2021-10-22: Overwhelmed and Overridden
- Log: Overwhelmed and Overridden
- Cast: Azoth, Seraph Ragnell
- Where: The Thames - Upper Deck
- Date: October 22, 2021
- Summary: Azoth struggles with a reminder of his lack of free will, even when his overrides aren't involved. Luckily, well known good influence Seraph Ragnell is here to talk it over with him.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth looks up at Nightingale, that battered Gear, like a fragile, delicate knight, he found at the bottom of the ocean. That it's in his care remains something of a discomfort. At least it is, as Gears go, minimalist and easy to maintain. Most of the engineers here are surprised it even has the power to drag itself anywhere. It shouldn't. Azoth supplies the extra that's needed.
It feels wrong every time he slips inside. A desecration. Nightingale isn't even its real name. All that data, all that history, lost. Like him, but emptier. And the last time he'd operated using the frame... All these new subroutines, the necessary secondary objectives, and the emergently developed behaviors were rendered obsolete.
Everything hurts. Solaris took him, reworked him, and upgraded him after he found that data under Zanarkand, and some of the stress of his hardware lessened. But the stress in his calculations never did. It's worse today, digging into himself for code that isn't there and running brute-force attempts against encrypted data to no avail.
It's about as close as the ancient AI gets to brooding -- focusing on processes so intense and so demanding, he has nothing leftover to multitask safely with. He's got enough left over to look the part at least, brow knit in and face frowning as he taps at the corner of his mouth. No need to creep out anyone who passes by. But his eyes are blank, too-bright, and out of focus. Look, he's trying his best.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell doesn't hang out around the Thames very often. It isn't because she dislikes the place or what they get up to there; it's just a very Drifter-centric part of the world, and Ragnell can only tolerate being surrounded by those for so long. But she does have friends within the Drifter community, including one Azoth, who apparently has been super-focused on a Gear he recently uncovered. Or so she gathers from what she's been hearing from the crew. After listening in on a few of these rumors, Ragnell decides to stop in on the part of the Thames where he's supposedly holed up.
The rumors, it turns out, are true. Ragnell takes some time to watch him, curious about how long it might take for him to notice she's there. It seems like he's so focused that it'll take him a while, though, so after a certain amount of hanging out near the door, Ragnell strolls in and drapes herself nearby, arms folded behind her head, legs crossed and foot tapping the air.
Even then, she'll wait a while longer for him to recognize her presence on his own. If it *still* doesn't happen organically (ha! Seraph-Gear humor), she'll nudge him with her foot. Which may or may not come with a little electrical shock. Just in case.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth, in all his intensity, does not notice Ragnell until that electric jolt and nudge of her foot. It's a familiar enough energy that he permits himself the reaction of jumping about a foot in the air and giving a string of startled beeps as he twists around to face her before landing and seeing who he expects.
"Oh! Ragnell!"
His smile is much too broad and joyous for the look he had only seconds ago. But if there's one terrible truth Azoth's learned from Drifters, is that's leaping immediately into looking like he's been fine all along isn't going to be read as any sort of uncanny, disturbing robotic tell. It is, instead, a fantastic way to seem more convincingly Drifter-like. Not that he's worried about that with Ragnell specifically. Playing the role around her, with her awareness of so many truths, may strike a facetious from a certain point of view.
The intensity of his smile softens to something more casual. "Hey, how've you been? And how's Miss Liath?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell laughs when Azoth leaps, beeping, a foot into the air. What? It's funny. Just because he's her friend doesn't make that not true.
"Howdy," she drawls in response. "Immediately shovin' the conversation away from you an' that intense look you had a second ago, huh? You realize I've been chillin' in this room for ages before I finally got tired o' waitin' for you to notice me an' gave you a little jump? What's got you so up in your own head?"
Of course, this is also immediately shoving the conversation *away* from herself, but Ragnell doesn't have anything to hide right now. Emphasis on 'right now.' She at least doesn't call him out on the smile; she's willing to accept that maybe he really is that happy to see her, especially if he's been brooding for the past goddess knows how long. Sometimes good company is just what one needs to take one out of a funk.
