The start of something warm
Beginnings can be auspicious things. Stories often continue the way they started, and a story that starts poorly may well end in despair. If the way it starts is so important for a story, then how much more so is it for reality?
This story started months ago. It started in late March, no longer in the dead of winter, and it started on the north-western coast of Hokkaido, in a city built on the ruins of Teshio. Which they'd named 'Teshio'. The snow that had been lying so heavily for months was beginning to melt, although this far north in the archipelago of Japan the land was still covered in white.
This was Teshio Academy's quarterly open day, and a lot of eager students had trooped to its location on top of a hill, at one time making the entire hill a hive abuzz with conversation. That had been hours ago. Now, despite the activity inside, the hill was as quiet as the dead of night.
Quiet, that was, except for a single, freezing girl slowly trudging her way around the academy.
A few questions presented themselves.
Why was she freezing? Well, she was obviously dressed to be indoors.
How did we know she was freezing? She was hugging herself, her hands were bone white and she was shivering hard enough to have trouble walking. Not only that, but there were ragged imprints in the snow, tell-tale indications that she'd fallen on her face and then had trouble getting back up. Indeed, she was definitely freezing.
By any measure, this was someone who should long since have gone inside. By most measures, this was someone who was now risking serious harm. The girl was a pretty, redheaded child, one just taking her first steps into puberty; not someone who should have risked her life and health this way. Not, in the current day, that there were good reasons for anyone to do so.
In the distance you could hear the muffled laughter of children, and occasionally she'd throw longing glances down at the city. More often they were aimed towards the inside, and warmth.
Why was she outside?
This was less easy to answer. The girl was an obvious foreigner, given her features—even in these days it was odd to find someone with reddish hair, fair skin and blue eyes fading to pink in
Japan—but the concept of 'foreigner' was, nonetheless, long since left behind. While Japan still existed, both as a place and a shared culture, there was no discrimination to be found in its survivors and their descendants.
She was, therefore, not being excluded. Not that such an extreme form of exclusion would have been acceptable even in the archipelago's dark historical past.
No jacket, no gloves, no cap. Had she locked herself out, and become unable to re-enter? No; there was nowhere on the planet that would do such a thing. In any case, she wasn't trying. Everything spoke to this being by choice.
No true cover at all. Even locals would call this unwise.
Her thoughts might be revealing…
'This is cold. Cold, cold, cold!'
Or not. The girl shuddered massively, succeeded in stating the obvious, and drew her sweater as tight as it would go around her. The wind still blew right through it.
Teeth chattering, Iris gave the building in front of her a baleful glare. If she was this cold, why was it allowed to be warm?
Keeping from falling over in the snow took a lot of her attention, enough that she couldn't do anything or even watch a video, but the grey dullness of it was boring. Boring and cold
. Boring, cold and annoying for having no-one to talk to. And cold. Not for the first time, she thought about going inside, or at least disabling her sense of cold.
That would be letting Mom win.
A weight slammed into the back of her head, spooking her. She jumped forward, hard enough to send her flying towards a snowbank at a rate of climb more commonly associated with light aircraft than small girls. She raised her arms in a futile bid for protection, and then she hit.
Well, then. Let's start this over…
" —you nearly fell over. Are you
sure you don't want to stay?"
Iris pouted, giving Mandy an exasperated look. It was one she had mastered, but it lost some of its weight from giving it while she was practically horizontal, her Mom's arm all that kept her from the floor. She tested her balance for a second, bending around it just so she could get a bit of inertia going.
"Told you, I'm fine!"
And with a mighty heave, she pushed herself back to her feet. Iris grinned up at her reasonably invulnerable mom, still excited from the simple joy of running. That was fun, even when it ended with her body wrapped around her reasonably immovable arm.
Her grin got a little sheepish. "I, er, shouldn't be running in the corridors though. I might hit someone."
She scratched her hair, a mannerism she'd picked up from a video. Not overshooting and scratching her scalp instead had been difficult at first. She then ducked her head, drawing tiny circles with her foot. It really was amazing just how complicated that was.
Mom cupped the back of her head, tilting it upwards to give her a serious look.
"Someone like me?"
She blushed.
"Well, I suppose you might bowl over a particularly tiny dog, or— " Mom chuckled, idly playing with her hair. She leaned into the touch. "Another child like yourself, but you're right. At least stay in the unused parts of the venue, and don't run so fast that you can't stop if you're going around a corner."
Running as fast as she could was the whole point! She'd have been
totally fine, if Mom hadn't walked around that corner right then. Or if the floor had had… friction stripes, and… maybe a few bumpers, like there'd be if everyone ran all the time. She knew better than to say that, even though it'd make sense. There was no reason not to run, right? Even reaction time was fixable.
"There aren't any unused parts," she tried to grumble. It came out a little whiny, maybe since she
had bowled over one of the kids she'd been playing with. Then she'd told them she'd be going to look around the place, and— well, it was really big, so that had been half an hour ago.
"You could always stay with me, and listen to the presentations," Mom offered. "I'm not doing much anyway. Or just calm down a little, sweetie? I know you're excited, but there are a lot of other people here."
'Nooo…'
She gave Mom her best aggrieved expression. Mom's lips twitched, then twitched
harder, until all she could do was call it a failure and look away.
Not fair.
"Or if you don't like that, there's always the outside," Mom said.
The outside? She hadn't even given that a thought. But that was— Her eyes widened on their own. Could she even run in snow? What about everyone else? She was sure there had to be other kids outside. Children liked playing in snow, right?
"I'll go outside," she immediately said. "I want to look at the snow. I'll be back in… half an hour, okay."
"Well, grab a jacket first. It's pretty cold outside."
Now that was just ridiculous. Her nanites worked better the colder it got, and most of her body was fine all the way to absolute zero. Nothing would be even slightly stressed at two hundred seventy four and a half. Besides, it hadn't been cold for the walk inside.
"I'll be fine, Mom," she said.
"Are you sure? You really aren't dressed for it…"
She tapped her foot impatiently. Cold was just a sensation! And one she could turn off, besides. Not that she'd need to.
"Well, come back inside when you change your mind." Mom sighed, shaking her head ruefully.
Like she would!
Walking through the snow had been hard. Running had been impossible, her attempts leading to more than one tumble. Keeping from giving up, letting Mom know she'd been right about the cold? Difficult. Keeping from turning off her sense of cold, or at least adjusting it, or doing something
, with her skin at twenty degrees centigrade and still falling? Near-impossible. She'd never felt pain, but she imagined this was a lot like what it felt like.
Keeping her shriek on the inside, after being smacked hard enough in the head that she accidentally launched herself into a snowbank?
Only the utter shock of it kept her from crying.
When Iris had been hit by that snowball, she'd been trudging past a near-vertical, loosely packed snowbank. It hadn't been enough to push her into it—of course—but the shock of the impact had made her jump, with just slightly too much of a tiny sliver of full force.
Which was to say that she'd jumped forcefully, head-first, into the snowbank. Her entire upper body was embedded.
Her world, all of it, was
cold. She gasped for breath, a convulsive shove at the snow accomplishing nothing save for pushing her arms in deeper, and now her sweater had snow on the
inside, the wet cold all the way up to her shoulders. She abandoned her attempts when she realized it was tugging her shirt out of her trousers, getting snow on her lower back, too. That felt somehow even worse.
Her entire being buzzed with the sensory overload, which
didn't want to let her ignore it. She barely had the presence of mind to even notice the rapid shuffling noise of shoes walking her way, let alone the implication.
It
hurt. It actually hurt. This was what pain was.
A few seconds of that was enough to overcome even Iris' stubbornness. She gave in to the inevitable and, with a sigh of relief, turned her perception's temperature setting down to match the environment. This rather ruined her attempt at acting human, the snow now warm against her only slightly warmer skin, but after the last few minutes she'd stopped caring. She'd been— she had— um, she'd made an inadvisably hurried attempt at learning.
The relief also left her slumping into the snow as she relaxed, accidentally digging herself even deeper. The steps sped up.
"Are you… Are you okay?" a high-pitched, childish voice asked her. A warm hand touched the sliver of bare skin on her back, though she could barely muster the attention to care. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you weren't dressed, and… you're freezing!"
