Original fiction
....How strange. It's a Christmas present for my mom, and I thought I would share it with all of you, since I didn't do anything for the holidays, and some of you might like it. ^__^ Thank you to animus_wyrmis for reading it through for me, and to tasoka for picking the fairy tale!
The old man had made her as a gift for his wife. They had had no children, and in their old age, they wanted the warmth and life that a younger person could bring into their home.
She was not a person, not really, and they made sure that she knew it. They had never tried to hide the fact that she was made of metal and polymers. They had laughed about it with her, and told her that she-and they-were lucky, because no matter what happened to her, she could always be fixed. There were advantages to not being human, they said.
They were good to her. They treated her almost as if she were their daughter, and for a time she was happy.
And then, one day, she started up to find that all of the color had been leeched out of her world. Sounds were fuzzy and too-loud, and she was frightened.
They found her on her bed, huddled against a wall. They reached for her, voices buzzing, and she shrank back, shaking her head. It was wrong, it was wrong, it was all wrong, and then the old man pressed a spot at the base of her jaw and she was gone.
When they restarted her, the colors of the room made her blink. As her vision cleared, she could see the old man packing his tools carefully into a satchel.
“Some of your wiring went bad,” he told her cheerfully. “Nothing too serious. We’ll just have to make sure that we’re more careful about your maintenance from now on.” He set his satchel aside and patted her on the head. “I think Mother has dinner ready. Shall we go?”
She followed him, but somehow she felt heavy. Something was wrong, and for a moment she wanted to ask the old man to make sure he hadn’t missed any malfunctions, but then she realized what the problem was.
She was sad.
The old man had not been worried. All he had seen was a simple mechanical error, easily fixed. Though he himself had programmed her emotional responses, he had never seen them as anything more than wiring.
This was not where she belonged.
---
She left the next day. They tried to stop her, but she had to leave. “Why?” they wanted to know. “Haven’t we been good to you?”
All she could do was nod. Yes. Yes, you have treated me well. But you have never made me feel real.
She could not say it.
And so she left. She did not look back at the cottage. The heavy feeling had returned, and she wondered why; she had not belonged there.
The road was dusty, and the day hot. She did not tire, but she had been told by the old man to be careful about overheating. When she found a tree, she stopped and rested in its shade, wondering how she would know when it would be safe to keep walking.
They found her there, the young man and his wife with their little daughter. They asked her if she was all right, if she was lost, if she had a place to stay. Did she need any help?
No, she told them, she was fine. She wasn’t lost, either. She couldn’t be. She didn’t know where she was going.
They brought her with them.
Their house was smaller than the old man and woman’s had been, but it was brighter. The little girl tore through the three rooms, laughing, her father chasing behind her. The mother watched them fondly.
The not-girl smiled, the heavy feeling in her chest lessening. The mother asked her to help with dinner, and she agreed, glad to have something to do. She was given a knife and a cutting board and set to chopping a heap of scrubbed vegetables.
The mother hummed cheerfully as she got out plates and passed them to the little girl. The father stirred a pot of soup on the stove, and thanked the not-girl when she slid piles of chopped vegetables into the pot. The not-girl nodded shyly and returned to her knife.
The little girl was running again, careening around the counter to smack into the not-girl’s legs. The knife slipped.
The casing on her index finger parted easily under the blade. It was a shallow cut, but the lack of blood was immediately noticed. The kitchen stilled.
“I am sorry,” the not-girl said into the silence.
The father moved, an awkward, neck-stretching bob of his head. He stepped closer to the not-girl. His hands fluttered nervously at his sides. He opened his mouth, and then closed it again.
The mother was watching the not-girl with wide, wary eyes. The little girl was still on the floor, where she had fallen after the collision. Something sparked in the not-girl’s finger. The little girl skittered away.
“I will go.” The not-girl said, and then again, “I am sorry.”
---
She tore a strip of fabric from the hem of her shirt and bound her finger. The finger did not hurt, and the bandage would not help it heal, but she felt instinctively that the bloodless cut should be hidden.