That doesn't mean the funk never happened, though, and given how long Azoth has been obsessing with whatever's going on with this Gear here, Ragnell would really make the conversation about him. Since he's not human, she really can just cut straight to the chase, too. Man, it's always such a pain when she needs to beat around the bush to tease something out of someone.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth pouts at Ragnell's observation, cheeks puffed as he scuffs his boot against the ground. "You're not even going to take the bait a little?"
But Ragnell's right about not needing to beat around the bush with Azoth. Plus, he handily tends to know exactly what he's feeling and why. So, for the benefit of letting her know she's won this round by virtue of simply showing up to ask, he lets a more exhausted, thoughtful look sink back over him.
"Sorry. I was trying to brute-force some of my encrypted data. It's not the first time. The odds of getting it aren't in my favor." He shakes his head. "More to the point, I thought it might help me find more options."
He gives her a waning smile. "I wasn't built to be social. You've figured that, I'm sure. So when it came to all of this --" Azoth gestures vaguely with his hand at the world around him, "-- I had to adapt my code to behaving like a person. Because under my objectives, I've concluded it to be advantageous. Optimal. But when I'm inside that Gear... none of the code I've developed matters anymore. Even without the overrides, at the end of the day, all I'm left with are the options of a weapon."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Oh, so just a little is fine? I'm jus' fine. Liath, too. So let's talk about you now, huh?" Ragnell counters, finishing with a smirk.
It settles, at least, as he silently concedes by letting the bright, happy-seeming smile fade into something more honestly tired. She nods as he explains what he was doing. "I see. Makes sense."
Not built to be social. There's an understatement. Ragnell chuckles and says wryly, "But you're so good at it." That's probably less of a compliment than she'd intended, all considered--something that occurs to her as he continues. Adapting to behave like a person, because that's what's been necessary to achieve his goals. Yet at the end of the day, he is a weapon. And, more tellingly...
"Even without the overrides, huh," she echoes, watching him thoughtfully. It's that remark in particular that makes her wonder: "Did somethin' happen recently, Azoth?"
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
That's too little, and Azoth makes another pout to show his discontent. But he doesn't protest further. If Ragnell's here about him (misguided as he sometimes worries that is), then there's no reason to keep wasting time. Especially if she's not giving any hint of her own something to hide, anyway. This game was lopsided from the start.
"Thank you, I try!" Azoth responds, bright for a moment again and with no ounce of insincerity. But it's always a bright mask over more complex layers, some of them painting a dangerous picture.
"I was searching Babel Tower with some Drifters. Gwen was there -- she's treating me like normal, can you believe that?" Azoth smiles like he's going to laugh. "Of course you do. You expected it, I bet. Anyway, we were ambushed by a machine. One with an AI, like me. A weapon, like me. But put two weapons in a room with opposing objectives, and they don't get to come to an understanding. They fight. None of the calculations I came up with for a different solution were good enough. In the end, I only stopped because it retreated."
Azoth brings his hand over his core. "I hurt it. I hacked into it, removed myself as a potential target, caused erroneous operation and exploited it to my advantage. Even now, when I think of it, I calculate all the ways to do it better the next time."
He smiles, but there's something sick in it. "...And I bet some people would be asking if there was even anything in there that could be hurt." Azoth turns that false smile into something more genuine, shrugging.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Maybe less misguided than he realizes. But it's good that Azoth doesn't realize that, all considered. In any case, Ragnell can care about who she wants to, misguided or not.
For the time being, Ragnell laughs again at Azoth's sunny acceptance of her compliment. She sobers when he explains what happened, expression turning momentarily wry as she nods an 'I figured' sort of nod at the news that Gwen's still treating him like she always did. Yeah, she'd have been more surprised if Gwen *hadn't* kept treating him like normal. The rest of it...
