Text.

[where_the_hearth_is]

I am over one hundred years old, imperial absolute. I have missed people before, been made briefly sad by my Mistresses's absences. But I have never mourned before.

I am stuck in feedback loops. Statistically, she will probably return in a tiny fraction of the time that typically passed between my Mistress's visits. But she may not. I cannot seem to resolve any of my routines considering the matter, and given how many of them are occupied with precisely that - I find my functions somewhat strained.

Is this how grief feels for everyone? How do you handle it?

Comments

action

[thefourteenth]

[She walks in and, on the move, immediately starts shedding her light short-sleeved jacket from work, stripping down to her work skirt and camisole. This is no social call: she's here for a feeding. Every two days, like clockwork.]

I need a secondary body.

[Finding the stairs to the basement and to the pool.]

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[where_the_hearth_is]

[And the pool is ready, House doing what it does best: seeing to its guests' needs efficiently and discretely.]

Oh. [Surprised and faintly hopeful] That could be rather complicated.

What sort of body?

[thefourteenth]

An organic human or near-human one.

[She begins to tie her hair back as always, readying herself to kneel at the pool-side and strap herself into position.]

This one frustrates me.

[where_the_hearth_is]

Didn't you say you were symbiotes?

[thefourteenth]

[She pauses in the middle of tying her hair, internally berating herself for forgetting that lie.]

I did.

[Let's see how the House takes this.]

[where_the_hearth_is]

Maybe you should explain it again.

I think I must misunderstand something, if you can just want a new one.

[Oh House. So earnest and innocent.]

[thefourteenth]

[The House seems pretty reasonable and painfully innocent, so maybe there's still a way out of this without losing the ally keeping her alive. Edriss locks herself into one of the wrist cuffs delicately, not looking at the android that sates Eva's brain's craving for eye contact.]

Run a brain scan on this body while I'm feeding.

[It will show a fully functional, fully-sentient human brain. Unconscious, sleeping, unable to be woken up, but in normal REM sleep. Eva's skull may even show evidence of recent trauma and the presence of alien chemicals in the passage from ear to cranial cavity- traces of the numbing chemical Edriss' yeerk body secretes to numb the pain of having to brute-force her way through that part of the head.

Edriss bends over, clamps the neck cuff on, cuffs her remaining wrist, and exits Eva. The Pool is welcome, sating the hunger and vague tiredness already starting to seep into her bones. She swims and feeds and luxuriates for a good half hour before finding Eva's ear, still just touching the surface of the Pool, and re-enters.]

[where_the_hearth_is]

Why can't she wake up?

[It's just trying to understand. It doesn't sound hurt, just supremely confused.]

And why did you lie?

[thefourteenth]

[She shrugs out of the first cuff then unlocks the neck and other wrist cuff and stands slowly, rubbing her neck.]

I had no choice. Most species object to the presence of body-stealing slugs- as if we have a choice!

[where_the_hearth_is]

Oh. I'm sorry. That must be rather difficult.

[Totally genuine sympathy.]

[thefourteenth]

It is.

This body- she was a normal human in our world. I suspect the Core has tampered with her independent brain function.