Daylight was giving way to dusk and evening coolness. She knew this meant that she was in less danger of overheating, and was grateful. She wanted to put as much distance as she could between herself and the fear of the small family.
Night passed and dawn broke. She kept walking. She did not notice the steady climb of the sun in the sky until her vision began to swim. Her head felt too full, and the colors of the world around her were abruptly too bright. She stumbled slightly, but stayed upright. Slowing down a bit, she looked for a place to rest.
She heard the stream before she saw it, and her steps quickened again unconsciously. When she reached the water, she sat down on the bank, and dipped her right hand into it. She did not dare to get her cut wet.
She laid back on the grass, placing a cool, damp hand on her forehead. Sighing in relief, she shut her eyes.
A voice above her made her open them again. A youth stood over her, looking down with a curious expression on his face. He repeated his greeting.
She replied in kind, and he dropped down into the grass beside her. They began to talk. Small things, inconsequential, but he made her laugh, and she appreciated it.
After a while, he produced food from a pocket in his oversized vest. He offered some of it to her, asking if she was hungry.
She was not hungry; she did not eat. “No,” she said, a half-truth, and rubbed at her bandage. She registered vaguely that it felt loose, but by then it was too late. The cloth slipped from her finger.
He looked at her hand, perplexed. “Why did you bandage that, it’s not...” here he trailed off, and before she could move away, he grabbed her hand and brought it up to get a closer look. His face registered shock, and then wonder. “You...you’re...”
She drew herself inward, waiting for him to be afraid.
The fear never came. “That’s amazing!” he said excitedly. “Who made you? How do you work?” He prodded the cut, peering at the wires in her finger.
She snatched her hand away and re-bandaged her finger.
“Does that hurt?” he asked, relentless in his curiosity. “Is there someone who can fix it for you?”
She stood up, shaking her head mutely, her damaged hand cradled against her chest. He reached for her, but she backed away.
“Hey, no, don’t go,” he said, his voice disappointed. “Stay.”
She left.
---
She could no longer move her cut finger. It should not have been a surprise to her, and yet it was. She spent a few minutes after the initial realization staring at it, willing it to move. It remained slightly curled, motionless. Useless.
She felt a stab of fear at that, but quickly willed it away. It was only one finger. She would be fine, and she would find someone who could fix it.
The next day, her wrist was stiff.
Two days later, her arm hung limp by her side, and she had no idea where she was. The heavy feeling in her chest, she realized, must have been some kind of sleeping animal. It was awake now, and scrabbling at her ribs with panicked claws. She collapsed by the side of the road, drew her knees up to her chin and wished that she could cry.
She did not know how much time had passed before she heard the footsteps. When she looked up, she saw a ragged, scruffy girl striding past. The not-girl called out, and for a moment, it seemed as though the ragged girl had not heard. Then she stopped walking, and turned to look at the sad huddle by the side of the road that was the not-girl.
“C-can you help me...?” the not-girl asked timidly, unfolding her knees.
“What’s the matter?”
The not-girl hesitated. “...My arm,” she finally answered. “It has...stopped working.”
The ragged girl wanted explanations; the not-girl could almost see the questions hovering in her slightly-opened mouth. The not-girl looked away, fixing her eyes on a point just before the scuffed toes of the ragged girl’s shoes. The ragged girl closed her mouth and reached out a hand to help the not-girl up.
“It’s a couple days’ walk to the nearest village,” she said.
The not-girl stared at the hand in surprise for a moment before taking it and allowing herself to be pulled to her feet. She swayed slightly, and the ragged girl steadied her.
Together, the ragged girl leading, the not-girl a pace or so behind, they made their way slowly back down the road.
They did not speak very much. Once or twice, the not-girl would ask a question, receive a short reply, and then have no idea where to carry the conversation from there.
When it grew dark, they stopped for rest. The ragged girl offered food to the not-girl, and while it was not exactly a lie to say that she was not hungry, it still made the not-girl feel guilty. She felt even more guilty when the ragged girl forced the food on her anyway, saying that it was unhealthy not to eat. When the ragged girl was not watching, the not-girl tossed bits of it away for animals to find, and this made her feel guiltiest of all.
