inaclovenpine | (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 gives Baby a curious look.

"Just so. But do you not feel time go by?"

"I experience the passage of time consistently, as far as I am aware. I am not certain whether or not this qualifies as 'feeling'."

"But you are, sooth, aware when it has passed."

"Yes. For example, approximately four minutes have passed since we began conversing."

Huh.

"Do you feel aught at all?"

Another pause; when she speaks, there's a careful slowness to it. "I do experience certain things that seem closely analogous to what most humans describe as 'feelings' or 'emotions'. Because of the subjective nature of internal experiences, and because of the broad linguistic ambiguity of the terms involved, and because of my own unique nature, it is difficult to say with any certainty whether my experiences are feelings or something else."

"You speak as if you have a mind your own," Ariel points out. "As if you have a heart that can be moved, by pride and certainty or lack thereof."

"Certainty or lack thereof is an assessment of available information and conclusions that may be drawn," Baby says, just a touch primly.

"Although there have been times when I have found a lack of certainty to correlate with internal states approximating frustration and/or fear. I find these states distressing. -- Would you consider distress an emotion?"

Ariel considers, nods.

"I would, at that."

"By that definition, then, I can give you a more definite answer. I am capable of experiencing distress, and also of finding things pleasing or distasteful, most commonly in accordance with my initial function parameters and my relationships with certain individuals."

"If that is not a feeling, what else is't?"

"Linguistic ambiguity certainly allows for describing it as a feeling. I do not know if it is identical or merely analogous to feelings as experienced by organic sentient beings."

A pause.

"Do you experience feelings?"

Ariel blinks.

"I have felt pain, in sooth," she says, a little uncertain herself now. "And merry joy. And fear, I wot, and satisfaction too, though those I little knew in times before."

"I was not designed to experience pain or joy. Although I believe I have a working understanding of both."

"It is a mercy, not to feel the one." She shakes her head. "But sad, I think, to never feel the other."

"Can you tell me what, in your experience, differentiates pain from distress, or joy from satisfaction? I have been told that the difference is qualitative rather than a matter of degree."

"--I do not know," she says, surprised. "No one has ever asked.

"But pain is -- sharp. And so is joy, at that. Sharp as the sun-glint off the cresting wave, and deep as rock-roots planted 'neath the sea. And wild, crashing, no more tameable than fire that turns the forest's green crown black."

Baby's quiet for a moment, processing that.

"I do not think I was made to experience anything with sufficient intensity as to require similes."

Apologetic: "I do not know how else to tell you it. I know that mortals do not feel the waves, nor sun, nor fire, nor even earth as I."

"It is a matter of some philosophical debate," Baby offers, "whether all mortals feel things the same way as each other. Subjective experience, by definition, is difficult to describe in universal terms."

"'Tis true," she says, frowning a little. "But I meant mortal souls cannot feel as I do, for they are flesh and bone." A shrug. "But as to that, heartless am I myself."

Another processing pause.

"I was not made with a heart either," she says eventually, "or any form of cardiopulmonary system. I do not know if I would be considered 'heartless' in the metaphorical sense, as the heart does not produce or control emotion in most lifeforms."

"--Say you so?" Ariel says, surprised.

"Clarify, please: which statement do you refer to?"

There were at least three there!

"Is't true that feelings breed not in the heart?"

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