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agardener

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From:

anashthetic

And machines can still be people. Try again.

From:

agardener

[He just laughs softly at that.]

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

From:

anashthetic

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

From:

agardener

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

From:

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?

From:

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."

From:

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?"

From:

agardener

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

From:

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."

From:

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.

From:

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."

From:

agardener

He laughs, delighted by that reaction. "Ashton, you are quite the specimen," he teases. "What a delight you are. But I thought our cause was not to pack undue worry onto her."

From:

anashthetic

"To a point! To a point." She blinks, wide-eyed and innocent. "It just seemed important to let you know I could accidentally mention it to her at any time, is all."

Someone calling them a delight to their face is something they're going to think about for a week, no matter how teasingly he may have meant it.

From:

agardener

He laughs again. "Oh! Is this blackmail? I've heard about this. What are the terms? What do you wish from me? Money? Mushrooms? I have one of those."

From:

anashthetic

"Blackmail," they sniff, "is such an ugly word, and an inapplicable one, besides. I'm not asking anything of you. Merely letting you know something may happen."

From:

agardener

He looks playfully disappointed. "Ah well. That is another experience that I cannot claim, I suppose."

From:

anashthetic

"Never say never! It could still happen. It just won't happen about this."

From:

agardener

He just smiles at them with a shake of his head. "Ah, I am fortunate to have a friend such as you."

From:

anashthetic

One eyebrow raises very slightly. "Fortunate is perhaps not the word I might choose, but I'll take it."

From:

agardener

"Why not?" he wonders. "You have been a wonderful friend so far."

From:

anashthetic

That startles a choked laugh out of them. "You - if you were anyone else I'd say you couldn't be serious." Sym, however, is Sym, and is not given to insincerities.

From:

agardener

"But I'm not anyone else." He watches them curiously. "Why do you think that of yourself?"

From:

anashthetic

"You haven't known me long enough to make this type of judgement, alright? Trust me on this one."

Never mind that he did, once, in another life. The further they get from that breach the less they want to claim that person as a version of themself they'd ever want to be.