the situation, Care-chan."
Care solemnly nodded, chest tightening against the build up of the feeling. There was a pause before she spoke again, a sharp, frustrated tone to her voice. "I believed that finding someone who felt the same would allevate some of these feeliings." Shaking her head in a much more sturdy way, her chest shifted as if to sigh, but as she could draw no breath, no breath could exit. "What do you do when you feel this way?" She asked, almost in desperation.
"I found someone..." Eden said assuredly, then her black brows pushed towards the center and her lips trembled.
Care stood in contemplation, her facial pates softening in their rigid stature as her eyes softly observed Eden. While Care might not be able to produce many emotions with physical ques, she could certainly read them. "I take it they aren't here." Her voice was soft, a tinge of warmness despite the artificial hum that accompanied every noise.
The crown of Eden's black head could be seen as shaking to denote, "No," as Eden looked the other way. "She is not here," Eden said, finally. "Not here with me any longer."
It took a few moments before Care could muster the confidence to speak again, and even then she felt unsure of what to say. A simple 'I'm sorry' felt shallow and she seriously doubted she could express knowledge of how it felt. She had left people behind but 'friends' likely wasn't the term Eden would use to describe who she had lost.
"I want to say I'm sorry but that feels shallow." Her hand briefly rested against her own chest, quelling the unwanted feeling. "I don't think I could begin to understand how that feels."
Eden's response was slow-moving as her own breathing became labored and she shuddered slightly as she spoke next, "I don't think it is like anything else I have experienced before and nothing I want to feel again." The XO of the YSS Kaiyō II was dismal and looked down at her hands as she held them in her lap, near her knees. "There is nobody watching over me, anymore..."
Tinges and spikes of painful and uncomfortable emotions swept through the medic, and it felt almost wrong to stand there, unable to offer the kind of empathetic condolonces that seemed to be needed. "I..." She was about to say 'I'm sorry' but once more it felt shallow to apologize for something she didn't understand. "I didn't know. Is there... Anything I can do to assist you?" She paused, trying to weasel in some justification. "As a medic it's my duty to keep people healthy, and that's more than physical. I care about the people here and seeing someone in distress-" She paused, suddenly finding it hard to justify, as if she couldn't even explain it to herself. "It makes me want to help."
Eden's lips wavered and moved on her chin. "I want to not need help... I don't want to have to need that, Care."
"That's something I do understand." Her voice rose slightly, as if she finally struck a chord she knew how to play. "I... I need help too, I need it badly and I've been refusing to ask because I don't want to bother others, and I don't want to have to rely on other people for my own problems." Stepping closer, she kneeled down, so her own height matched that of the sitting Eden. "But some problems can't be handled alone. It's not easy to admit, and even when you know it's true it feels impossible to act on, but I can be there for you." Her eyes clicked as they shifted away. "...But only if you want me to be."
Eden's eyes remained on Care's even when the Automata looked away and Eden then closed her shining golden pupils and said, "I do need someone, I can let you be there for me. And since you need someone, I can do the same for you."
Care's facial plates shifted as Eden spoke, her eyes returning with a curious gaze. With Eden's statement, her facial plates shifted into a lively smile, very different than the standard, solid look she often gave. Her face shifted almost organically, a warm, lovely smile taking over. "Thank you, Eden. I'll try and be there for you whenever you need me."
A few tears had managed to dribble from Eden's eyes and she even made a sort of half smile and half grimace as she whiped them with a finger. She almost spoke, then couldn't find the words and shook her head so that her black hair whipped from side to side gently on her cheeks.
"I shouldn't be this upset... Do you feel your own pain is valid, Care?" Eden asked.
"My own pain is... Difficult to measure, but I can't discount it simply because it doesn't show up in numbers. It took many a deal of time to understand what the pain was, and even longer to understand it. Regardless of how much I wish it away or need it to not hinder me, it's as valid as it is crippling." Care replied after a pause. "It's as valid as anything else I feel."
"As valid," Eden said, "as it is crippling." Her black brows furrowed and she said, "I can only imagine a future in which I live the life I used to live. I cannot imagine that life anymore. Do you feel it is a crippling illness or disease?"
