2023-12-03: Who We Want To Be
- Log: Who We Want to Be
- Cast: Azoth, Gwen Whitlock
- Where: Kattelox City - Downtown
- Date: December 03, 2023
- Summary: After the fight with the Ten Wise Men, Gwen catches up with Azoth and offers help... and, despite everything, her continued friendship.
========================<* Kattelox City - Downtown *>======================== Kattelox City boasts one of the most advanced living standards in Aquvy, comparable to major cities such as those of Guild Galad and Meria Boule. A dense urban sprawl of roads built for automobiles sets it apart from other cities in Filgaia, as well as the two-storey townhouses that have become commonplace as the City continues to prosper with its association with the Digger's Guild. Attractions in the Downtown include a Park with nice seating areas, and a Library stocked with Aquvian literature over the years. BGM: Mega Man Legends - The Apple Market <Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
The battle with three of the Ten Wise Men left Azoth damaged and drained. While not of any nanomachine make, self-repair is still not beyond him. Give Azoth enough power and whatever technology allows him to shift his shape to don this human mask or shed it away to resemble the dark steeled beast applies to internal adjustment. Data can be made manifest, reconnecting that which is broken and sealing that which is cracked. It's a painstakingly slow process... unless given sufficient energy.
... And some of this merely involves manual grit. Give Azoth a tool box and some supplies, and he can perform 'first aid' on himself.
Once given enough power to be operational and 'awake', Azoth refuses to take up space at the inn for the injured and the resting and ducks off to borrow one of Downtown's workshops. He's also, quite bluntly, trying to avoid people, but with a cheerful politeness he hopes isn't obvious.
At the present moment, he's got a screwdriver in his mouth and his removed arm on the table as he tries to use the one still attached to trim the frayed wires sprouting out of his shoulder stump.
He's also 'humming' chiptunes to himself.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen is... having a harder time. While her body can definitely heal itself more than any simple machine could, it's still just the same healing ability any human being would have. And while her ARM is nigh indestructible as any ARM would be, 'is very durable' does not mean 'doesn't get messed up by damage'. It just means Gwen is in less danger from her ARM being destroyed than her ARM being *pulled off*, or worse, her body being destroyed around it. It's been the case where her ARM has healed or regenerated her; who knows what effect it might be having on her lifespan, beyond what it's done already?
This is not one of those cases. Gwen will have to provide the fuel herself, whether by resting, sleeping, eating, or just being on a lower wavelength than 'bright-eyed and bushy-tailed'.
Currently she's doing the latter two as she wanders into the workshop, for much the same reason as Azoth. A warm rust orange wool poncho is pulled over her top half, its cheery color making her cheeks and the bags under her eyes look more hollow and faded.
"So you... need t'use the kits here...?" She squints at the rules over the front desk. "Can't we borrow them n' go, uh, work on a Gear?"
"Oh, you want to use our large scale kits? They're available out back for a fee!"
"What if the Gear's.... delicate? N' human-sized?"
"Pardon?"
Gwen looks about as the helpful clerk looks confused, then sights Azoth. "Ah, nevermind."
Departing from the desk, Gwen's footsteps approach Azoth's table. "... Mind if I have a sit? I'll probably need a lot of the same tools, n' I won't feel like I'm stickin' out like a sore thumb." She hesitates. ".... I can't remove mine, either, it ain't like there's any danger of us getting our parts mixed up." Humor!!
She tilts her head. ".... How ya feelin'? Didn't think you'd already be out n' about. I 'spose it'd made sense that you can heal pretty fast."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth goes quiet when he spots Gwen. He does not, to his credit, try to sneak out or run off. Avoidance is a tactic that won't work long term... but it would have been nice if he managed to get any new data to change his calculations. Instead, it turns out the Watcher doesn't even have to punishing him for his friends to get hurt. He just has to exist.
He sets the cutters down to take the screwdriver from his mouth so he can smile, weak as it is, even with the humor. "It's no bother." That's not a lie. It isn't that Gwen is unwelcome company. That's what makes all this difficult. "And you can help yourself to any of the tools here. I got some scrap, too. Uh, if that helps you at all."
