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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There's someone else -- something else? -- looking at the flowers too, from the vantage point of the top of the wall dividing this booth from the next.

The small metallic body tilts slightly on its spindly legs, to look from a different angle.

When Ariel notices it, she cocks her head to mirror it, curious.

The mobile pauses for a startled beat, then slowly tilts itself back the other way, experimentally.

Ariel mirrors it more or less exactly.

Another beat.

"Hello," says the newcomer.

"And well-met," Ariel says. She waves a hand, sending a trail of sparks like cinders through the air. "What might you be?"

"My name is Baby. I am the Security Office."

It's imprecise, but describing herself precisely is always difficult.

"And in that office, then, you are secure?"

"If I understand your use of 'office' correctly, in the sense of a position of public service or trust, then yes. I was created nearly a decade ago to serve that function."

A pause. "This mobile unit is largely incidental to my primary function. My central unit is elsewhere."

Ariel sits up, intrigued.

"You are not here entire?"

"That is broadly accurate. It could also be accurately said that I am not here at all, as I am operating this mobile unit remotely from my own location in the Security Office. However, it has become standard practice for most patrons of Milliways to refer to the mobile as the whole, at least in direct address, and I may thereby be considered effectively 'present' wherever the mobile is, as well as in my own location."

"But you are solid, sure," Ariel protests, reaching a hand towards it. "And yet are twain? Both here and there? That is a wonder."

In response to the gesture, the mobile obligingly hops down from the booth wall onto the tabletop, coming within reach.

"This unit is solid, yes. You may touch if you wish."

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.

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