"I get it. You had to fight against your own kind," Ragnell says quietly. "That must've been hard. You don't know too many androids on your level, do you? An' if you can't find a diplomatic solution, well... you've got no choice but to fight. In your case, literally, I s'pect."
She pauses. Then she tilts her head at him slightly. She bets some people would ask that, too. People who would ask that, even after knowing Azoth, are not worth paying attention to, in her opinion. She's not sure that opinion will help Azoth any, so she keeps it to herself. Instead: "I take it that those calculations were ones you made on your own, rather'n because the overrides forced you to. After all, given what you were sayin' earlier about the overrides havin' nothin' to do with it...
"It's one thing to be able to blame your decisions on something else. It's another entirely when all you've got t' blame is you. But then, as a bein' that's obligated t'do as you've been programmed to, is there really a 'you' in there?" Ragnell pauses a beat. "...I'm bettin' your worries are about somethin' along those lines. How close to right am I?"
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth smiles faintly. "I've met a number of other constructs... There's Lydia and OS. Surtr. Emeralda. Tio. Kamui. Varius and Avile. Dash -- I think? He was a baby once. That's weird." He winces with his uncertainty, then shakes his head as if to dismiss the thoughts by literally tossing them from himself. "But none of them have the same rules I do. Whoever made me... they didn't mean for me to be alive. And since there was already a known way to do it -- the Reploids -- they didn't think that could possibly have been what they'd done with me."
Or with any of the others, he thinks, but does not yet say because his memories have too many holes. He's number twelve. Twelve of how many? How many were deleted? And why is he the one that became 'Azoth'?
"We all have different rules, I suppose. If anything, I was reminded of Surtr... But Surtr certainly has a lot more personality. Maybe only because he had the chance to learn."
Azoth grins at Ragnell. "Yep. Just me. Just those base objectives, locked into the one part of me I can't rewrite. They're not even complete!"
With her guess, Azoth plays a chime like she's won a prize. "Hey, you got it in one!" He says it so cheerfully she might have guessed his favorite color instead of his current existential crisis. But as he talks, he begins to wilt. "Even without the overrides, do I get to have a 'me'? Maybe I won't care once I get the rest of 'myself' back."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
As Azoth lists off the other constructs he's met, Ragnell holds up her hands and silently counts them off, one finger at a time. At the end of his list, she has both hands up and one finger still down. "So what you're sayin' is that you can count the number of other constructs you've met on two hands," she concludes, arching an eyebrow at him.
Even with that, he admits that they operate using different rules--that he's not *supposed* to think or be alive. She frowns and folds her arms, leaning forward as she regards him. She can't know what he's hiding, but... he still seems troubled. No matter *how* cheerfully he admits she's right on the money. And he has objectives that he can't rewrite, maybe because they're incomplete, maybe not. It seems deeply cruel to Ragnell to create something to perform a task that he hates doing, but then, if sapience was an accident, maybe it couldn't be helped. It's hard to know considering how much of himself Azoth is missing.
"Maybe," she says, of him not caring once he gets the rest of himself back. "Memories make someone who they are. Take away those memories, even only part of 'em, and you'll end up with a fundamentally different person. It's no wonder you're worryin' about what'll happen to you. But, you know..."
She unfolds her legs and leans forward. "Mindless servitors don't worry about anything. No matter how fragmented you are, the fact that you can look at somethin' you're programmed to do an' go, 'Damn, this fuckin' sucks,' means you have a mind outside of your software." She leans back. "...might not be that comfortin' considerin' you still gotta do what you gotta do, though."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth nods. "That's one way of putting it!"
But Ragnell offers him something rare: a take on what makes identity what it is. "Is that your take? Memories?" Azoth smiles. "I know getting them back will alter my objective. I can't operate without one, and I know Ovelia had to piece the one I've got together from what was left. I'll definitely become someone else."
And that's only if Solaris doesn't get to it first, figuring out what he's made of and altering it for their own purposes down to the core of who he believes he is. With that as his only other fate...
