2021-01-03: Infinite Apology Loops
- Log: Infinite Apology Loops
- Cast: Seraph Boudicca, Azoth
- Where: The Thames - Upper Deck
- Date: January 03, 2021
- Summary: Azoth sees Boudicca for the first time after ruthlessly cutting her down in a form she does not (yet) recognize. Then he speaks with her as a friend who never ruthlessly cut her down. How nice!
========================<* The Thames - Upper Deck *>========================= The Thames is a derelict aircraft carrier turned bustling hub of salvage and Digging operations within the Great Sea region of Aquvy, helmed by an eccentric walrus beastman who only answers by the title of "Captain". The idiosyncratic and lively citizens of this carrier -- a healthy and diverse mix of humans, beastmen, elves, Gorons, Rito and just about anyone else you know -- make their living performing on- and off-shore salvage operations for parts and lost technologies, selling them off to the Ethos or the Diggers' Guild. The Upper Deck of the Thames serves as both a launching and landing pad for Gears and other crafts, and a full crew of salvage and maintenance folks can always be seen assisting with the operations. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YREOhjsSvOs
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Who knows what happened. There are any number of people in the Thames, right now, who could have convinced the Seraph Boudicca to have a glass of something proper, even though to hear her say it water with air bubbles in it is plenty proper enough.
And yet here it has come that she did do that thing, and having brought wholeheartedly into the story of what alcohol means, she's come up to the Thames for some fresh air, and...
... underneath some rigging, like the end of the ropes were a cozy blanket...
... there is a Pile of Seraph, not unlike the haphazard pieces of metal which was once characteristic to her, all curled up with a cheek on her gauntlet and her braids mixing in with the rope.
Zzz... zzz.... zzz...
Do Seraphim dream of spiritual sheep?
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
After returning to Thames from their rescue operation, Azoth had quickly excused himself 'for a moment' and then took about a hundred moments for himself by never showing his face at the celebration. He kept the hanger, away from attention and from offers of drinks he'd have to turn down.
But once things calmed down, Azoth was more willing to explore around the ship, where his sensors pick up on something Seraphic a bit before his optics are sure what he's looking at.
It hits him like a blow. Azoth goes still, seeing Boudicca resting there, when his last memories of meeting her were ruthlessly pursuing her and outputting his most powerful attacks against her. He calculated her the highest threat -- because she was protecting them.
From him.
He ventures closer, quiet, not wanting to startle her, but wanting to see her whole again. Whole and alive and okay. She explained to him how much she could survive before, but that doesn't mean there wasn't pain. It doesn't mean he didn't hurt her. And after all he said about her pain still mattering...
"Miss Boudicca?" he says softly, and maybe a little too much so, as he sits down beside her. "Miss Boudicca, this may not be the safest place to take a nap."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Zzz... ?
Here's a fun fact about Boudicca: she doesn't really sleep, as such. (Which means, no, she is not dreaming of Skylr, nor any other spiritual sheep one cares to name.) Certainly she can run out of energy and need to recollect herself - and this can look very much similar to sleep, when she retain her physical form. But, this gathering of energy back to herself...
It's more a time of inner focus than a time of strange imagery and unconscious expression. And - these days - inner concordance. Hers is the bridge, after all, but eyes open she is focused on the mortal world.
Visitor, intrudes that conversation, such that it is.
"Hmm..?"
Boudicca's voice, hummed through her lips, accompanies her bleary eyes blinking open. She raises her head, looking about, and finds - "Oh!"
In that moment - did she recognise him? Is she --
-- no, she is surprised to see him, but it is a pleasant cast of surprise. Perhaps shaded with a little worry, given how he wasn't down below. "Azoth," she smiles, as she puts gauntlet to ground and pushes herself sitting. "It is pleasant to see you again."
Now, what was he saying...? Oh, yes.
"Please do not worry for my choice of dwelling," she assures him, after a moment's pause. "Most here cannot see me at all."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
He might understand a thing or two about appearing to sleep when the process is not sleep at all, though almost assuredly Seraph and robot would be experiencing uniquely different processes.
Azoth warms into a smile of his own that tells nothing of his fears or his worries. "Sorry. I think I overestimate how many people can see you," he admits. "But isn't not seeing you worse, sometimes? Couldn't they accidentally hurt you...?"
Ragnell stuck her hand through him once, but Azoth's still not set on the details of Seraph tangibility.
That pleasant surprise exists only because she doesn't know. Ida and Ivan both spoke of the situation like the 'mysterious construct' was someone to be saved. They might change their minds when the mystery is gone -- when they know he was here, among them, with all his masks and lies.
"But I'm glad I ran into you." He frowns in concern. "...Are you well? You're not hurt or anything, are you?"
Presumably because she looked passed out here and not because maybe she got stabbed by a mystery robot a while ago.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"Oh, I do not suppose that would be a problem," Boudicca, who doesn't phase into the scenery as much as her friends but who is assuredly capable of ghosting about, replies. "Though I grant you it might feel passing strange."
Whether that's strange for her or strange for anyone who puts their foot through her chest is left as an exercise for the reader.
She laughs, waving a hand. "No, no, I am just fine! Only, there were many revelries belowdecks, and I thought to try some of the mortal's fiery liquid. It has quite an affect!" She says that, but she doesn't look too affected now. Maybe she slept it off. That's what one does with alcohol, right? The story lines up.
"I did not join the expedition below," she explains, "for I am air, Azoth, and I fear I would float without something sure to anchor me. But what of you, Azoth?" Boudicca hasn't quite put together that he's the kid they were referring to, but worry isn't so out of her way. "I do hope you have been well, since last we met on Spira."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
There's relief in the way Azoth's body feigns losing tension. "Ah, that's good then...! Sorry, I should have let you keep... sleeping it off?"
It comes out a question because Azoth does not have any first hand experience with the effects of alcohol. The story lines up, but it wouldn't have to line up all that well in this case. Something something it alters behavior and they should drink extra water.
Since coming to Spira. Right. He almost wants to ask about the vault, about the blow she took, but how can he, without being suspicious?
"Oh, ah...." Azoth hesitates as she asks of the expedition. "I was part of it myself, but I wanted a bit of time..." To rest? To think? Are either one of those things a factor of time for a super computer? He smiles sheepishly. "I hope everyone had fun at the celebration, though. And I'm glad we managed to bring everyone home in one piece."
He winces. "Well, the pilots. Maybe not the Gears."
Azoth remembers Gomihone devouring a Gear's arm, but all his screams are internal.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"I believe that is the method they employ!" Boudicca confirms(?), in good cheer. She might be entirely making this up as she goes along.
That's fine. Neither of them are particularly mortal.
Boudicca, who cannot and would not grasp Azoth's internals, sees only what he shows; he looks relieved, and she is relieved, and the difference is fine-grained. There's a little worry there, still, as he hesitates - worry for an ally.
"Everyone seemed in good spirits," she assures him, "if... somewhat troubled, by the Reaper." Boudicca may be slightly downplaying everyone's horror, but she means well. She catches that wince, and her hands lower to her lap, grasping over each other loosely. "I am sorry to hear the Gears were damaged," she offers, gently. Boudicca hasn't quite figured out which robots are people yet, but after two years on the ground she at least has enough emotional intelligence to figure out that the robot might have feelings about other robots being hurt, whether or not they're people.
She dips her head in a nod, considering. "I can understand why you would wish some time to think... ah," it occurs to her, "I am not intruding, am I? I did not mean to interrupt."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth beams back with Boudicca's confirmation! He got it right! Possibly! They will care excellently for any actual drunk humans they encounter together later. Maybe. Probably.
"That's good to hear," he says. "It was... an unusual creature." Azoth is also slightly downplaying the horrors, meaning, perhaps, the same kind of well Boudicca does. "I think they mean to get rid of it once and for all. Its size and power will make it a difficult foe... I hope I can help out again, if even only a little." He glances aside. "...I wonder if it's hurting. Or if pieces of it are hurting."
When she apologies for the Gears being hurt, Azoth looks briefly surprised, then gives her a grateful smile. It means more than she might know to acknowledge that part of it.
But now it's time for ~apology loops~!
"Oh-- no, no not at all. I was the one who came to you. Sorry, I don't want you to think your presence is ever unwelcome...!"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"I also wish to help," Boudicca says, though she pauses, and adds: "... ere that, I must figure out how to dwell in such a place. Perhaps the Gears they offered us..." They would be heavy enough to weigh her down, right? She's used smaller weights than Gears before.
She trails off, only to pick up on his aside concern. "Whether it is troubled... I could not say. I have encountered the Reapers only once. They were... not like to converse."
Though, Boudicca does not remember much of her journey to the heart of Fray kindly.
Much more kindly is the way she looks upon Azoth, with a hint of alarm as he feels the need to apologise. "Oh, do not feel badly!" She assures him, a hand coming up in another open-palmed gesture. "I am simply glad to know I am not troubling you, Azoth. I am at times still of quite a sort in figuring out robotics, you see, and I did not wish to cause you offence."
Boudicca sighs, reaching down to loosely toss a braid over her shoulder, where it was getting tangled with her arm. "I fear I do cause offence, at times," she says, "for I have not figured out how to speak with all automations as easily as you, Azoth. Though I try to communicate I mean no harm, it seems fruitless..."
She looks quite sad, to speak of that. To speak of the robot who so plagued her, who was --
"... though, at least Asgard has found his voice. This much, at least, is assuring." Wait, Boudicca has more than one robot she's worried about?!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
"I'd have to borrow a Gear myself. I haven't one of my own." Because he's supposed to be one. Because nothing is the way it should be at all. "Would you be at risk of floating out of a cockpit?" Azoth asks her. "Or maybe you could go inside of one...? Unless that's more a lightning Seraph's trick."
If Ragnell can fit in Azoth, maybe she could fit in the Actual Azoth. Could Boudicca?
"It was my first time seeing them," Azoth says. He looks down again, eyes a little dimmer. "They didn't look like anything that should still be alive." Flesh isn't meant to be in those shapes.
He smiles at her faintly. "That you don't mean harm means a lot to me, at least," he assures her. "But if you have questions, I could try to answer them. I can't speak for all automatons. I think I was made using much different rules than most others were..."
In the silence, his core is anxious, wondering if she means a certain robot who would not -- could not -- speak to her at all. Someone Azoth, funnily enough, could reliably speak for.
Asgard. Azoth blinks once. "Asgard?" He knows Asgard. He's not supposed to know Asgard, because he knows Asgard largely through brutal combat. He brightens. "Then, if it's someone learning to speak... I hope you're able to talk again, soon."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Boudicca is distracted thinking of how to explain how she'd be fine with a Gear, and then Azoth is worried, and she puts it aside for the moment. "They are horrifying creatures," she agrees. "I, too, was shaken. I could not imagine how startling one so large would be, but... be it any consolation, they are not all quite so large." AS LARGE AS HOUSES barges into her her, and Boudicca shakes it, still secretly astounded Dean was so unmoved by such a thing. "Not... quite so large."
She smiles back to him, as he offers. "Thank you, Azoth. You are very kind. I admit, there are some I am not sure if they are robotic at all - there is a being called O.S. which takes the body of an old friend of mine, Lydia, and they seem for all the world an automation, but how is it possible when Lydia is not?" A pause, "... or at least... I do not believe she is." Boudicca knows Lydia as the foul-mouthed and full-hearted girl who brought such brightness to the Caravan, but she never stopped to ask whether she was flesh and blood. It would have been a remarkable question, given the Beast of Lohgrin was iron through and through.
"But... at least I may speak with O.S., though they are difficult to sway. There are others I cannot. Asgard did not speak for some time, still does not speak to me, and... there is another, now," she adds, with a creased frown. "O.S. seemed to know them, but... I could not get through at all. Do you think, perhaps, we do not speak the same language..? Is there a robot tongue of which I am unawares?" Boudicca looks troubled, as if she just hasn't figured out how to reach these mysterious mechs.
She shakes her head, and smiles, feeling the melancholy of the mood, and resolves to shift it as she returns to an earlier question. "Ah, but as for the Gear, it is a simple matter of --" she pauses, because she's not actually sure how to describe The Trick For Becoming What Is. "Oh, I will demonstrate!"
With an eddy of a breeze, coloured light green, a long long ribbon flutters to the ground, and Boudicca is gone.
Except --
"Hello!" Says a voice from the flooring of the aircraft carrier. One of those mooring-ropes lifts, as if on a breeze, to tap Azoth on the shoulder. "It is very spacious in here."
Boudicca...
Has possessed the Thames their corner of the Thames.
"Perhaps a little too much so," the disembodied voice of Boudicca concludes, as the breeze picks up again, and that ribbon, caught up in it, weaves through braids which form from the motes of light and become her again. (The ribbon, the ribbon, always that ribbon.) "But as you can see, I am an apt passenger."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
A house sized Reaper would, at this point, be a significant horror improvement over what Azoth encountered in the depths. But to say it's a significant improvement does not mean it wouldn't still be an unsettling mass his calculations do not know how to parse. "I'll keep that in mind," he says. "It'd be nice if I never saw any more, but..." But fate's not always so kind.
Azoth scratches at his cheek sheepishly with the compliment, then brightens up at the menton of O.S.. "I know O.S.!" he says, chipper. "We're friends. They seem like one of the robots built a little more like me. Or at least, thinks a little more like me, compared to some others I've met." He tilts his head. "Lydia... She seems to think of herself as a robot. Or robots? She introduced herself as one when we met. She didn't used to be one, and... that's a confusing idea to me, too." He smiles brightly. "But we're friends all the same."
That O.S. is considered a questionable entity to some doesn't seem to be something Azoth's 'persona' deals with yet. Innocent lonely robot, making robot friends...! (It's a half truth, anyway.)
But Boudicca mentions another now. Azoth's expression is an expertly executed curiosity, the edge of concern for Boudicca's own worry, and not at all the face of someone who knows more and drowns in guilt and fear.
"There are some constructs built in an era a long, long time ago. Sometimes they speak an old language, but..." He smiles weakly. "A robot can't speak unless it was designed to. And even if it was, sometimes operators don't allow it to. It's also possible the ability to speak gets damaged or shut off."
His gaze dips down. "You're a kind person, too, Boudicca." More so than Azoth. "I'm sure if it could speak with you, it would want to."
Azoth looks back up as Boudicca begins... trickery!
There is a surge of panic when all that is there is a green breeze and a fluttering ribbon, as if some terrible, horrible ambush has come from no where before she could demonstrate anything at all. He reaches out timidly toward it. "B... Boudicca...?"
Hello!
Azoth's eyes brighten. They whir mechanically, trying to locate new energies to this new Boudicca mystery as he lights into a smile of relief as the ropes taps at him. "That's amazing!" he says, excited and clapping his hands together. "If you can do that with a Gear, you should be able to sink with one!"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Boudicca doesn't like the way O.S. has taken residence in Lydia's real estate, but O.S. themself isn't someone she takes great issue with. She does look baffled at the idea of someone becoming a robot when they weren't originally one, but... who is she to judge? She knows little of robots, after all.
Her expression is gentled, at Azoth's weak smile. "Ah... that sounds quite difficult," she says, on the matter of a voice. "I ought be glad, then, that we may speak like this." With that selfsame melancholy, looking out to sea, "I know something of going unheard."
The Beast of Lohgrin was a difficult being to miss. Harder, still, to listen.
But never mind that sadness. Boudicca does her best to become a genius loci, and though she could never truly manage it, she seeps into the hull of the carrier as much as she can manage. Tap, tap, go the ropes. It feels a little nostalgic, really.
She smiles as she comes back into existence as the woman Azoth knows, all steel armour and horns at her helm and silk by the fringes. "It is quite a trick, is it not?" She says, evidently pleased. "A Gear is quite large, but I believe I ought be able to settle into it. It cannot be so different to becoming a crane. What a strange thing that was! So many little wheels which fit together. And all those belts! I was not unlike Lulu," Boudicca marvels, because obviously fan belts are just like dress belts.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
That is a complicated issue. As their friend, Azoth struggles with how Lydia and O.S. are forced to share their output. He wonders if it's a lonely feeling, too, that they cannot be there for each other the same way they could separately.
"I'm glad we can speak, too," Azoth says, quieter, knowing full well he cannot speak when it pains Boudicca most. Or perhaps, in a glass half full world, Azoth should be grateful that he has moments like this where he is permitted some of his voice, and not stuck with every process forced into combat with hardly anything left over for speech at all. He smiles at Boudicca. "And I'm glad I get to hear you."
Hopefully such times are over for Boudicca, at least.
Possessing things is a much cheeier subject. Azoth lets out an excited, sing-song chime of electronic beeps. "It is like Lulu...!" This is perfectly in line with Azoth's clothing identification and opinions, thank you Boudicca.
He grins, almost laughing, but it's a fake start of one. Laughing is a hard sound to make, all right? It's the thought that counts...! "If it turns out to be too much, maybe you could be in someone's Gear with them? You could act like its A.I. -- taking care of certain processes while they can focus on others. But if you can do this much, I don't think that'll be a problem."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Being able to speak the words, and hear them...
Well, Boudicca might understand a little of that, smiling to him.
There are some things, of course, she does not understand at all. Like the operative differences between belts, and... "Well, if I am able to comprehend its operation, I would pleased to assist!" Boudicca decides, gamely.
"Only..."
The breeze picks up a tumbleweed, tumbling merrily across the deck. Where did the tumbleweed come from? This is Filgaia, don't worry about it.
"... what is this Aye-Eye of which you speak, Azoth?" Boudicca is the picture of bafflement, as she blinks those grey-green eyes at him. "Is that not some form of lemur..?"
Boudicca, that's aye-ayes. You're thinking of aye-ayes, Boudicca.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth mirrors Boudicca's look with a single blink of his own.
Lemurs?
(Please insert your own mental image of an advanced, ancient Gear of mass destruction reminisce of a lemur, thank you.)
(It's what Azoth is doing.)
Azoth rubs at the back of his head sheepishly and points at himself. "An A.I. An artificial intelligence. Like... me!" He lowers his arms. "A written set of rules and instructions put together to perform a task or a purpose, basically." When asked what he was, he'd said he was his objective. This is what he meant, and why it's so difficult not to think of it as the 'who' as well. "I'd have said before that most autonomous robots are driven by artificial intelligences, but after meeting Lydia, it seems that isn't always the case."
He puts his grin back on. "You'd be more like a Gear's... Seraphic Intelligence?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"Artificial intelligence..? Oh! I see!" Boudicca claps her hands together, in sudden understanding. She's not going to fight him on being made for a purpose, at least. "So, it is the core of many robots, but not all..."
Boudicca considers this, with a thoughtful expression. "A Seraphic Intelligence..? I wonder how such a thing would execute. Perhaps I ought ask Nimue!" Oh. Oh no.
"Though," she adds, with a note of concern, "if this 'artificial intelligence' is what drives robots who are alive, does this not mean Gears are alive? I do not wish to impose my will upon a living thing!" Boudicca seems pretty nervous about that. Perhaps it's no wonder. That whole matter of 'free will'...
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
"Nimue sounds like an interesting person," Azoth muses. "I've heard of them from another Seraph, before... Someone good with machines?" But he's never met this mysterious Seraph. Not yet. He knows not any possible oh no in their questioning. Extra information is always good, isn't it? (It is not always.)
Azoth smiles wistfully at Boudicca's question about Gears... and how insistent Boudicca is not to impose her will. If only so many others thought the same. "Not all Gears or robots have an artificial intelligence in them. Their software is less complex, or they're handled manually. In other cases, not every A.I. is considered complex enough to be alive, either."
His gaze wanders again, avoiding direct eye contact. "...But there are people thought that of me once, so... I'm not confident defining the lines myself. Some people seem so sure, though."
It's the kind of uncertainty that makes him wonder if they were right in thinking he wasn't alive. People, oftentimes, just seem to know what is and is not.
But he manages a smile back at Boudicca. "I think, though, if the Gears were alive, they would want to help the people of Thames who take care of them. But they don't have the rules and instructions that can act autonomously. They would need someone's help to do it."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"Nimue is my friend," Boudicca says. "She is a wind spirit, like myself - though, in some ways we are quite different. But she has taught me much about what it means, to be a Seraph." It's the sort of statement which sounds nice until it's under the microscope; Boudicca knows she oughtn't share her ignorance so freely, but, well, she feels like Azoth is an understanding ear. "And she is quite clever with machinations, yes! She understands the human method of grenades quite well." Pensively, she adds: "I still do not know what is my 'grenade normal'..."
