inaclovenpine | (no subject)

(no subject)

MIR. Ariel? My Ariel!
Or should I say, my father's Ariel--
But you will come if I sing out for you,
Is that not so?

ARIEL. Call that a song, my little mistress?
Come, come, I've heard you sing a sweeter tune!
Went it not so?

[Sings, as birds]

MIR. O, Ariel, Ariel!
You know I cannot sing as you do!
You smile at me, you jest.

ARIEL. I'faith, my gentle miss,
I smile to see you smile, that is all.
It gives your father ease when you are happy.

MIR. Is that why you are dogging at my heels?
My father set you here to watch?
No, Ariel, stay, stay! I am not angry.
But pray you, Ariel, do not tell him we
Came out this far from home.
He keeps me so close, still, as if I were a babe,
And I am fully twelve years old.

ARIEL. Nay! Are you grown so agéd, little chick?
I thought your hair grew white, like your sire's.
Come, let's away and back--

MIR. I pray you, Ariel, do not tell him.
Let this grove be my own, and mine alone.
Please you, Ariel.
Speak not a word to him.

ARIEL. Silent as breath I'll be, my gentle mistress.

In Milliways, a slim, translucent figure sits cross-legged on the table of a booth. Lying on the table beside her -- it? him? -- is a chain of flowers, looking a little crumpled but still bright.

Ariel thinks perhaps she should not let Prospero see it. Perhaps it should stay here. But before she has to leave it anywhere, she likes to look at it.

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Ariel pokes the central shell of the mobile with one finger. She herself feels -- if the mobile can feel -- solid, but not quite like flesh. More like air made hard enough to interact with its surroundings.

The mobile's shell feels like the metal it appears to be, cool but not cold to the touch.

"May I ask your name or preferred appellation?"

She lifts her hand from the mobile and starts to wiggle her fingers. As they move, they turn opaque and silvery and reflect the light, until her hand appears to be the same sort of metal as Baby's shell.

But it is not a comfortable illusion to maintain: too solid and sword-like. She turns her hand back to the translucent seeming it had before.

"Well, well! My master named me Ariel, and so that self-same Ariel will serve."

The mobile tilts upward to study the transformation with interest, and focuses back on Ariel's face when it's done.

"I am pleased to meet you, Ariel."

"What sort of name is Baby?" Ariel asks, with interest. "Will you grow? Are you yet young?"

"When I was made by the magician Timothy Hunter," says Baby, with unmistakable pride in her otherwise neutral-to-pleasant tone, "he took to calling me Baby before my self-awareness emerged. It is my understanding that he meant it in the sense of an endearment, rather than as a literal descriptor."

Ariel's focus sharpens.

"You are a spell, then, something cast and made, not a creature such as I, or" -- she gestures to a passing waitrat -- "these."

"I am a made thing, yes. To refer to me as a spell is broadly accurate, although an atypical one, as few spells develop sentience. I cannot say with any degree of certainty how closely my nature resembles yours, as I know very little about you as yet."

Ariel shrugs. "Call me a spirit, or a storm, or wind. Those are as much my nature as aught else. But nothing made me that I ever knew."

A pause.

"I believe some would refer to you as an air elemental," Baby offers.

Intrigued: "Is't so? 'Tis possible. I never did have need to name myself ere I was mastered."

"Clarify, please: mastered?"

The mobile settles down on the table, tucking its legs under itself for all the world like a cat.

Her gaze drifts over to the chain of flowers, and around her neck, there's a ghostly flicker of a collar.

"Not all magicians make their serving-things; some catch, some call, some summon from the depths. I am to a magician contract-bound in payment for a freedom he gave me. 'Fore him I served my mistress Sycorax. And before her" -- she shrugs again -- "I did not know to serve."

"I see. I believe our situations may be roughly comparable, although I was created to serve a particular function, rather than a particular individual. Timothy Hunter made me, but he no longer holds my bond."

"But still you serve."

"That is correct. I continue to carry out my primary function."

"Why so?"

Another pause, faintly perplexed.

"It is my function."

Ariel frowns, equally bemused.

"Do you enjoy it?"

"I find it satisfying, in a way that I believe closely approximates the concept of 'enjoyment' as it applies to work. Do you enjoy your own work?"

She glances towards the flower chain again and murmurs, "Yea, sometimes, I suppose."

The mobile swivels a little to follow her glance.

"I conjecture, however, that you perceive your work and your nature as separate things."

A shrug.

"I was not made for it, as you, it seems. Mayhap I've grown used to it, through the years."

A pause.

"Is your contract of service of limited duration, or indefinite?"

"Nay, nay," she says, sounding alarmed at the prospect. "'Tis but a time, 'tis thirteen year, and if I serve him mild and well enough, my master promises to bate me one."