---
They reached the village as dusk was falling the next day. As they walked through it, the not-girl noticed that people around them were behaving oddly. People would look up to see them pass, and then their expressions would change, darken. A few of them even went back into their houses as the ragged girl and the not-girl walked by.
The not-girl wanted to ask about this, and turned to the ragged girl. The look on the ragged girl’s face was terrible, angry and sad, and her gaze was fixed on her shoes. The not-girl swallowed her question.
Finally, the ragged girl looked up. “We need to find you a doctor, right?”
The heavy feeling in the not-girl’s chest returned with sudden force. There was no way it could be avoided any longer. “I do not need a doctor,” she admitted.
The ragged girl waited for her to elaborate.
“...Could you take me to a mechanic?”
“A mechanic?” The ragged girl sounded puzzled.
The not-girl nodded in confirmation. She waited, apprehensive, but the ragged girl asked no other questions, simply furrowing her brow and leading the not-girl down a small side street.
A small, swaybacked awning with no sign was the only distinguishing feature of the doorway where the ragged girl stopped. She pushed open the door and called out a greeting.
A man appeared from another room. When he saw the ragged girl, his face lit up, and he immediately ushered them inside, launching into a speech telling her that it has been too long since he has seen her, and asking her where she has been.
The ragged girl smiled slightly, but gave no other answer. The man did not seem to expect one, and continued speaking, asking what he could do for her today.
The ragged girl nodded toward the not-girl. “Says she needs a mechanic,” she said simply, and moved toward the door. “I’ll wait outside.”
As the door closed behind the ragged girl, the man gave the not-girl his full attention for the first time. “Well? What seems to be the trouble, miss?”
The not-girl un-bandaged her finger. “My arm,” she told the man. “It stopped moving shortly after I got this cut.”
He was surprised, she could tell, but he hid it well, and did not seem at all put off by the fact that she had wires instead of veins. He went to work immediately, carefully opening the casing of her arm and examining the wires and mechanisms inside. The not-girl watched for a while, but she did not understand what he was doing, and her mind began to wander.
She remembered the way that the small family had looked at her, and realized that it was similar to the way that the villagers had watched the ragged girl pass. This man had seemed familiar with the ragged girl, and so she finally asked the question that had been on her mind since they had reached the village.
“Ah,” the man said, methodically separating a single wire from a large bundle. “That is a long story.”
---
It was dark by the time the man managed to get the not-girl’s arm to move again. He insisted that he had done it as a favor to the ragged girl, and would not allow the not-girl to pay for his work.
She left the workshop and found that, true to her word, the ragged girl was standing outside the door.
“He told you, didn’t he.” It was not a question, and the not-girl nodded slowly, wondering if the ragged girl had heard her talking to the man.
“I never stole anything.”
“He did not say that you did,” the not-girl replied. “Only that some people thought that you had.”
The ragged girl laughed bitterly. “Amounts to the same thing,” she said. “I had to leave either way.”
“Leaving was your choice.” The ragged girl looked at her sharply, but the not-girl kept speaking. “It was my choice, too. Neither of us wanted to stay where others made us feel as though we were less than people. We did not belong in those places.”
The ragged girl’s gaze softened a little. “You...you’re not...human, are you?” she asked, delicately.
The not-girl wrapped her arms around herself. “No,” she said softly. “Not in the same way that you are. But I am a person.”
The ragged girl fell silent. The not-girl watched as a cloud slipped in front of the moon, diffusing its glow and making it look soft and hazy.
“Where are you going?” the ragged girl asked at last. “From here, I mean.”
The not-girl considered. “I do not know,” she said.
The ragged girl seemed to struggle with herself for a moment. “...Can I go with you?”
The not-girl looked at her, startled. It was something she had not expected, yet it seemed fitting somehow. “Yes,” she replied.
The ragged girl smiled then, and the not-girl was struck with the sudden hope that wherever the two of them ended up belonging, their places might not be so far apart.
They left immediately, the village settling into sleep behind them.