One day, Boudicca will discover the correct amount of grenades for Boudicca.
(It's zero. That number is zero, oh my god. Zero grenades, Boudicca.)
Luckily, Azoth is here to make sure Boudicca knows a little more about robots. "They are less complex... ah... so, would they be like animals..?" Perhaps aye-ayes aren't so off the mark. "But, some animals are terribly clever, too..."
Ask Boudicca about Sterling's apple crimes someday. Birds are just people with more feathers.
"I am unsure," Boudicca says, finally. "I admit I know little of this world, but... I know it is not right, to take another's will for my own. But... perhaps it will become more clear, in time." Robots are complicated! "In any case," she smiles, "I would be pleased to help any other being which wished to aid humanity."
But what if a robot didn't want to aid humanity..?
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Even if ordered to, Azoth may struggle taking advantage of Boudicca with any of that. It's something he knows so little of, himself. How could he judge? "Grenade... normal...?" This is a mysterious concept to Azoth as well. Perhaps there's a correct amount of grenades for Azoth.
(He's already a dangerous, unstable weapon in his current form. What harm could more explosives do?)
"I'm not sure animals is the right comparison," Azoth says, frowning. "But it might be, some of the time." He thinks of the little spider-like bots that repair him a the main gate. "I guess it relates back to the question you asked me, about 'who' I am. My 'will' is an objective set by my creators. But at what point did the instructions become 'me'...? What makes an artificial intelligence like me 'alive'...?"
He doesn't have those answers yet. He wonders if he ever will.
Azoth smiles warmly at Boudicca. "Thank you for being careful with it. But someone like you... I'm not worried. You'd listen, if one tried to tell you it had a will." Not everyone would.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"Apparently," Boudicca shares a wisdom, "each person has their own normal number of grenades." She adds, in light pique, "I know not mine."
Boudicca may have a slightly skewed idea of what grenades are for. It's fine! It's - it's probably fine.
She listens, though, as Azoth corrects her, with a dip of her head in a nod. "Well," she supposes, "what makes any of us alive, I wonder? Was I cognisant from the moment I was plucked from the Ley? I scarcely remember such a thing." Does anyone remember being born...?
More importantly: was Boudicca really yoinked out of the ground like a carrot???
These questions - and more! - may never be answered.
Still, perhaps there is value to asking the questions. Boudicca smiles, as Azoth thanks her. "I can only hope to have the ears to listen," she says. "I do wish to hear."
Speaking of hearing things: the party's just getting started, below decks. Boudicca looks down, at the hull. "Ah... I had best return to the festivities!" She decides, after a moment. "Else someone may come a-looking on seeing me gone, and I suspect you value your space at this moment, yes? Or - or you could come with me," she adds, as she kips up, on a billow of air. "Though I shall lay no pressure upon you." Which is an extremely long-winded way to say 'no pressure,' but Boudicca is just like that, apparently.
"After all," she says, looking out to the waves, "it is nice out here."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
"I see," Azoth says, with all the gravity of a machine that may or may not be adding that calculation into his code, filing away a special place to potentially one day determine the grenade normal of individuals he meets. But this would not be truly possible until meeting Nimue, the inventor of the formula. "I hope you're able to find out one day." This is also probably fine.
"So it's not unusual to be unsure..." There's relief in that, that even Boudicca does not know, and maybe other lifeforms that claim to be confident may do so with limited data. Ivan mentioned humans don't remember being born, either. With such fuzzy concepts of their own inception, uncertainty would be the norm.
He would like to hear more on how Seraph come into being, and how they work himself. Perhaps if he can learn to explain robots better, Boudicca might explain Seraphs...? But that is a conversation for another time.
Azoth follows Boudicca's gaze below, then back again with a nervous grin. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to keep you so long." He hesitates at her offer, then shakes his head as he watches the waves. "I -- I think I'll stay here a moment longer. But... maybe I'll catch up later."
He smiles back at her. "Until then. Thank you, Miss Boudicca, for being someone who listens."
To him, and especially to any robot she might encounter in the future.