Care paused, as if regarding the terms carefully. "An illness often implies temporary, but my pain is chronic, more likened to a disease to an organic." Her face shifted, contemplating the meanings, and more likely trying to liken them to something that directly affected her. "I'm unsure of the correct description, but my mind is not properly connected to my body. Routes of my mind connect to dead ends in the body, meaning they are incompatible. I am... Caused distress by emotions, particularly ones with notable physical outputs. The need to cry results in pressured pains, the need for touch insubstantial, translations not quite enough." Her face shifted lower, as if disappointed, yet she only spoke of herself. "And I am too fearful of change to rectify such problems. I am somehow more comfortable with the pains and discomforts that I know, rather than potential ones I know nothing of."
"Sometimes I wonder if my pain receptors can be turned off for manifestations of it in my thoughts, but I don't want to try... For the same if not similar reasons to yours." Eden was quiet for another moment, then said, "I don't want to try to turn something off when I know the hole will still be in my heart."
"I've heard a metaphor, a saying for situations lke that. Quite simply it goes, 'The devil you know is better than the devil you don't.' It's often used to justify why people don't take further strides to remove themselves from negative situations. While a situation may be harmful, it's also predictable, and people often choose pain over change." Care described after a moment. "It's a self-feeding cycle, and one that is difficult to break. I have not... Felt love, much less in the way you have, and I am uncertain of how loss feels in that regard, but I'm certain it can be overcome, and if you must reach a hand out for comfort, then I'll be there to provide it. If I don't know how to help you..." She paused, as if not wanting to consider the possibility. "We can find someone who knows how."
"Th-thank you, Care," Eden said genuinely. "I need that... That help." She looked away from the Automata as she said so and another tear flung itself from her eyes. "I don't know how to change my situation, though."
Care paused, and it was abundantly clear to her that how much she could help was limited. She didn't know the answers, this wasn't like some wound to be patched and she wasn't sure if this was something that simply got better.
"Neither do I." She admitted, the fault weighing heavily in her voice. "-But maybe time will tell, or maybe if I study enough I can figure something out." Both concepts carried a tone that Care audibly wasn't comfortable with. It was like not knowing the answer to someone elses pain bothered her.
"I don't think studying," Eden said, sniffling now as she wiped her nose on her fuzzy sweater's sleeve, "will fix it, but I do think nights like tonight..." The XO of the YSS Kaiyō II sighed. "Nights like tonight get each of us closer to figuring out what we need to figure out."
Care briefly nodded, but the prospect still seemed to eat away at her silently. "It's a problem with emotions, they can't be treated like physical wounds." Was a brief complaint. "But you're right. Isn't it a suggested solution for more physical issues? When people can't figure out what's wrong with an equation or a piece of code they walk through it step by step, explaining it to someone who won't understand it without help. Like, by helping someone else understand what you're thinking, you help yourself as well."
Care paused, looking down once more. "...I've done an awful job at using this method. I've spoken very little of my issues, I believe you may be the second person to know as much about it. The other is not present."
The small bit of hope that Eden had gotten when hearing that Care had opened up elsewhere was extinguished when she found that the friend that had been made was no longer present and there came a sour look over her face as she thought of all those long gone.
"I want to help others again," Eden said and after a moment of trembling breath, went on. "I want my family."
Care blinked slowly, as if digesting the information before responding. Her dimly lit eyes adjusted as they cautiously looked to Eden. "Who do you consider family?" She asked after a moment, but the tone of her voice felt as if she was truly uncertain of whether or not it was a good question to ask. "Family seems important. People seem so happy when they're with family. How do you make family?"
Eden seemed less than resolute in her stance as she simply made a soft moan and then her eyes fell down. She didn't know how to answer that.
The response, or lack thereof, more than confirmed Care's own doubts of the questioned. She looked away as her voice lowered to a sincere, regretful tone. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say something hurtful. I can just look it up, I just need more information than the definition."
Her eyes clicked in movement repeatedly before she moved onward, clearly trying to get the uncomfortable moment to pass. "I don't know why I was made with a flawed body or mind, but both are possible given the circumstances of my creation. It is illogical but clearly there was some purpose behind each. At night when I'm alone in the medical office I find myself thinking worrisome thoughts like whether or not I was meant to be broken."
"More information..." Eden said, eyes looking to the bleakness of the space outside of the ship through the observation deck's expansive window, "More information on family. If you're meant to be broken and even if you're not, families are meant to fix you."
Fix you. It was words that Care had thought of before but they hadn't quite held the weight that they did until Eden said the words. It rolled off her tongue like every other word but it hit Care in a place that only tightened and spasmed with an inability to act out, to respond to the stimuli. "Then they are close. Close enough to help. It's more than love then." She mused after a moment, returning to a silent look for moments more.