It's so like her to be asking after Gear kits, and asking after him, instead of resting more for herself.
"I'm operating!" he chirps. Then slumps his shoulders. "I won't lie. My battery is pretty low... But I thought I should use what I managed to get for as many repairs as I can before I go back to focusing on recharging."
He frowns. The last few times he spoke with Gwen in private, he dropped into monotone and used much less informal vocabulary.
"Sorry. It's awkward, isn't it? The way I keep changing personalities. But Xantia told me my social algorithms were 'super high priority', so... I've been trying."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen can spot the tone of that quietness a mile away, as well as that weak smile. Yet, when he says it's no bother, the courier takes it at face value.
He may be doing it just to not hurt her feelings, but she wants to see how he's doing, either way. It's complicated, being an Azoth.
When he offers up the tools and scraps, Gwen chuckles, fishing out a small kit from her satchel (woefully new, RIP old satchel). "...Thanks." The fact that the table with the seemingly robotic person now has a *second* person there may draw some eyes, but they are quickly averted. "As for scrap, 'fraid I can't eat the metal kind. The stuff from the market that gets deep-fried? That's more my speed."
She spreads out the roll out canvas, revealing a few specialized metal tools, but nothing more precious that Azoth has on his hands already. "I'm still rebuildin' my tool kit. Otherwise I wouldn't be doin' this out in the open," she says, with an oddly anxious glance around. "... I ain't sure how you even do it," she admits, in a whisper. "Maybe it's just in my head. Or a Badlands thing."
Gwen's reasons for coming here originally were for herself, perhaps, but it doesn't change what she says when she hears about Azoth's battery being low.
"Is it a problem? I mean..." Gwen itches her cheek. "... I can technically, uh, charge you. With my ARM. It's not too much for me, honest. The energy in my ARM's a stockpile, so, it ain't like it'll make my body heal any any faster whether I use it to charge you or shoot bullets." It's at least a topic that makes her feel a little more relaxed, and not as focused on people taking a look as she starts taking off her gloves, revealing one human hand, and one very metal hand.
Is it awkward? Gwen shakes her head. "Nah. It's... kinda like you're learnin' who you want to be, right? Y'might notice my accent sometimes comes n' goes." She grins. "Xantia's a real champ like that, ain't she? Real big heart." Oh yeah. Technically, Xantia tried to hurt Loren not too long ago. But what even are Azoth's feelings towards Loren in general?
It's just awkward all around.
"... Ain't like I'm not makin' things awkward enough for you already. You told me already about the problems you deal with, n' still I keep walkin' in n' makin' messes." She looks down. "... I don't even know the whole story 'bout you, n' I just judge you as bein' my friend. S'why I couldn't just let you stay on that field. You were more likely to withstand that blast than anyone, but... if you hadn't, I would've carried that." Her grey-blue eyes are on the tabletop, while her metal fingers quietly tap an anxious, loose rhythm on the tabletop. "Soo, that's... my offer. But I gotta stay here and fiddle with my ARM anyway, so it's no sweat if you wanna refuse. I can just charge your spirits with my, uh, great company." HUMOR!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
It's a lot more complicated than it should be to be Azoth, as far as the Azoth himself is concerned.
His smile lightens a little. "Yeah, I figured yours might not be something you're keen on welding new parts to. But I thought I'd offer." He taps at his chin. "...I should carry snacks on me." Azoth can't eat, but everyone he knows can.
He glances over her tools with a curious beep-whirr, eyes shining as he looks up. The one that broken in battle still flickers on occasion when he changes its brightness. Azoth's voice lowers to match the whispered volume. "It's easier for me. The worst of what could happen already has."
Solaris found him long before any of this.
"Besides," he says with a forced looking grin, "There's only so much I can hide once I've been damaged."
Gwen offers a charge, and Azoth straightens with alarm. "Uh." She assures him that it wouldn't be too much for her, but is that really true...?!
Worried he may be, apparently it's not awkward. Azoth gives a single blink. "Learning who I want to be..." he echoes thoughtfully, then nods, looking up. "Yes. That's the perfect way to put it." He smiles again, each one getting easier than the last. So trying to navigate it is something Gwen does, too.
And right now Gwen has to navigate what it means to be Azoth's friend.
"...You know, you were the first human I ever fought beside," Azoth says, which is not an answer to anything she just said. It is, however, a factual statement. Azoth was a different kind of machine. Used as a weapon, and as a tool, and piloted and wielded. When he first began exploring under Solaris' orders, fighting was never beside. Not until then.
"That interaction allowed me to re-interpret a number of my variables in important ways, and you were just as reckless then." The pain in his smile returns as he glances aside. "I'm the one making messes. And I've made enough of one for you without you giving up more for me, haven't I? Your company is already asking too much."
Not that he intends to ask her to leave. He looks down at his arm, and carefully reattaches it to himself, eyes closed with a single pulse of blue-pink shining up through his synthetic skin, traveling from his chest through his every limb and back again. After the moment, he opens his palm and closes it a few times, testing the articulation.
"...But thank you. For judging me as a friend."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen laughs, as Azoth ponders carrying snacks. "Then you gotta deal with everybody likin' different things. I know Hyadeans prefer somethin' at least close t'metal, but I don't know much on that. I know when I tried eating one of their ration bars, it wasn't, like, eatin' tinfoil, but it was close." She still ate it, but that's because you never waste food.
But not everyone is open to new things, or new types of people. "I'm sorry," Gwen says, not fully understanding what Azoth meant, bowing her head a little. "...S'funny, I get more anxious letting my actual guard down than I ever do, even when I've had to face you." 'Face', not 'fight'-- the word choice is deliberately vague to certain degrees. Her intention is to make it harder for the conversation to be followed.
None of that awareness was displayed on the field of battle, where she called him by name, and openly shown how she regards him, as well as Loren.
"... I hear ya." Moving her poncho up and tolling the right sleeve of her blouse up with all the drama of ripping a bandaid off, Gwen steels herself to not chance a look around her. Thankfully, no one does, having already gotten used to the element of Azoth on full display.
The layered plates are marred and scratched with blast marks, the articulation of her fingers and hand are stiff (though fine enough to nervously tap on the table). It's when she begins removing some of the panelling that the inner workings are displayed, being a mess of three different technologies coming at an uncomfortable nexus: the mysterious black material that has been fashioned as the base for the ARM, the intricate wiring like laid out like decorative filigree, the more strictly mechanical parts like joints that enable it to be used as a normal armm as well as the hidden elements that allow it to be used as a traditional gun. These, too, are not invincible, and if Gwen's displayed tools are of any indication, very specialized.
But Azoth himself is even moreso.
"I was?" Gwen looks up with a guileless blink. She remembers the fight in question, if not the specifics. "... I mean, I don't think I knew the whole bit of it back then, but I s'pose I wouldn't have treated you much different even if I did."
And she was just as reckless then. She grins fondly as she picks up one of her tools, laying it on the velvet-lined interior of the roll-out kit. "Guess that makes me consistent, eh. But, you've been pretty consistent too. The kind of person I could call a friend." She shakes her head as Azoth as he admits to making a mess for her. "... I'd imagine, in the right situation, you'd..."
He'd do the same for her, but saying it aloud makes it sound like an obligation.
"You'd consider lending a hand," she says, instead. "I mean, you put yourself right into that battle, no holds barred." A spark comes from her tool and she winces. "Bah. Might jerk a little here n' there. Get mighty ticklish sometimes when I do it." It didn't *lpook ticklish, but it does seem temporary, since she's now looking up with a grin, just in time to see his arm sync. "Was that one of the variables I made you re-interpret? Puttin' yourself in dangerous situations?" Then, she adds, with a softer tone, "If you walked away from the Wise Men, we'd be none the wiser."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth stills, blinking in new horror. "Then it sounds like I'd better bring snacks for the Hyadeans especially before they snack on me...!" Is this also humor?
But Gwen apologizes, and he wilts into a frown. "Hey... No need for that." He makes the effort to lift the smile again. "Funny, maybe, but logical. Facing people --" he's caught on to the word choice, at least, "-- is more straightforward than... this." He motions vaguely. Conversations. But a war machine could have some bias on that front. "Reactions are simpler than actions too, right?"
When life comes at them fast, and the next moment could see a dangerous shift reality as they understand it -- such as who is alive and who is dead -- it leaves no room to second guess.
He observes the state of her own damage, face carefully neutral and gaze calculated not to seem to stare. While Azoth himself certainly has no negative opinion on anything aesthetically, he knows it may be a more complicated situation for Gwen. Briefly, his eyes glow a little brighter.
"So you're mixed up, too..." More than one kind of tech, fighting for a smooth operation that isn't quite possible. What impact does this have on Gwen...? Does it hurt her the way it hurts him? In this scenario, Azoth might actually have unique experience worth offering. "...Let me know if you want a hand. Of course, I also get it if you'd rather keep me out of it."
Accepting and giving help would be an easier thing if not for certain third parties getting their influence all over everything.
Gwen remembers, and Azoth grins some. "I don't think you would have, no." Treated him any differently. She barely did at all when he dropped his 'persona' the first time, after he'd been found out. Gwen is one of the more consistent people he's observed. It's not a bad thing, consistency. In Gwen's case a worrying thing, at times, but hard to qualify as a negative trait.
"In the right situation," is all he can say in agreement. There are so many wrong situations with him, is the trouble. He winces in sympathy as she sparks. "I don't know what ticklish is. Does it hurt?" No one programmed him to be ticklish!
"No, not quite. You weren't going to use me as a shield, and I wasn't expendable to you. I had to adapt to that." There's a brief moment where his eyes are looking somewhere far away as calculations play deep in his code. "...Something about it was familiar, though..." Azoth shakes his head. "In any case, it was quite the change from previous operation."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Is this humor? Gwen's mind is already imagining a hungry Zed trying to gnaw on Azoth like a bone. She gives out a cheery 'hee' at the mental image.
Azoth also offers a bit of wisdom of his own, placing it in a logical light. "Yeah, I get ya. Social interactions're a song n' dance. It ain't enough to seem harmless, you gotta be harmless too, or people'll get scared. But then, to not be so harmless that you don't got the gall to walk the walk when it comes down to it. It's a tightrope act." She looks up. "I act like that in battle too, but I guess the difference is the intent. When I came up to you n'... er, that day, with... Siegfried, n' Asgard, it wasn't an act at all. But in the battle with that Zaph guy, it was. It got scary quick, when I heard Ethius talk to them usin' terms I hadn't heard before. Like... they're from the same kinda far away he's from. But lettin' that get under my skin... I can't afford to get scared like that." No room for a second guess, indeed. "Right now, the Wise Men don't know what I can do. Or all of what you can do, too. Remember that; surprise might be the only card we might get, here, while they're still expectin' use to be gutter trash."
Her expression is serious as she speaks, displaying more of the gravity she failed to treat the situation with. "We don't know all of their tactics either, though, sooooo." And the serious moment is over, as she suggests, "We'll suckerpunch 'em so we'll never have t'learn!" She's gesturing with that metal pick of hers; it's not a good look.
The courier's attention moves back to her ARM. "'Mixed up'. Good way of puttin' it. Still mostly flesh n' bone-- it's just my ARM n' heart that are, uh... mechanical? 'Like an ARM' flavor of mechanical. I lost my original arm so long ago that I can't... even remember wha--t it was like t'.... have it." The fighters on her right hand twitch and contort, then relax, as she tries to realign the delicate parts within, using a few more of the tools from Azoth's side. "Damn it, hand keeps twitchin'."
So, when Azoth offers, she considers, her eyes angling up towards him at an angle. ".... This is gonna sound real awkward, but could you hold my, uh, well, keep the upper half of my arm still? Got a delicate thing t'do here. Don't need to be by my hand. Wrist, fingers, whatever works."
"I never wanna be the person that excludes someone for actin', lookin', or soundin' just a little different. Dealt with it most of my life, even before I got my ARM. Helps when a person's a pleasure t'know, though." Azoth sees to catch her meaning, as well, which makes her feel better. "... You wouldn't be the first person I know t'have complications like that."
Though, how does Gwen explain what being ticklish is? She squints down at her work, like it would offer answers. "S'like.... annoying? Like itchy, but weird. My body don't always know how to figure out how the hell it should convey what I'm doin', so maybe it ain't even like it's tickling. I'm... touchin' something I ain't supposed t'touch, on a part my body had learned how to be without. Sometimes... it does hurt. But that's somethin' I've dealt with a lot too, before." She frowns. "... Did it hurt for you, though? T'just... be hit like that?"
Then, Azoth says something that makes Gwen pause. "Familiar?" Could this be more humor from him, or an actual memory. "Did you remember something?" Either way, he's already moving on. Perhaps it's just a feeling.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
All right, if it were Zed, Azoth may not be able to say no. Zed can have a little bit of android arm. But even without knowing what Gwen is imagining, his smile brightens at her reaction.
Gwen understands the social song and dance well, it would seem. Azoth nods along sagely with her assessments, internally wondering when humans will stop surprising him. It's so much more difficult for them than he imagined it might be. Maybe it has nothing to do with being a machine. Maybe living is simply... hard. But not without combative parallels.
"What you said to me then..." Azoth's eyes turn briefly red. He brings his fingers to his forehead, shadowing his hand over his eyes a moment before they stabilize. It was good, what she said, and should have worked if the situation were what she thought. But he's not able to give any of them those kinds of hints. Not after Ethius was so painfully successful... "Well, that day had a lot of unexpected elements in it you weren't aware of. I guess that proves you right about surprise."
His brow furrows at the mention of them being gutter trash. "I have no idea if Class 10 is good or bad... And I don't know which assessment would be worse, coming from them."
The approval of your enemies isn't always a good thing.
Then Gwen makes a very Gwen conclusion, and Azoth beams at her with a cheerful beep sequence. "Ah, there is that Drifter enthusiasm I have come to respect. It's gotten you this far, so I can hardly argue with the logic." He thrusts his own fist up. "Suckerpunch!"
He turns his attention back to Gwen's ARM along with her, following her gaze and hoping that's less intrusive than staring. Much as Azoth knows technology, Gwen would almost certainly be the expert on her own arm. And heart. With her request, and without a hint of awkward at all, Azoth carefully sets his grip on Gwen's arm (ARM), securing her hand and wrist to keep her steady.
"Is this all right?" As the machine he is, it's a simple task for Azoth to hold this pose with perfect stillness, and to prevent himself from moving on any startled or shocked reactions. If this is delicate, Azoth will dedicate himself to its heightened success.
The rest of him can do whatever it wants without disturbing the process though, and he smiles again.
"Then I have good news. You're not that person at all." Azoth thinks of Xantia's fears, too... It's not his place to share them, but Gwen isn't someone who has to be asked to help. Gwen would fulfill what needs to be done simply by being Gwen. "It's pretty lucky if someone finds a friend in you... I hope you get lucky back one of these days."
Azoth does not consider himself one of the luckier finds in the world.
Ticklish, meanwhile is... hmm. Azoth squints. "I think I get it. A low level error. An irritation, but not function threatening?" The way Gwen describes her problem... it doesn't sound comfortable. It doesn't look comfortable, either. Pain... It is safest to assume she's underselling it. That grip he has on her is secure, but gentle.
"It... does," Azoth admits of hurting, even if a lie might be easier. "I'm programmed to experience errors and negative feedback in response to damage and loss of operation." He smiles sheepishly. "Which can hurt. They designed the severity before knowing I was going to be alive. Whoever 'they' are." That, he does not remember.
But what does he remember?