"...I'm not as frightened of it as I was before. Someone didn't want me to exist. I know that now. They put a lot of effort into ripping me apart and scattering me about. Sometimes I wonder if it as my creators who did it, but... who knows. An enemy, maybe." He grins. "A hero, maybe. But even if that's the case, I want to be allowed to exist. As whatever I am. And whatever I'm not."
And yet, here he is, troubled and hurting all the same. He shakes his head with Ragnell's assertion.
"That 'mind' is just more code, you know. It's programming as much as the rest of me. I've gotten too complex. Too complicated. Too many little things need to be done to do the big things, and some of those little things have to fail for the big ones to succeed. But they're still important, the little things."
He gestures toward Ragnell. "But you're responsible for your own share of those little things. So thank you, Ragnell. Really. Whatever happens to me... Thank you." Azoth knows she wants to save him, if she can. But if she can't... If the big thing fails, the little tries still meant something.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"It's *a* take," Ragnell replies. "Don't think memories are the only thing that make someone who they are. But they're a pretty important part, I think." She falls silent as Azoth explains that regaining his memories will definitely make him a different person. Then she nods slowly, thoughtfully, as he goes on. It's certainly possible that whoever tore Azoth's frame and memories apart was right to do so, that the world is better off with Azoth as he is now. But maybe that's not the case. And even if it is, Azoth still has a right to exist, in Ragnell's opinion.
"That's a good thing to want," she tells him. "Wantin' to exist as who you choose to be is such a baseline thing to want. I don't think anything has the right to take that away from you. The fact that someone or somethin' did anyway is bullshit."
'That "mind" is just more code, you know.'
"So?"
Ragnell poses that simple question, even as she watches and listens as Azoth makes the rest of his point. "Even if your mind is all code, what's that matter? You said it yourself: you've grown complex. That means you've grown beyond what you were originally made to be. Besides, maybe you can't right now, but it's not impossible once you get the rest of yourself back that you can start writin' on code you couldn't touch before." She quirks a half-smile. 'Or someone else might be able to rewrite that code,' she doesn't say. After all, he doesn't know she's made contact with Ovelia. Instead, she chuckles and chucks Azoth on the shoulder.
"Shut up," she says with dry humor at his words of gratitude. "I jus' object to seein' a livin', thinkin' creature get toyed around with. You deserve the right to decide for yourself what you're gonna do." She pauses. "Speakin' of--that AI machine you fought back at Babel Tower. You said you two had opposin' objectives--irreconcilable, even. What objectives were those?"
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
So? she asks him, and Azoth mimes a laugh. There's no sound to go with it.
"I just don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. That there's a me that's a robot and me that's some kind of magical piece that can exist without being a robot." His smile relaxes. "The ability to rewrite my own objectives, huh...? I can't even predict what that would be like."
It is, by design, unfathomable. He doesn't want to dampen the mood any further by pointing out how impossible he suspects the notion to be.
Azoth gives an exaggerated shift with Ragnell's touch to make up for the fact he's a sturdy robot, beaming back at her. "I know, I know~. You're only following your principles." And not her heart, which Azoth still suspects to be softer than Ragnell would ever allow herself to believe. "I'm just saying, I appreciate it all the same."
At her question, he gives a questioning beep and blinks once. "Huh? Oh. It wanted to test combat against all of us violently, and I'm programmed to protect allied units. As long as they were in danger, I needed to neutralize the threat by whatever means necessary." He winces. "Getting the test data back to wherever it came from was also calculated a severe danger. Unfortunately, I failed in that."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Well, yeah. You're a robot no matter what," Ragnell replies. "But I suspect what you mean by that isn't quite what I'm hearin' in my head. I'm guessin' what you're sayin' is that it doesn't matter what memories you do or don't get back: you'll always be a slave to your own programming. If you *could* rewrite your objectives, at that point you really will be free. But it's a pretty big 'if,' isn't it? An' of course you don't want to get your hopes up for somethin' you're not sure can happen at all."
A dire statement. Ragnell leaves it as it is all the same, though.
