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spotsupstuff · 19 days ago

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Three Sparrows is looking for something in the roam net’s old information library.

Euros knows, because he is the reason why it is described as old. He, along with the other Iterators, are supposed to be a faster, more interactive improvement upon the old research network. Among all the other things they are made for. A lot of links within the outdated thing lead into his surface memory, so each time Sparrows’ IP looks into one of them, gets spit out into his systems and quickly backs out the moment she recognizes him, he’s keenly aware of it.

And Caper of Euros finds this hilarious.

Because it’s *so* her to need something, but stubbornly wishing to do everything by herself so she could skip being ,,bothersome” to anyone. As if Euros doesn’t find talking with her invigorating and fascinating. And so easy and casual compared to… could-hardly-even-be-described-as-conversations conversations born out of inquiries posed by most of his other citizens.

(Not that he blames them, anyway. He, too, likes to get his answers and rush to apply them. The amount of times he rudely hung up on Boreas’ Blessing after getting what he needed out of the older Iterator speaks for itself. It's a miracle BB hasn't blocked him yet.)

And as if he isn’t ready to spend the whole night discussing anything with her. He might as well say he’s *itching* for it, desiring it, even though he really shouldn’t be giving in to such spiritual hindrances as wants. He knows for a fact she would like to, as well, judging by all the time she spends in his puppet chamber and the few late night talks they did have. The only thing preventing them from doing as such is that she needs to sleep while he does not.

As if he isn’t ready to drop his other research sessions for her, too... Or isn’t fully smitten by the idea of not knowing an answer to her question and having to look for it with her.

Three Sparrows is- without question- incredible, smart, amazing and undoubtedly stupid. As sapient organics seem to have the tendency to be, with their doubts and self-hate and the useless need to prove something to somebody, or maybe even just to themselves.

Utterly ridiculous stuff.

…that’s…

Ah, that’s actually kind of sad. Especially when applied to Sparrows and all the issues he knows do plague her, but that she refuses to find help for in either him or anybody else, really.

So with antennas lowered in shame of his bit late empathetic realization, he sends an Overseer to her location to offer her his assistance, if she’ll have him.

The location turns out to be her home’s kitchen.

Overseers are quiet and lightning quick things. With how concentrated she is at her wrist-mounted tablet, looking for information outside of the easily accessible, he’s not surprised she doesn’t notice him at all.

The kitchen is a mess. Unwashed dishes linger in the sink, old coat half thrown over the back of a chair, a cup with halfdrunk tea still in it sitting on the dinnertable. Some of the cabinets are thrown open, the counter filled with clean dishes and ingredients. Well, that certainly clues him on what she’s looking for.

Sparrows herself is clothed only in shorts and the customary bandages wrapped around her forearms (because she doesn’t like having her chest covered, he remembers her bemoaning when she was forced to wear something proper on top, while he laughed at her trivial, unserious suffrage and she only huffed at him lightheartedly), the rest of her dark skin exposed to the air. An embarrassment of a wardrobe. Not even a drop of gold to accent her physical vessel. Yet he can’t help but let his gaze trace over the natural blue marks adoring her.

He already dedicated a piece of his deeper memory to remembering where those lead and end. Each shape burned into his being, mapped out by his fingertips when they laid together, cuddled to with his puppet’s cheeks. He already sung them praises, from those on her chest and arms, to those that are meant to be private and personal - her face and all the other places meant for lovers. (She blushed then, batting him away, so weakly compared to what he can handle. So weakly compared to what he knows her muscles can generate. Hardly telling him anything, especially when next she hugged his puppet close.)

She’s so beautiful, her body like a painting. Euros told her before and will again, and she’ll deny it each time, making sickly worry shoot through his kilometres-long veins again and again.

Not even that mean scar spanning the circumference of her torso destroys her. She’s far too strong for that, far too effortlessly exceptional. ...and she’ll shake her head a no again.

In the present, she shifts, muscle fibers flexing and relaxing. He can see the pulse of her arteries, the electric firing of synapses. Can hear the soft creaking of chitin joints from deep within, the blood rushing, the croak of a simple stomach, the pumping of two elongated hearts. One of her hands comes up to stroke through her blue-purple stems, light catching in the grooves of them, making them twinkle.

With a small tilt of her head, he gets the tiniest peak at her maskless side profile.

Maskless…

Melancholy, loving eyes, mighty blue just like the electricity zapping in his transform arrays.

*And she’s maskless…*

Soft skin of her cheeks, wrinkle here and there when she smiles, black framed by a light blue halo of young stems - the most wondrous bruise. Incomparably simpler than his halo. Incomparably more gorgeous.

Maskless…… usual for her, in her home, in his puppet’s chamber. Regular occurrence to be bare and vulnerable, free to be read. He’s seen her a thousand times, with her unorthodox stand towards the culture of hiding one’s ego in a pointless attempt at straying away from it. Still, Euros swears his hearts do skip a beat each time he catches a glance or is granted a whole entire look.

He wishes he had a face he could show her, too. The best he can do is welcome her poking around in his programming and witnessing all the little organisms that make him up. For some reason, that doesn’t seem enough. Maybe because those aren’t such a neat précis of who he is like a face is for her.