Oh, right, that's what those steps were.
"Never been better," she mumbled. It came out a little muffled.
"You look cold, and you feel cold, and you've stopped shivering, and my sister's told me that's bad.
And you're missing your jacket." The voice—girl, one, her age—sounded especially put out by that. "Of course you're freezing. I'm sorry I hit you, but you were ignoring me! I wasn't even aiming at you, but I missed. Do you need help getting up? I'm Aya!"
"I… caught some of that," she groaned, still feeling all sorts of out of it.
A pair of hands, presumably Aya's, started digging at the snow that had irresponsibly packed itself around her waist. Iris tried wiggling, to see if she could get out on her own… which made her slide down into the snowbank another two centimeters, her head now lower than her feet. She was well and truly stuck. The only thing she could see was white.
Tapping into one of the surveillance cameras for some attempt at checking on her dignity, she saw her trouser-clad bottom half sticking out of the snowbank. There was no hint as to the fate of the rest of her body, but she also saw a slightly older-looking girl working at digging her out. Unlike her, Aya was dressed in sensible, warm clothing.
She made another attempt at escape, wiggling her body like she'd seen snakes do, but… no, no matter what she did it just made matters worse. She could accept Aya's help or, she supposed, she could wait for spring. Or call Mandy to help, which would be worse.
Defeated, she nodded, not that anyone could see it. "Yes, please."
Aya busied herself pulling her out. Feet first.
"I guess… throwing snowballs isn't the best way to say hi to people. Ehehe…" Aya giggled a little uncertainly, scratching the back of her neck. "Let me introduce myself again. I'm Aya!" She smiled, holding out a hand. "Aya Yuuki! Fourteen years old, and not a
nerd. I'm here because my older sister asked if I wanted to come, but, eh… it's boring, right? Please don't be upset." She looked expectantly at Iris.
Being around Aya, Iris had quickly decided, was a little bit like being caught in a hurricane.
The first thing the girl had done, once Iris was out of the snow, was drag her inside and then
insist on standing guard outside the toilet while Iris did her best to get the snow out of her clothes. She seemed to think she needed to make up for something, which to be fair she kind of did, but Iris would have been fine without being dry.
The experience of being stuffed like a snowman wasn't one that she had enjoyed, granted, but that was now in the past. She could be philosophical about it, and call it a learning experience. That had after all been the entire point.
She was also growing to learn that Aya, who outside of her extensive winter clothing was a small, black-haired girl, half a head shorter than her, was nevertheless hard to keep up with. She took the hand, fully expecting—
"I'm glad," Aya said, relaxing a little as she shook it enthusiastically. "I thought I was the only one dressed for going outside, and—" she leveled an accusatory finger at Iris. "You're still freezing! I wanted to ask you to join in a snowball fight, but did you lose your clothes somewhere? And what's your
name?"
Iris opened her mouth—
"I should go get you a cup of hot chocolate," Aya interjected, her eyes widening. "I'll just be a second!"
She was left blinking as the girl skidded off. Being cold was fine, of course, but Aya didn't know that.
'And that…' she thought, '...might be okay. This could be fun.' Aya obviously hadn't recognized her.
She'd been asked a question, of course…
The two minutes Aya stayed away, she mostly spent wringing her hair out a little better. The human way, by hand. Her clothes had dried themselves off, so while hair wasn't supposed to do the same, she figured it was a good idea to dry it enough that she wasn't dripping everywhere.
She also sent Mom a message, letting her know she'd made a friend and to
not casually give Aya any references that would tell her what she was, next time she checked on her. Aya would figure that out soon enough on her own, she suspected. Next point of importance…
The color of her pupils wasn't really controllable, but a quickly written program kept them to
approximately the same color, resetting it every millisecond or so. If she absolutely had to, she could edit her firmware to make that less of a pain, but she had no intention of keeping them frozen very long. The color of her hair, she just kept at reddish brown; it wouldn't change on its own.
She poked at the wall, making it extrude a pair of seats, and stashed Aya's strangely bulky outer jacket under one of them. It seemed to be mostly air.
It was sitting on the other, a slight smile playing around her lips, that she received Aya back. The slight girl walked around the corner with two cups of chocolate, a slate communicator balanced on top of one of them, her mouth opening in a silent 'o' as she saw the tableau. She handed over the cup, then sat down next to her, nursing her own with every expression of delight.
Hot chocolate was another new experience, and this time Iris quickly decided that Aya had it right. She liked the sweetness, and the heat did feel good, especially as chilled down as she still was.
They sat in companionable silence for a bit, Aya poking at her slate.
"So, Iris?" Aya eventually said, frowning down at it, and looking between it and her. "This isn't telling me your surname. This isn't your sister, right? I don't know why you colored your hair, it looks much better like this."
"It's mine, yeah." Iris pouted a little. "And I like blue."
"—'s not bad," Aya said hurriedly. "Just, you know, I think your real color is even prettier. If mine was red, I'd never want to color it. I tried asking Mom to let me use nannies, or at least let me color it red with dye, but she told me I'm too young. Which makes no sense at all. Blue is cool, though. Kind of icy? But you look pretty, honest."
'Hurricane Aya.' And, well, now she felt kind of bad. Iris thought furiously, taking a sip of the chocolate to hide it. Vision's protocols just wanted to deflect, and
'My hair is actually chained nanites,' while truthful, definitely wouldn't help.
She had no idea what to say, but
Mom would. Iris quickly sent off a message begging for help, hoping against hope that she'd be sped up to a reasonable rate and able to respond. Probably not, though.
Then, the waiting, only she couldn't just say nothing.
"I, um… Thank you," Iris said. She took a deep breath, feeling some incongruous butterflies in her stomach. "...you too?"
Even before she'd finished speaking, right as Aya's face fell, she was kicking herself.
It was only for a moment, but there was no way she could miss it. She'd slipped up, and the other girl had caught her miss. She wasn't even being fair. It wasn't like Aya was
ugly, she was just plain, and… Iris' hand shook, because that now-tremulous smile was just like Mary's when her other mom was feeling particularly down, only, unlike with Mary— this wasn't Mary.
"I didn't mean it that way," she said, sighing. She'd been overthinking this, hadn't she.
Random web forums, parenting guides, even a few relationship advice columns… everything she ran across either seemed like vague platitudes, missed the point entirely, or felt outright manipulative. So much for the networks.
Aya's uncertain smile had looked just like Mary's, for that fraction of a second until it firmed back up, but only that fraction. Now that she was paying attention, she could see the tell-tale signs of attempts at make-up, but it was smudged, nearly gone after playing outside. Her ears were pierced, yet she wasn't wearing any earrings. Not, Iris was forced to admit, the signs of someone who'd be deeply hurt by her casual statements.
Aya was still waiting, so she gave herself a moment to ponder.
Why did she care, exactly? She'd known the girl for all of ten minutes. Aya hadn't been any different from half of the other kids, except, unlike them she'd had no idea at all who Iris was. She still didn't, if she hadn't read too much between the lines on that social profile Iris had given her. Despite that, she'd still tried to get to know her…
It might be that simple. Aya was someone who only knew her as Iris, not as "President Hawke's daughter," or "The first true artificial intelligence." She'd had fun playing with other children before, but there'd always been that standing between them.
She leaned slightly in, and when the gesture wasn't rebuffed, pulled Aya into a short, one-armed hug. If nothing else, it made
her feel better. She kept hold of Aya's free hand afterwards, despite the way her eyes widened in surprise.
"I mean it, though. Maybe, superficially, I'm prettier," she said, "—though that's in the eye of the beholder. You're pretty enough by old japanese standards, and just so you know, this is still not my real hair-color." She snickered internally. Technically true—she didn't have one.
"Besides,
I'm not the one who rescued a strange girl from freezing to death, helped dry her off, got her a warm drink and tried cheering her up. That sort of thing is a lot more important, in my book."
She sent an update to Mom, of course.
"Thanks," Aya said quietly. "But, Iris? ...you're still cold."
Iris blinked, then blushed, and dropped Aya's hand. She hadn't chosen to heat the surface of her skin back up, and that went slowly at human standard conductivity.
The rest of their talk was a lot less uncomfortable.