---end---
Thre it is. I still want to do some holiday art, but it might be a bit late...
Happy Holidays, everyone!
The old man had made her as a gift for his wife. They had had no children, and in their old age, they wanted the warmth and life that a younger person could bring into their home.
She was not a person, not really, and they made sure that she knew it. They had never tried to hide the fact that she was made of metal and polymers. They had laughed about it with her, and told her that she-and they-were lucky, because no matter what happened to her, she could always be fixed. There were advantages to not being human, they said.
They were good to her. They treated her almost as if she were their daughter, and for a time she was happy.
And then, one day, she started up to find that all of the color had been leeched out of her world. Sounds were fuzzy and too-loud, and she was frightened.
They found her on her bed, huddled against a wall. They reached for her, voices buzzing, and she shrank back, shaking her head. It was wrong, it was wrong, it was all wrong, and then the old man pressed a spot at the base of her jaw and she was gone.
When they restarted her, the colors of the room made her blink. As her vision cleared, she could see the old man packing his tools carefully into a satchel.
“Some of your wiring went bad,” he told her cheerfully. “Nothing too serious. We’ll just have to make sure that we’re more careful about your maintenance from now on.” He set his satchel aside and patted her on the head. “I think Mother has dinner ready. Shall we go?”
She followed him, but somehow she felt heavy. Something was wrong, and for a moment she wanted to ask the old man to make sure he hadn’t missed any malfunctions, but then she realized what the problem was.
She was sad.
The old man had not been worried. All he had seen was a simple mechanical error, easily fixed. Though he himself had programmed her emotional responses, he had never seen them as anything more than wiring.
This was not where she belonged.
---
She left the next day. They tried to stop her, but she had to leave. “Why?” they wanted to know. “Haven’t we been good to you?”
All she could do was nod. Yes. Yes, you have treated me well. But you have never made me feel real.
She could not say it.
And so she left. She did not look back at the cottage. The heavy feeling had returned, and she wondered why; she had not belonged there.
The road was dusty, and the day hot. She did not tire, but she had been told by the old man to be careful about overheating. When she found a tree, she stopped and rested in its shade, wondering how she would know when it would be safe to keep walking.
They found her there, the young man and his wife with their little daughter. They asked her if she was all right, if she was lost, if she had a place to stay. Did she need any help?
No, she told them, she was fine. She wasn’t lost, either. She couldn’t be. She didn’t know where she was going.
They brought her with them.
Their house was smaller than the old man and woman’s had been, but it was brighter. The little girl tore through the three rooms, laughing, her father chasing behind her. The mother watched them fondly.
The not-girl smiled, the heavy feeling in her chest lessening. The mother asked her to help with dinner, and she agreed, glad to have something to do. She was given a knife and a cutting board and set to chopping a heap of scrubbed vegetables.
The mother hummed cheerfully as she got out plates and passed them to the little girl. The father stirred a pot of soup on the stove, and thanked the not-girl when she slid piles of chopped vegetables into the pot. The not-girl nodded shyly and returned to her knife.
The little girl was running again, careening around the counter to smack into the not-girl’s legs. The knife slipped.
The casing on her index finger parted easily under the blade. It was a shallow cut, but the lack of blood was immediately noticed. The kitchen stilled.
“I am sorry,” the not-girl said into the silence.
The father moved, an awkward, neck-stretching bob of his head. He stepped closer to the not-girl. His hands fluttered nervously at his sides. He opened his mouth, and then closed it again.
The mother was watching the not-girl with wide, wary eyes. The little girl was still on the floor, where she had fallen after the collision. Something sparked in the not-girl’s finger. The little girl skittered away.
“I will go.” The not-girl said, and then again, “I am sorry.”
---
She tore a strip of fabric from the hem of her shirt and bound her finger. The finger did not hurt, and the bandage would not help it heal, but she felt instinctively that the bloodless cut should be hidden.
Daylight was giving way to dusk and evening coolness. She knew this meant that she was in less danger of overheating, and was grateful. She wanted to put as much distance as she could between herself and the fear of the small family.