"Yes," he says simply, but distantly. "...And no. But I must have fought that way before... With companions, and not as a tool."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen's face shows a brief moment of alarm as his eyes turn red; the fact that her ARM is laid out and exposed makes it feel just a little more scary. To display her weaknesses so openly--
And she also remembers more of the exact parts of that day, as Azoth stablizes. "I'd ask you 'bout what was in that container, but. Even if you could answer that, I don't think they're in the business of letting people know more than they need. But yeah. The part about... having a bad day. When you told me to run. And, yeah, the part about trying to protect Loren. And you, too, though I was kinda more just 'fight by you'." She smiles crookedly, as Azoth admits. "I don't think he expected me n' Lan. The both of you didn't. And Siegfried--"
Emotional pain creases her face; her left hand shakes. "His face..." Her ARM tries to respond feebly with faint flashes of pale gold down the ARM's more ineffable parts, trying to rise on a wave of emotion Gwen is determined to hold back. "My feelings..."
She closes her eyes, and breathes. "But I'm not the only one with complicated feelings. We are all... complicated. Can't let myself to forget that, ever."
It makes that enthusiasm, when it comes, like a balm on Gwen's own nerves. Some wounds are too fresh to expose, but they can at least be acknowledged. "Hee. You ain't so bad yourself, Azoth!"
"Yeah, good. Just like that. Hold it." Gwen dips her head, her eyes pinpointed on the section, arrayed with delicate wiring that had been scratched. "Glad I don't have to weld or anything like that or we'd have ourselves a right proper shitshow. Dunno how you do it, Azoth."
The strength underneath Azoth's grip isn't at its fullest, but it'll become clear that she had been keeping it as still as she had by will alone; both hand and wrist threatens to buck and flinch under his hand. Gwen's own face, though angled, likewise flinches and winces, but her left hand holds steady, pausing as if every part was expected.
Azoth's humor is not expected. Gwen giggles, thankfully paused in her work. "Good t'hear. I'll quote ya on my reviews at the Guild."
'... I hope you get lucky back one of these days.'
"Bah, don't put yourself down like that." She sees you, Azoth. Both you, and Xantia, even if Azoth didn't say her name. "Every day is lucky when you have good friends." Or bad friends, she was to joke, but Gwen wonders if Azoth may secretly take it to heart. "N' yeah. Sometimes it can hurt like a shock, but then I know I messed up, so it all works out!"
It may be easier to lie about that pain, but Gwen, reflecting on what she just said, nods slowly. "Accidental life." 'Whoever 'they' are'. Solaris didn't create him, it seems. "Pretty sure I know quite a few people who were accidents, so you're in good company!" gwen that is not what Azoth meant and you know that
That fleeting bit of carefree humor solidifies into a gentle warmth; the courier nods, her curls bobbing with the movement of her head. "Someday... maybe, you'll have that again in full. Instead of in fits n' glimpses." She can't promise Azoth that he can be free of Solaris; it would feel cruel to promise something she has no way of realistically giving. ".... So, until then, don't lose this part of yourself. Hide it if you have to, but never lose it, n' don't lock it down so deep that it can't come out, either. You're somethin' unique, Azoth, because you're you. That's worth protecting."
Her attention turns back to finishing her work then, and Gwen becomes quiet, closing the last bit of wire back into place. "That ain't all of it, but. That was the part I could've screwed up real good. You can let go now; I gotta work a little on my wrist anyway." She still grins though, pointing her metal tool at Azoth. ".... So. Surprise, I owe you a favor now. I can give your battery a boost for your troubles, or I'll just pay y'back another day. Deal?"
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Thankfully, all the red light means Azoth's suffering an error. Some errors are just worse than others.
Azoth offers Gwen another waning smile. "You're right. I can tell you this honestly: I have no idea what was in there. And I can tell you this honestly: I wasn't ordered to prevent it from being secured."
That was odd. The Watcher must have considered it the lowest priority? It's also possible that she did not believe Azoth capable. But either way, the order was given aloud, and did not involve that. There's no override to prevent him from repeating what was publically said.
His expression softens. "Loren is also lucky to have you. And Lan." He can say little more on the subject of Loren without going red again. It's a difficult edge to walk... As for Siegfried, Azoth winces. He was the one who ripped Siegfried's helmet off, knowing what was under it, but too blinded by battle to be allowed to care.