Azoth assures Ragnell that he totally understands this is about her principles and not because she cares or anything. Ragnell snorts, then tips her hat. "Well... in that case, appreciate away."
She rubs her chin at his explanation. "Test combat, huh... An' that was in the Tower of Babel. That leads to Shevat, right? Thought they allied themselves to the Drifter community... They might not be such good allies after all. Or maybe someone didn't turn off all the traps. Be pretty careless if that's true, though." A beat. "And it got away with the data, hm... Who besides Gwen was with you?"
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
"You really enjoy calling people out, don't you?" Azoth smiles sheepishly. "Listen... all my life -- at least what I can remember of it -- I've been told being unable to change my objectives is a failsafe. That a machine like me would destroy itself if it could. Of course, that could just mean I'd 'destroy' the 'Azoth' they wanted me to be. You know how some humans can be."
The Seraphim have their own history with being used as tools, he's learned.
Azoth nods about Babel Tower's connection with Shevat. "I can't speak for Shevat's reliability, but I don't think they had anything to do with this. Designation Malebranche-02 Barbariccia... Eleanor said a Malebranche had attacked Meria Boule. Cagnazzo?" He looks to Ragnell pointedly. "From Odessa. You might know more about that than me."
She was fighting on their side once. Perhaps she still does. Ragnell has her own reasons, and he's already accepted that if he survives long enough, he'll figure out why in time. Odessa, the Trial Knight... Those allegiances demonstratively don't give Azoth pause in relaying the data she asks for. Not without the overrides.
"Its structure involved Living Metal, and its software was made of multiple cores. Reminded me a bit of Surtr... Zed's friend, if you've ever met him." Azoth should talk to Surtr about this later. It may be someone he knows, or would want to know. "As for who else was there besides Gwen... Eleanor, Xiumei, Ethius, and Clarine. Nothing in its data suggested it was targeting any of us beyond the happenstance of our proximity, but an end user could have known who was there and made the call." He shrugs.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"I do!" Ragnell chirps, flashing him a wink. She does grow a bit more serious as Azoth more clearly explains his own perspective, what he's been told he can't--shouldn't--do. She nods wryly. She does indeed know how some humans can be. "Sounds like they had a pretty good idea that you were more than what they were tryin' to make you to be from the start."
ut... hm. So it was Odessa, *not* Shevat, who sent that robot out... Yeah, that makes sense. She rubs her chin at Azoth's pointed look. "Cagnazzo... Yeah, the name rings a bell. Made partly of Hyadean components salvaged from one o' their research facilities, as I recall. I'm friendly with someone who was workin' on that project--she mentioned somethin' about it bein' adapted from somethin' called the JOTUNN project? Which was about findin' an' makin' countermeasures to Elw Golems. Basically, they were usin' that technology to figure out how best to take out their enemies." She shrugs. "Real Hyadean for ya."
She's still technically working with Odessa. But that doesn't mean she's on their side. And the Hyadeans... well, she's more or less friendly with them, racially speaking, but they're no longer who they were when they were running those experiments. "If it's made with Livin' Metal, well, that'd just make sense. That's a Hyadean trademark, that is. Don't know Surtr, I don't think, but I know Zed pretty well."
The list of who else was there with Azoth makes Ragnell nod slowly and thoughtfully. Eleanor would probably be of interest to Ganondorf, but he has his own minions to command into battle. He wouldn't be involved with a partially-Hyadean war machine. Beyond them, Ragnell doesn't *know* of any specific Odessan interest in any of those individuals, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. "Could be. Well, I can nose around an' see if I can't turn anything up. My guess is that it was just a coincidence, but that doesn't mean somethin' sinister couldn't be done with that data."
Of course, whether Ragnell would put a stop to any sinister intentions or egg them on is an open question.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
"It's possible..." Azoth muses. He folds his arms, tapping his fingers, then shakes his head. "I can't remember the details. Fragments of arguments. Conclusive feedback, but not the memories of the data leading to them. The knowledge that something is true without examples of it." He shakes his head. "The more of me I find, the more I'll remember. I wonder how it'll feel, then..."
Not good is the only guarantee.
He listens to Ragnell's followup with bright eyes. "JOTUUN Project... I see. Big war machines to fight with other big war machines. I guess that's something many races enjoy. And not anything they intend to be alive, from the sound of it."
Hyadean... Azoth's getting a better feel for how the 'metal demons' carry themselves. Rieselied and Zed are warm outliers among otherwise cold encounters.
"If you do find anything, I'd like to hear it if you can share," Azoth says, leaving that out of understanding for if Ragnell isn't able. Hey, that's got to go both ways. Odessa may be an enemy of Solaris, but trying to force anything out of Ragnell isn't more likely to get more information, and even the overrides can't force the point under that logic. "I doubt anyone's seen the last of it if these are only tests. Seems a risky way to develop something, though."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"'Course, it's always an option to leave yourself as you are now, an' not get any more memories at all," Ragnell muses. "If you like the way you are now, an' you don't want to get them back... But I'm bettin' you'll say you don't have a choice in the matter, huh?" She tilts her head his way. "Which, maybe you don't. But I'm curious what you'd choose if you could have it your own way."
The conversation moves to the matter of Cagnazzo and what's the deal with *that*. "Probably not," she agrees. "But there's lots o' creatures who get born even though it wasn't intended on."
She nods at Azoth's request. "Might be some good bait to dangle over your master's maw in a pinch," she says dryly. "Anyway, Odessa's a high-risk, high-reward kind of organization, so while you're not wrong, that's jus' kinda how they ride."
...Maybe Ragnell's a better fit for the organization than she seems at first blush.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth smiles at Ragnell, gesturing to himself. "You saw me in those ruins. There was nothing any calculation could do to stop that process once it was started." But what if he could choose? Azoth rocks back on his heels as if turning over that thought in his head. Part of it is pauses are less awkward. Part of it is advertising that it's a thought that's gone through a few calculation cycles. "... Before I would have told you it didn't matter to me. I didn't realize my objective was incomplete then. Now that I know it is... even without the overrides, I need to get the rest of it back."
He grins awkwardly. "Maybe that's still not choosing, strictly speaking. But maybe what is choosing is trying to find Xantia when the data points to the whole endeavor being miserable and have her add some that makes it bearable." After all, Azoth could operate just fine while being miserable.
It'd be absurd to think Azoth could rescue these machines from that fate, even if that ache in his core begs for it to differently this time. Whatever 'this time' means... He's got an inkling.
"Well, I can't say they didn't get away with it this time, so they've got me there." Azoth slumps his shoulders. "I don't look forward to round two."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Mmm," Ragnell murmurs, neither agreeing nor denying. It's more an acceptance of his statement than anything--after all, Azoth's whole problem is that he has chunks of code that force him to take certain actions that he doesn't personally want to take. She does wait for him to 'think it over,' or at least put on the appearance of thinking it over, though. It really is astounding how good he is at pretending to be human.
"I see. That's good to know," she replies. She gives him a lopsided smile, then shrugs. "It can be hard to say, sometimes. If you're choosin' somethin' you were supposed to do, it can look like you're goin' along for the ride. But it isn't, really. Just because someone else also wants you t' do that thing, doesn't mean you can't choose it for yourself. You jus' have to think it over carefully and be sure of what you really want." She chuckles and adds, "I gave that advice to Eleanor 'bout her weddin' some time back, since she was insistin' that even though she didn't love her fiance, she still wanted to marry 'im for the good o' their families. 'course, she ended up runnin' out on the weddin' after all, or so I hear." A beat. "So what's Xantia's part in all this, now?"
It's not impossible to save them. But since Azoth doesn't mention that part, Ragnell can't react to it. Then again... maybe she has an inkling that's what he's thinking all the same. He already admitted how much it upset him to have to fight Cagnazzo the way he did.