Night passed and dawn broke. She kept walking. She did not notice the steady climb of the sun in the sky until her vision began to swim. Her head felt too full, and the colors of the world around her were abruptly too bright. She stumbled slightly, but stayed upright. Slowing down a bit, she looked for a place to rest.
She heard the stream before she saw it, and her steps quickened again unconsciously. When she reached the water, she sat down on the bank, and dipped her right hand into it. She did not dare to get her cut wet.
She laid back on the grass, placing a cool, damp hand on her forehead. Sighing in relief, she shut her eyes.
A voice above her made her open them again. A youth stood over her, looking down with a curious expression on his face. He repeated his greeting.
She replied in kind, and he dropped down into the grass beside her. They began to talk. Small things, inconsequential, but he made her laugh, and she appreciated it.
After a while, he produced food from a pocket in his oversized vest. He offered some of it to her, asking if she was hungry.
She was not hungry; she did not eat. “No,” she said, a half-truth, and rubbed at her bandage. She registered vaguely that it felt loose, but by then it was too late. The cloth slipped from her finger.
He looked at her hand, perplexed. “Why did you bandage that, it’s not...” here he trailed off, and before she could move away, he grabbed her hand and brought it up to get a closer look. His face registered shock, and then wonder. “You...you’re...”
She drew herself inward, waiting for him to be afraid.
The fear never came. “That’s amazing!” he said excitedly. “Who made you? How do you work?” He prodded the cut, peering at the wires in her finger.
She snatched her hand away and re-bandaged her finger.
“Does that hurt?” he asked, relentless in his curiosity. “Is there someone who can fix it for you?”
She stood up, shaking her head mutely, her damaged hand cradled against her chest. He reached for her, but she backed away.
“Hey, no, don’t go,” he said, his voice disappointed. “Stay.”
She left.
---
She could no longer move her cut finger. It should not have been a surprise to her, and yet it was. She spent a few minutes after the initial realization staring at it, willing it to move. It remained slightly curled, motionless. Useless.
She felt a stab of fear at that, but quickly willed it away. It was only one finger. She would be fine, and she would find someone who could fix it.
The next day, her wrist was stiff.
Two days later, her arm hung limp by her side, and she had no idea where she was. The heavy feeling in her chest, she realized, must have been some kind of sleeping animal. It was awake now, and scrabbling at her ribs with panicked claws. She collapsed by the side of the road, drew her knees up to her chin and wished that she could cry.
She did not know how much time had passed before she heard the footsteps. When she looked up, she saw a ragged, scruffy girl striding past. The not-girl called out, and for a moment, it seemed as though the ragged girl had not heard. Then she stopped walking, and turned to look at the sad huddle by the side of the road that was the not-girl.
“C-can you help me...?” the not-girl asked timidly, unfolding her knees.
“What’s the matter?”
The not-girl hesitated. “...My arm,” she finally answered. “It has...stopped working.”
The ragged girl wanted explanations; the not-girl could almost see the questions hovering in her slightly-opened mouth. The not-girl looked away, fixing her eyes on a point just before the scuffed toes of the ragged girl’s shoes. The ragged girl closed her mouth and reached out a hand to help the not-girl up.
“It’s a couple days’ walk to the nearest village,” she said.
The not-girl stared at the hand in surprise for a moment before taking it and allowing herself to be pulled to her feet. She swayed slightly, and the ragged girl steadied her.
Together, the ragged girl leading, the not-girl a pace or so behind, they made their way slowly back down the road.
They did not speak very much. Once or twice, the not-girl would ask a question, receive a short reply, and then have no idea where to carry the conversation from there.
When it grew dark, they stopped for rest. The ragged girl offered food to the not-girl, and while it was not exactly a lie to say that she was not hungry, it still made the not-girl feel guilty. She felt even more guilty when the ragged girl forced the food on her anyway, saying that it was unhealthy not to eat. When the ragged girl was not watching, the not-girl tossed bits of it away for animals to find, and this made her feel guiltiest of all.
