who_is_she | it's a banana

Elyta had started greatly enjoying the time he spent with Ajax. Not that he hadn't been enjoying it before--it was just different, now. Ajax seemed to get a little more relaxed and a little more used to the idea of sentience with every passing day, and Elyta had taken to being his life coach very well. Not that Elyta thought he was very good at it--he just seemed to have a lot of fun whenever Ajax had a certain question about sentient life. Most of the time, Elyta thought about when he'd first escaped his home planet, and what kind of things he would have liked to know right away, like how to get away with stealing what you need to get by. Of course, Ajax didn't need to eat, and barely needed any supplies or maintenance at all, but he seemed very interested in the concept, anyways.

Elyta had decided to start with the very first part of stealing, the part that Ajax seemed to have the most difficulty with--lying.

They were sitting together in the small kitchenette of the room Elyta was renting, while Elyta lectured him about the many facets of being a great thief. Elyta wasn't sure if he was having so much fun because he enjoyed the topic, or because he enjoyed the company. He'd found that talking to Ajax was remarkably easy, easier than Elyta had ever found speaking before, especially because if Elyta's translator that he'd had to program himself couldn't keep up with his words, or couldn't find a translation, Ajax had been been documenting his language from the beginning and was now nearly completely fluent. It was a relief to be able to babble on without worrying about not being understood.

It was more than that, though. Ajax was... remarkably caring, for a being who'd only been aware of his sentience for a few weeks, and his curiousity and desire to learn was insatiable, which meant Elyta had been baring more of himself to Ajax than he ever had before, even when he'd been on his home planet. Ajax never acted like it was a surprise or a big deal, either, which was another relief. Elyta had only known Ajax briefly so far, but already he trusted him implicitly, and more than he'd ever trusted anyone else.

It was just... Fun, to be with Ajax.

"Okay, first off, you'll need to be able to lie. To say things like, no, I haven't seen that person before or yes I paid for this, you know? It's vital. But let's... Let's start small. Okay, what's this?" Elyta asks, grabbing the nearest item, an empty bowl, and holding it up so Ajax can see.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ajax had been struggling immensely with the act of lying, which had first come to Elyta's question when he'd responded to someone who'd caught him pickpocketing what he thought he was doing, and Ajax had simply replied, "I am stealing." He hadn't much improved since then, even when they were doing these exercises in lying with some amount of frequency.

He looks at the item in Elyta's hands.

"Bowl," he says almost immediately.

Elyta sighs, lowering the bowl but keeping it on the table between them.

"Come on, Ajax, you can do it," he says encouragingly, then picks up the bowl again, "Here, look, I'll go. This is a plate," he gestures with the bowl towards Ajax, "It's not a bowl, it's a plate. It's a..." Elyta pauses, casting around for something more creative, "It's a communications relay! And this," Elyta picks up a spoon and shows it to Ajax, "This is an assault rifle." Elyta puts the bowl and spoon down and pushes them towards Ajax.

"Okay, try again. What are these?"

Ajax mimics a sighing sound in an attempt to express his own frustration, a habit he had picked up during his time spent around Elyta. It was not a sound he could produce on his own, so he had saved audio files of Elyta sighing, and had begun parrotting them back whenever he felt appropriate.

"I am not programmed to generate false data," he says, playing back another one of Elyta's sighs at the end of the statement for good measure, "It is a bowl and a spoon."

Elyta struggles to fight a smile at the sound of his own sigh coming out of Ajax; the first time he'd done that Elyta had been badly startled, thinking there was some other organic person nearby, and when Ajax had explained Elyta had laughed. He was glad that Ajax was exploring ways to communicate what he was feeling, and was glad that he was able to help Ajax express himself.

"Okay, well, don't think about it like--like generating false data. Because, well, you don't have to think it's anything but a bowl. It's like, you know it's a bowl, it will always be a bowl, it's just the name that changes. I mean, names can be whatever you assign them to be anyways, right? So it's just like... providing an alternative. It's a plate because I say it's a plate." Elyta gestured with the bowl, unsure if this explanation actually made any sense or not. He'd never been very good at explaining things, or getting things explained to him.