"I won't ask you what love is, but I can't help but admit an infinite curiosity about it welling inside me. What it feels like to love and to be loved. Yet there's a fear with that admiration of the emotion, that the one who craves love most will only repel it. Emotions are complex and I don't understand them. Do you, or other organics, understand your own emotions?"
"It's more than love," Eden repeated after Care had spoken and then answered the newest question more fully. "When you have family, everything makes sense. Understanding your own emotions is more possible with them."
The answer completed more than a few problems Care had, but even with the knowledge that she had gained from Eden she felt no closer to fixing her own problems. Knowing that water existed did little to quench a thirst when you had no canteen. She was silent for a time, before she shook her head briefly, moving from a crouch to sit on the floor, eyes turned to the window.
"I want to cry sometimes." She said, a brief, unsturdy tone to her voice. "Sometimes I don't even know why but I know what the feeling is. It's like a burning pressure next to my eyes. But I can't cry. I don't have tears. It just sits there, waiting for me to let it loose. Burning."
Eden shivered and said, "I do not have that desire. I wish you didn't have to wonder, but I am also glad that you do not, too."
Care simply shook her head, looking more to her reflection than the actual glass of the window. "I don't mean I want to know what it's like. It's the urge, the emotional response of crying. It's there, the need to do it." A hand went to her face, facial plates shifting and opened as she carressed the less than smooth insides of her mechanical face. "Imagine a carbonated bottle, you shake and squeeze it and the pressure builds. Eventually it might pop." Her finger stopped next to the sturdy lens of her eyes. "But the bottle doesn't pop. The pressure builds, and it builds, and there's no release."
Moving her facial plates back into the proper position, she moved to inspect her own hands. "It's exhausting. I've wanted to request the ability to fix these issues but I lack the confidence to make such a request lest I be a bother, much less actually carry out such acts."
Eden moved to sit next to Care on the ground below the window. Closer to Care, now, the XO let out a soft exhalation, "Of all the things we can work on, you may have chosen the second easiest to overcome."
"In a group so used to the shifting of bodies it must seem ridiculous to fear such change." Care replied. Her body was silent and still save for her face, where her facial plates shifted almost organically, and her eyes softly clicked with their motions. "Being an easier problem than the others won't make an easy problem, but it's a start." Her eyes turned to Eden, her visual glow soft and tempered into a faded blur. "You and Hoshi act with such resolute will. I'm envious of the drive you show the crew."
"I'm thankful for a crew that can see me at my lows as well as at my highs," Eden said to Care as she looked into her eyes. "And I'm thankful for you being able to do that, specifically. Thank you, Care."
Care had once heard of a saying, a simple three word 'Kill your heroes.' It was niche and at first she scarcely understood it. But as she sat there with Eden a meaning, however personal it may be, dawned on her. Eden had appeared so strong and flawless in the time she had looked up to the XO. Yet here they sat together, both downtrodden in problems that could not be fought with tooth and claw.
It humanized the aspects of Eden she had so loyally admired from a distance, and it made her more than a name to speak of in revere. She could empathize with Eden, and understand she faced plights Care could not quite imagine. Eden was a person, someone who lived and loved and lost and hurt, someone with flaws and problems that evaded her grasp. Care could not say they were similar, but they were hardly as far apart as Care initially believed.
"I hope that one day I can understand all of this." She spoke softly, the burning pressure welling beside her eyes. "If only so I could help anyone among us who faced them."
"I hope so, too..." Eden said slowly as she felt another trickle of tears from either eye. "I hope so, too, Care."
-------------------------
OOC References:
Care: https://stararmy.com/wiki/doku.php?id=character:traumapatcher_care_seven-six_76-6165-3411
Eden: https://stararmy.com/wiki/doku.php?id=character:teien_eden
OOC Definitions:
Limbic: Concerning the Limbic portion of the brain, specifically the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, hypothalamus, basal ganglia, and cingulate gyrus. The amygdala is the emotion center of the brain, while the hippocampus plays an essential role in the formation of new memories about past experiences.
Care: https://stararmy.com/wiki/doku.php?id=character:traumapatcher_care_seven-six_76-6165-3411
Eden: https://stararmy.com/wiki/doku.php?id=character:teien_eden
OOC Definitions:
Limbic: Concerning the Limbic portion of the brain, specifically the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, hypothalamus, basal ganglia, and cingulate gyrus. The amygdala is the emotion center of the brain, while the hippocampus plays an essential role in the formation of new memories about past experiences.