---
They reached the village as dusk was falling the next day. As they walked through it, the not-girl noticed that people around them were behaving oddly. People would look up to see them pass, and then their expressions would change, darken. A few of them even went back into their houses as the ragged girl and the not-girl walked by.
The not-girl wanted to ask about this, and turned to the ragged girl. The look on the ragged girl’s face was terrible, angry and sad, and her gaze was fixed on her shoes. The not-girl swallowed her question.
Finally, the ragged girl looked up. “We need to find you a doctor, right?”
The heavy feeling in the not-girl’s chest returned with sudden force. There was no way it could be avoided any longer. “I do not need a doctor,” she admitted.
The ragged girl waited for her to elaborate.
“...Could you take me to a mechanic?”
“A mechanic?” The ragged girl sounded puzzled.
The not-girl nodded in confirmation. She waited, apprehensive, but the ragged girl asked no other questions, simply furrowing her brow and leading the not-girl down a small side street.
A small, swaybacked awning with no sign was the only distinguishing feature of the doorway where the ragged girl stopped. She pushed open the door and called out a greeting.
A man appeared from another room. When he saw the ragged girl, his face lit up, and he immediately ushered them inside, launching into a speech telling her that it has been too long since he has seen her, and asking her where she has been.
The ragged girl smiled slightly, but gave no other answer. The man did not seem to expect one, and continued speaking, asking what he could do for her today.
The ragged girl nodded toward the not-girl. “Says she needs a mechanic,” she said simply, and moved toward the door. “I’ll wait outside.”
As the door closed behind the ragged girl, the man gave the not-girl his full attention for the first time. “Well? What seems to be the trouble, miss?”
The not-girl un-bandaged her finger. “My arm,” she told the man. “It stopped moving shortly after I got this cut.”
He was surprised, she could tell, but he hid it well, and did not seem at all put off by the fact that she had wires instead of veins. He went to work immediately, carefully opening the casing of her arm and examining the wires and mechanisms inside. The not-girl watched for a while, but she did not understand what he was doing, and her mind began to wander.
She remembered the way that the small family had looked at her, and realized that it was similar to the way that the villagers had watched the ragged girl pass. This man had seemed familiar with the ragged girl, and so she finally asked the question that had been on her mind since they had reached the village.
“Ah,” the man said, methodically separating a single wire from a large bundle. “That is a long story.”
---
It was dark by the time the man managed to get the not-girl’s arm to move again. He insisted that he had done it as a favor to the ragged girl, and would not allow the not-girl to pay for his work.
She left the workshop and found that, true to her word, the ragged girl was standing outside the door.
“He told you, didn’t he.” It was not a question, and the not-girl nodded slowly, wondering if the ragged girl had heard her talking to the man.
“I never stole anything.”
“He did not say that you did,” the not-girl replied. “Only that some people thought that you had.”
The ragged girl laughed bitterly. “Amounts to the same thing,” she said. “I had to leave either way.”
“Leaving was your choice.” The ragged girl looked at her sharply, but the not-girl kept speaking. “It was my choice, too. Neither of us wanted to stay where others made us feel as though we were less than people. We did not belong in those places.”
The ragged girl’s gaze softened a little. “You...you’re not...human, are you?” she asked, delicately.
The not-girl wrapped her arms around herself. “No,” she said softly. “Not in the same way that you are. But I am a person.”
The ragged girl fell silent. The not-girl watched as a cloud slipped in front of the moon, diffusing its glow and making it look soft and hazy.
“Where are you going?” the ragged girl asked at last. “From here, I mean.”
The not-girl considered. “I do not know,” she said.
The ragged girl seemed to struggle with herself for a moment. “...Can I go with you?”
The not-girl looked at her, startled. It was something she had not expected, yet it seemed fitting somehow. “Yes,” she replied.
The ragged girl smiled then, and the not-girl was struck with the sudden hope that wherever the two of them ended up belonging, their places might not be so far apart.
They left immediately, the village settling into sleep behind them.
---end---
Thre it is. I still want to do some holiday art, but it might be a bit late...
Happy Holidays, everyone!