"Error: this reasoning is incoherent," Ajax replies, "A plate is a flat dish. This dish is rounded. I have correctly identified this dish as a bowl, and must report my findings accurately in response to your query. To do otherwise would be to generate false data."

He reaches over, taking the bowl off the table and holding it.

"Bowl." he repeats.

"Plate," Elyta argues, smirking a little as he takes the bowl out of Ajax's hands, "It's a plate." Elyta looks down at the bowl, still smiling, and trying to find a way to explain this--or rather, a way to convince Ajax it wasn't wrong.

"It's not all about taking stuff either, I mean... What if, like... A person you knew was innocent was running from someone who wanted to kill them, and you saw where they were hiding, and the person who wanted to kill them asks you where they're hiding? If you tell them where they're hiding, they would die, and it would be your fault. If you lie about it, they'll live. So, it's the right thing to do, isn't it?" Elyta shrugged, aware that he was moving into more of a theoretical standpoint, but there was no way Ajax could survive on his own without being able to lie.

Ajax pauses thoughtfully for a long moment, contemplating the bowl in Elyta's hands.

"...Relaying false data may be neccessary as an act of self preservation," Ajax says thoughtfully, looking up at Elyta when he speaks, "Or to ensure the safety of parties in whom one has a vested interest."

He looks at Elyta pointedly as he says this, and then realizes he had slipped into the same overcomplicated language that he knew Elyta had trouble understanding.

"...Simplifying statement. People you care about."

He looks at the bowl again, his hands brushing over Elyta's fingers as he takes it out of his hands again. He struggles for a moment, his optics glazing over a little as he focuses.

"...Plate," he says finally.

The way Ajax says that, it doesn't just sound like he's sorting through information, and it makes Elyta burn with embarrassment. His wings flutter nervously and he swallows, nodding slowly and then realizing that Ajax isn't looking at him anymore. He can't exactly place why that feels so important, why it feels like Ajax was implying he cared about Elyta, and if he was, why it makes Elyta want to leave the room as fast as possible.

When Ajax speaks Elyta breaks into a bright grin, shaking off the doubts and the odd feelings.

"Yes! Excellent! That's great, you did it! What's this?" he asks, holding up the spoon.

It takes Ajax a moment to come up with anything, and to fight the immediate urge to respond with the correct answer.

"...Plate," Ajax says again.

Elyta laughs, nodding anyways. Sometimes he was struck by how amazing Ajax really was, to be able to learn something like this. To go from being completely bewildered by a concept to mastering it within the span of a couple of hours, or days, was incredible. Elyta remembered when he'd first left his home, there were so many things that were strange and impossible to him, and it had been years before Elyta could master the concepts he was unfamiliar with. Ajax's adaptability and capacity for change was astounding--not to mention downright cool.

"That works," he says, smiling brightly, "We can work on expanding your lie vocabulary later on. Okay, so, if you get caught, and someone asks you what you're doing, what are you gonna say?"

Ajax thinks for another long moment.

"Plate," he says, flatly, before shaking his head.

"Sorry. I panicked. I will say...Plate. I will say...Plate. Plate. No. Generating alternate responses. No data available. Try again later."

"Okay, okay," Elyta says, laughing and holding out his hands in a placating gesture, "Maybe that's enough learning for today. I'm hungry, anyways."

Elyta stands, moving over to a nearby counter which held his meager food supplies. He was still living off of what was left of his last salvage haul, as he hadn't had much of a chance to do any real pickpocketing, especially when he was still trying to lay low. He looked through his supplies, sighing a little as he chose a soup that was high in nutrients but low in flavor. It was a challenge finding food he could eat anyways, and that challenge only worsened when he was low on credits.

"Do you wanna do something else? To relax?" he says to Ajax as he works on reheating his soup. Ajax had shown him a few human films he'd enjoyed before, and Elyta hadn't really understood them but he'd liked them all the same.

it's a banana

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject