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[agardener]

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Re: Spam

[anashthetic]

I like the way you think.

Collectively request it of her when she's more recovered, then, maybe?

Re: Spam

[agardener]

[He spreads out his hands with a smile.]

I am in charge of symbiosis at home.

Re: Spam

[anashthetic]

[She leans forward a little, intrigued.]

In charge of symbiosis? What does that entail?

Re: Spam

[agardener]

Well. It mostly meant that I ensured all the species of plant, animal, fungus, and rocks worked together in harmony to ensure that the planet would thrive.

[He smiles a little, looking to the side.]

I think that's the reason the Admiral picked me up.

Re: Spam

[anashthetic]

Fascinating. [And she means it!]

I'm much more of a natural disaster myself, really.

Re: Spam

[agardener]

[He chuckles.]

And they are useful and have their place. All natural disasters are only disasters for humans and people. To nature, they encourage regeneration, clear out any old growth, and increase biodiversity in a region.

Re: Spam

[anashthetic]

My old master used to spread plague as he went. [A crooked grin.] Though I don't know if my blood being a mutative anti-flesh toxin did the environment any favors. At least I mainly kept to "wildfires"?

Re: Spam

[agardener]

A plague is useful. A toxin is useful.

[He breathes out.]

The planet will outlast.

Re: Spam

[anashthetic]

One can only hope, I suppose. Feels quite a bit harder to actually believe, though...

Re: Spam

[agardener]

I have persisted through twenty thousand years, Ashton. I have seen many, many changes in the planet but she remains.

Re: Spam

[anashthetic]

That's a length of time that's -- unfathomable, to me. Something I can understand intellectually, and no other way.

Re: Spam

[agardener]

You aren't meant to, I'm afraid. That isn't something that people live through. And nor should they.

Re: Spam

[anashthetic]

Do you not consider yourself a person, then?

Re: Spam

[agardener]

Of course not. I am just a machine.

[He smiles as he says it, but there's a hint of a falters in his eyes.]

Re: Spam

[anashthetic]

And machines can still be people. Try again.

Re: Spam

[agardener]

[He just laughs softly at that.]

Yes, perhaps. But I am many things. I was a tree for a few centuries.

Re: Spam

[anashthetic]

Which still does not disqualify you from personhood, if you wish to apply it to yourself.

Re: Spam

[agardener]

I don't know if I can and still maintain the integrity of the word.

Re: Spam

[anashthetic]

And who cares about the integrity of the word, if you're the only one who needs to understand what you mean by it?

[agardener]

He stands up from the bed and folds his arms across his chest, pacing a little in the small cavern room. "I care about it. Personhood is not something I can simply bestow on myself after so long of being - not."

[anashthetic]

Ashton stays where they're perched, gaze following him unerringly. "It's not something you bestow upon yourself. Only a descriptor that you may opt to say applies to you. If someone else calls you a person, are you going to correct them?"

[agardener]

"Much as I did with you? Yes." He gives them a careful look. "And weren't we talking about Aerith?"

[anashthetic]

"Would you interrupt a casual conversation for that?" She waves a hand dismissively. "We were, yes, and I doubt she'd be thrilled to hear you say you're not a person."

[agardener]

That gets a soft laugh.

"Oh? And who would be telling her?" he wonders, eyes wide and innocent. Aerith isn't the only one who can give that look on command.

[anashthetic]

Ash, as it turns out, can also do that look. Like many of her expressions, it would be very convincing if whoever she was aiming it at knew she wasn't full of shit.

...well, this isn't the same look Sym's aiming her way, but it's a similar one. This one is all wide-eyed sympathetic concern. "These things tend to just slip out during conversations, you know? Sometimes my mouth wanders before my mind can quite catch up to it, it's terrible."