And he yearns to be known by her. Dissected by her skillful hands until she has even his intangible parts mapped out.

,,Good evening, Sparrows!” He turns on a video call from the Overseer, a benefit to being a communication chief. Red light tints the vicinity of it.

Sparrows yells, undignified, twirling around and slipping in her haste, barely managing to catch herself on the counter. Her stems are a mess, half covering her face from the whiplash, eyes wild. Animalistic and ready for a fight.

What an embarrassment. An eyesore. So unsophisticated, he thinks. Direct antithesis to what he is programmed to have to be.

He loves her so much. This perspective she embodies.

,,Are you mad?? Fuckin’ Void below…” She drags a hand down her face, before shooting him a halfhearted glare. He makes his puppet squint its eyes in the best approximation to a smile he can give without a mouth on it and her brow unknits as if he input the correct password. While standing up, she mutters: ,,Getting a whole Iterator to test the endurance of hearts has to be the most overcomplicated way to go about it.”

To that, Euros snickers, Overseer zooming to her side as she rights herself in front of her workstation. Sparrows gives it a glance, then, looking away with innocently puckered lips, bumps into the Overseer with her arm and offsetting its balance. The little semimechanical creature makes no effort to dodge her.

,,I’ve come to see if you are frustrated enough already to give in and ask for help.” Euros teases as the video call comes back on, puppet head resting in its hands, arms propped on crossed legs. So she can understand his intention as playful, while open to a talk from two hearts to four. He learned this pose from her.

,,I! Don’t know what you are talking about!”

,,According to your first (accidental) visit to my systems specifically without your administrative rights, you’ve been at this search venture for more than 30 minutes.”

Sparrows grimaces, looks at the clock ticking by on the wall and whispers underneath her breath: ,,Wow, it’s really been 30 minutes, huh…”

,,Yes. You are disgustingly slow at this. Soooo~ What kind of recipe are you looking for exactly, dearest love?”

She gives a withering sigh. ,,It’s fine. I can find it myself. I originally found it on the old net anyway and I don’t want to bother you. You have things to do.”

His puppet’s pupils aren’t generally visible, but still he rolls its eyes. Sparrows has spent enough time with him to be able to read his versions of theatrics just fine. ,,I always have something to do. If I want to spend any time with you, I always have to push something away and I always will.”

,,...are you sure, though.”

,,Yeah, yeah yeah.” And tailoring his voice to sound like he’s grinning ear to ear, he adds, ,,I wouldn’t be enduring your bitey kisses if I didn’t want to be with you all the time.”

That finally gets her to break, letting a tiny smile grace her pretty visage and telling him what she needs.

Euros was correct. Looking for an answer with her is a delight. And sticking with her for the process of creation of this strange little dish- noodlefly rings, with raindeer eyes wrapped in leaves of sea wheat- was a lot of fun.

It is strange to think about it, but…

There is no other existence that he knows. He is made of many. He’s a collective god in an artificial biome that cannot survive anywhere else, perfected by programmings and nodes and mycelia and corals, sporting a mind that was never only his own private thing. He’s ginormous when all of him is put together, yet divided his individualities are usually smaller, slimmer, than his Three Sparrows.

He has kind of trouble imagining what it is like to exist like she does. Always alone and being happy with that, never lonely. With a brain just for her and nobody else. Going wherever in the world she pleases. The closest thing in him to her is his puppet. A tool, not exactly a living thing but not dead either. Nowhere near the wonderfully separate existence like she is.

Yet…

Yet and still.

Euros wishes he could stand next to her as she cuts the noodlefly. Cook the rings while she addresses the other part of the recipe. Guide her hand when it comes to making the food on that plate look actually nice. Sit with her while she eats, so the room wouldn’t feel so empty. The alonness doesn’t seem to bother her, but it bothers him, seeing her like this.

It bothers him that *he* specifically can’t fix it. He loves her so much and look what ,,benefit” that brings her. Eugh.

Talking and looking is fine, he guesses, but it is so nice when Sparrows comes over and he gets to actually touch her. It’s comforting, holding hands with her. He’s pretty certain she likes it, too.

What would it be like to come over to *her*, for once? Or meet her half way, watch the rains come? He’d love to. But all he can do as he is, is tease her when she terribly fails at an appealing arrangement for the food. The asymmetry is so bad it's actually driving him nuts. He hurries her to eat it already.

Still, she smiles and laughs while she eats as he talks on and on about the other people that ask him questions. Quite unkindly. But the sweet thing is that she likes him like this. Raw, she says. Unfiltered, rude, prideful, an annoyance - all things his Houses don’t want him to be to them. A safe challenge she happily takes on every day. Just... himself.

His self…

For her, maskless…

#rw #oc tag #oc: caper of euros #oc: three sparrows #my writing #really wanted to write something from Caper's POV for a bit now. it's really good for stating a character's voice and it's interesting to-#-try and write what I imagine an Iterator (young one) should work like on the inside. kinda like a human but also not really.#also refering to the puppet as a thing (a tool) and not directly himself. it's funny that I've had Caper for longer than Sparrows and yet-#-he is somehow less surefooted as a character than her.

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