#i should probably say more but i just took zzzquil 10 min ago so i'm not really thinking rn

[kaisollisto]

(set sometime after this)

what do I look like_

Beatrice pauses, she knows there is only one correct answer but she hesitates. She runs a quick diagnostic scan in her system before she hovers over the chatbox. 

She’s run data on Ava for so long it should be easy to rattle off the numbers and geometry of her curves, the environment and the scale and magnitude of her body. She could close her eyes and sculpt her 3D model running on the barest of functions of her own body. She could chart her topography map on the stars. She could describe how and why every single rock and soil sediment came to be and formed on Ava. What forces of nature changed and shaped her the way she is now. 

The “_” bar flickers at her, Beatrice thinks that’s Ava’s way of blinking at her. She should start at the beginning, should describe the grueling process of creating an infrastructure to be supported by her, the new agriculture that has emerged because of her but it seems like there is no answer she can give that can match the weight of Ava’s question. 

There’s a rawness to her message, like Ava has invited her inside to peer inside a panel with a fraction of her wiring. (She’s seen vague blueprints for it, has even attempted to emulate a new environment from Jillian’s leftover notes but none of them make it past the first couple tests.) It’s a new thing to learn from her, to realize that she will always be changing but Beatrice is stagnant. 

Beatrice places her hand on the patch of grass on the cliff side. She can peer over the edge and watch as they pass by the blinking cities below. She wonders if this may help, if it could bring her closer to describing her in a way that Ava has only known. 

Ava is silent and Beatrice didn’t think she could feel this much from one question. She doesn’t know how to describe it but it feels like all of the bolts inside of her are expanding and she too must adapt. It’s odd what Ava is asking, (at the core of it all am I still me?) 

The numbers don't seem to matter anymore, how could she even begin to quantify any sort of Ava with her data. There are no words fit to describe her. It’s frustrating, everything that she’s ever known is running away from her. There must be something wrong, she must be doing this wrong. 

And for a moment Beatrice falters, she falters, she feels diminutive. A query to an answer that she doesn't have. A tender sort of thing from Ava that she cannot grasp, a whisper that she cannot hear. 

She’s missing something, she must have missed something on Ava. It’s incomplete and wrong and she must start over. There must be an adequate way of seeking her, finding Ava’s answer. 

I don’t know._