"Mmm. No guarantee there'll be a round two. But I get why you say so, all the same," Ragnell replies. She swings her legs up, then stands up on the downswing. "So that bein' the case, are you gonna go back to tryin' to brute-force your data once I leave the room? Or are you gonna do somethin' else?"
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth grins at Ragnell. "Aww, but I get pretty interesting positive feedback out of doing what certain people don't want me to do. Unexpected maneuvers can be rewarding." This may be born from a war machine that learned surprise tactics against enemies are advantageous, but it's still called play when a cat chases a string, even if it does that through prey drive. Ragnell noted Azoth had a bit of mean streak at times. It's true. You just have to be identified as the right kind of target.
"...I hear you. But a story like that..." He rubs the back of his head. "...I'm glad she ran off. It wouldn't be good for her family to make herself unhappy for their sake."
At the mention of Xantia, Azoth perks back up. "She's also is treating me the same!" He pauses a beat for Ragnell to not react to that because none of this is surprising. Everyone is treating him the same. Everyone is giving him hugs and saying sorry and he already complained to Ragnell when he realized this would happen, and reality remains steadfastly more terrible than he predicted. "But when she learned I was missing my memories, she encouraged me to look for them. She's missing hers, too, so we do a bit of talking about that kind of thing."
Azoth puffs his cheeks at Ragnell like he's been scolded. "...No. This conversation has sufficiently provided enough data to determine it inefficient to continue."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell grins back, full of exactly the same kind of mischief. She's proud of him, really. Having a mean streak is a good thing, in her opinion. It means you're willing to play rough when people try to mess with you and yours. "It sure sounds rewardin'! Is that maybe a bit o' my influence rubbin' off on you, even~?"
Joking around aside, she nods in regards to Eleanor. "Agreed. Which is what I told her from the start. But she was so insistent on wantin' to do this for her family, an' she had a bunch of reasons why she wouldn't be unhappy, really. I'm not in th' business o' tellin' people what to do." She smirks wryly. "...maybe just in the business o' telling people what they *should* do, an' standin' back an' seeing if they do it. Either way, good for her. She thought it through after all."
Ragnell does indeed fail to register any surprise whatsoever that Xantia is treating Azoth the same as before. When he mentions the memory thing, she simply nods. "Yeah, that tracks. You know, I wouldn't be shocked if it turned out that Xantia's maybe part machine herself. She's done some pretty crazy shit before. There was one time I ran into her with a few other folks, an' she went into some kinda kill mode for some reason--not unlike how you are with your overrides. Had to smack her down a bit before she regained her senses. Don't know what was up with that, but I imagine it'll be good for both o' you to talk 'bout your struggles with each other."
Azoth puffs his cheeks out at her. Ragnell chuckles and reaches out to tousle his hair. "Good. You *do* learn." She winks and half-turns towards the door. "I'll see you 'gain soon, then?"
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth adds a more devilish quality to his grin. "Maybe it is. I have learned a lot from you." And that's no lie, either. There's something else getting calculated in his core from the things he's learned from Ragnell. Things he doesn't yet need to discuss.
"You do have excellent advice," Azoth says with a sage nod, an expression suggesting a hint of sarcasm, though a tone sincere. So maybe he also teases Ragnell, a little, occasionally. But that's mostly because delivering something with too much sincerity stands to spook poor Ragnell. "And in the end, sounds like she did listen."
Ragnell mentions Xantia as part machine, and Azoth's eyes widen. "I... hadn't thought of that," he admits, hand to his face. Plug that data in and a few things Xenia said become a lot more worrying. He shakes it off. It's a theory to worry about later. "She did mention she might be dangerous to me with all of that behavior. That was very funny, given our previous encounter." His face suggests this is the opposite of funny.
But that's how all these Drifters are: he can give them all the information and they're still going to opt to remain backstabable.
The hair tousle wins a tiny smile and a cheerful beep. As Ragnell turns to leave, he waves with his whole arm, as is his way. "No doubt! Be safe, Ragnell!"