Aya hummed a little tune to herself as she waited for Nei, standing patiently by the exit. Today had been fun. Odd, but fun, and she might have made another friend. She smiled as she thought about it, remembering the strange sight of a girl embedded hip-deep in snow. That had been impressive in its own way.
Its own, absurd way.
"There you are. What's got you so happy, sis?"
She turned, seeing Nei loaded down with equipment. Some of it she recognised… which was a sign of just how many times her sister had explained it to her, she supposed. Neither of them expected those lessons to go anywhere, but it was still something to do together.
"Oh, nothing."
Nei looked quizzically at her.
"I just found someone nearly as weird as you, that's all." Aya chuckled, falling in beside her. She playfully gave Nei's ponytail a swat in passing. Sadly, there was no way for her sister to retaliate. "I'll tell you all about it. There was this girl, and the first time I saw her I scared her badly enough that she literally fell over,
into a snowbank…"
Iris dropped down onto her bed, feet kicking into the air. She'd left home expecting to follow Mandy around, she'd run off on her own, and then she'd been
bored—but today had been fun. She'd made a new friend. Someone who
still had no idea who she was, and who treated her like just another girl.
She stretched, and while she did so, drafted a message to Aya.
<Iris-001> I'm home! Did you get my pictures?
Only a few seconds passed before the response.
<Aya_Yuuki> I did! It looks lovely. I wanted to take some, but we had some… robot troubles. ┐(´∀｀)┌
<Aya_Yuuki> I blame Nei
<Aya_Yuuki> (My siste.)r
<Aya_Yuuki> How does this tell me where you live? Also, it's all forest?? ఠ_ఠ
<Iris-001> It's all in the photos.
They were properly geotagged and everything. Her eyes sparkled with amusement—by her best measure, so far, she'd given Aya two or three times the information that she needed to pinpoint who she was. It would be interesting to see what happened.
There was a chance she'd be upset at the deception, but Iris didn't think that was likely.
<Aya_Yuuki> I'll grab my atlas tomorrow??
<Aya_Yuuki> It's in Japan, right? Tell me it's in Japan.
<Iris-001> Well, technically… no, okay. I do live in Japan.
<Aya_Yuuki> I guess it must be nice, living in a forest. My own hometown is pretty quiet, but we still have a lot of neighbours. One really famous artist, though! Lengthening sun. Have you heard of them?
<Iris-001> I hadn't. He's a good musician.
<Aya_Yuuki> (눈_눈)
<Aya_Yuuki> Philistine.
<Aya_Yuuki> Take more than five seconds to listen before you say that.
<Iris-001> I'm just really fast at making decisions.
<Aya_Yuuki> ⋋_⋌
No, no, she was being honest.
They chatted for an hour's time, Iris keeping the conversation in the back of her mind while she ate a late dinner with her moms. Aya disappeared while eating her own, which was, of course, expected, and Iris spent the time listening to Lengthening Sun's works at a less breakneck pace.
They really were good, especially for being teenagers. She sent both Mary and Mandy a copy.
Eventually, of course, Aya had to beg off on basis of being tired. That too was expected, but there was one thing she had to check before Aya went to sleep.
<Iris-001> Wait a sec.
<Iris-001> Next time we meet, let's have a proper snowball fight. No pushing me into snow drifts, okay?
<Aya_Yuuki> That wasn't me!
<Aya_Yuuki> But sure, sounds like fun. No idea when it'll happen.
<Aya_Yuuki> Sleep now. （´・｀）
Iris chuckled. She'd let Aya get her sleep, and in the morning she had a surprise planned. Sixty kilometers wasn't too far to run, was it?
Sidra would insist she take the car. Oh well.
The smile now playing around her lips, while not purely mischievous, was anything but pure. There was still a bit of snow on the ground, and Aya
had said she'd be okay with a snowball fight. This should be fun.
A/N: Iris is terrifyingly impressive when she's talking to aliens, but I don't want us to forget that she's also a child, and does childish things. As for the other two new characters... well, they're not really new. If you look them up, you will find them, but what you'll be reading is wrong. This isn't that Nei, though she does get involved as well. @aquagon will know what I mean.