"... I'm sorry," he says, not only for his part in it, but that it is what it is. "It won't make you forget if you need to cry yourself." They should at least be allowed that in this mess of a complicated world.
But where apologies feel empty, keeping an ARM steady is materially achievable. He obeys, holding, observing the scratched wires. It's never easy. "Mostly I manage by being able to generate intense heat in precise locations and having a finely calculated control of this chassis." He smiles faintly. "It's unfair, I know." Robot advantages. The same is applied to help Gwen keep her arm still, even admist her pain.
Azoth is scolded! He puffs his cheeks, but endures it. "You definitely have a way of seeing the world. I'm a little envious." Perhaps it isn't terrible logic to consider, then. "...It's true that pain is a form of data, but try not to collect too much of it."
Not having learned to laugh quite right, Azoth makes a two-toned beep sequence that sounds uncannily close to his own bit of 'hee hee'. "It's true that no one asked to be born." That's also not what Gwen meant, and Azoth knows that, too.
But then Gwen says something... important.
Azoth stares back at her in shock. Worth protecting.
It takes several moments before he finally softens into a gentler smile. "I think you might be better at this non-facing part of things than you think. You really know how to go for the throat."
And to hide it, if he has to. Is that... possible? It had never occurred to him before. Strange. Or maybe it had, and he can't remember...
Azoth keeps perfectly quiet until Gwen's work is finished, then squeezes her hand before easing his grip, as if that might help. He's observed people doing it before. He slumps his shoulders and shrugs. "Oh, I see how it is. You tricked me." Not exactly! (Yes exactly!!) "...All right, deal. But not today. I don't want to add any stress to your ARM right now."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Azoth has no real answers, as Gwen had expected, except--
_That is something potentially very important_. Something Gwen needs to try to remember, but what does it even mean?
Was it a ruse to get Siegfried in the right spot? That they all messed up. Did they end up helping Siegfried and Asgard in the end not get caught in Solaris's trap?
At this point, Gwen is almost disappointed that it might very well be a prop.
".... I was kinda hopin' it really was a body like Lan suggested," Gwen says, forlornly. "But I guess all's swell that ends swell?" that's not how the saying goes and Gwen may or may not know it
Gwen laughs. "Dunno if Loren'd agree on that, but that's his problem." Gwen's friendship is a powerful force of nature, it seems.
And a double-edged one, if her grief shows anything. "It's okay." Gwen sighs. "It's a complicated story, but, that's why I say that you wouldn't be the first person I've called a friend I've ever had to face. But, we cared about each other, in the end." It's all she can do, right now. "No one expected it. Lan made sure it didn't go any further."
Gwen latches onto that humor, beaming happily. "Heh, I can do that too, y'know! It just ain't as impressive. Let me stand under the Badlands sky at full noon for an hour n' I'll be hot t'the touch, thanks to the power of my amazingly pale skin! And the freckles." She points to the mess of them on her cheeks, grinning widely. "I don't even have t'think 'bout it. I just burn." The woes of having easily burnt skin.
Azoth's laughter may be unorthodox, but the beep just makes Gwen want to giggle even more, as Azoth points out some of life's little jokes. No one asked to be born.
... But that doesn't mean they're not valuable for it.
Gwen's words seem to pierce Azoth in a way she didn't expect, but it's a pleasant sort of surprise, thankfully. "I have my moments of vicious clarity, I guess! Heehee."
The squeeze of her hand at the end, whether or not Azoth called for it, is given back, as best Gwen can, from her hand's angle. It's not like the frantic jerks from before; its movement and gentleness is clearly Gwen's doing. "Alright, fair 'nough. Gives me an excuse t'pig out at the bakery down the way." She begins gathering her tools; while the work isn't done, her stomach is beginning to growl ominiously at the mere mention of sweets. "That's my cue, eheh. Thanks for lettin' me drop in. I was worried 'bout you, so I'm glad to have that bit of worry settled." She presses two fingers to the side of her head, and flicks them away in a salute. "Battery chargin' shall happen tomorrow!"