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Fanfiction: Half and Half
The Helmsman has a glitch it tells no one of.
Technically, it is a violation of its programming to not report this to the engineers. However, technically the glitch itself does no harm. It does not pull the Helmsman away from its duties. It does not interfere with the calculations it must run every nanosecond it is functional. It simply happens, with no real effect.
According to the time logs and its own calculations, the glitches began three sweeps after the Helmsman was first commissioned.
They used to only happen when it was on standby.
When its organic body did not need to be awake, and it fell into the closest thing the Helmsman system could identify as 'sleep'. Except, really, it was only a blink, and suddenly the Helmsman felt as if everything it could see with its organic visual sensors was too... flat. It couldn't connect to the cameras, it couldn't connect to the rest of the ship properly, and it didn't know what to do. Then, the Battleship Condescension would jolt the system awake, and everything would be normal.
But the glitches would not stop. And has time went on, they would change. Things would be added to the glitches.
The appearance of others. Sometimes.
First, an attendant to the Mother Grub, for some reason on the ship and who would never be there when its mind was called for once again. Then, a troll unidentifiable, wrists burned, hair unruly, missing a title but somehow the Helmsman knew a lesser known name was within its databanks. A greenblood last, wild and smooth all at once, whose broken smile could still light up the room despite possessing no true illumination capabilities. Their images in the Helmsman's glitch come slowly, so slowly, over the many sweeps it is in commission.
Over those same many sweeps, the glitches begin to happen less during standby mode and more during active duty.
...He holds it, sometimes. The troll with no title. And the contradictory greenblood writes stories for it on the walls of its chamber that never seem to stay outside of the glitch. The attendant... She sings for it. Sings, and strokes its hair.
Somehow, those do more for the Helmsman system than every extension of Life that Her Imperious Condescension sees fit to bestow upon it. The system could not explain this logic, since there was none. But it was somehow truth.
The glitch happens one last time.
It happens during the Vast Glub.
The Helmsman's systems are screaming and going static and white noise and it is screaming- screaming with its organic vocal chords, which it has not done in some time- and She is storming into its chambers and-
The glitch has changed again.
Faintly, the Helmsman knows that the other three trolls that are a part of the glitch are nearby. It knows that like it knows the schematic of the Battleship Condescension.
But in this moment, there is only one.
There is only one, and he is neither the troll with no title, nor the soft attendant, nor the sweet storyteller.
The Helmsman's vision swims, glitching rapidly, going from four dimensional to two and then back again with no apparent pattern. One moment, it is staring at a troll who stands quietly against a wall, and then She is pressing Her claws against its chest, digging them past cloth and into skin, screaming that it is Hers and that it does not have permission to leave. Blood is pouring down the Helmsman's mouth, leaking from its eyes and filling up its goggles, and Her claws go around its throat-
And it glitches-
And the hand is more worn, more callused, gently sliding against the area between its neck and shoulder and he is whispering-
And She is screaming-
And glitching
"-just a little fuckin' more, you're almost back t'us-"
and glitching
"-NEVER LEAVE ME, YOU AREN'T ALLOWED, YOU'RE MINE AND I WILL NOT ALLOW IT-"
And She kisses it-
And he kisses-
And she smells of salt water and blood and hard metal-
and
and
g l i t c h
The Helmsman stays glitched.
The air still smells salty, but somehow more pure than before, and there is a strange scent mingled with it, acidic but refreshing, and for some reason it makes his normally inactive stomach clench. Scars are along the chapped lips pressing against him, but he finds he doesn't mind. Her fins never curled towards him, but the set belonging to this troll do, and his hands- a gunsman's hands, hold him tightly.
Carefully, gently, the Helmsman pulls his hands down from the biowiring and realizes there is no trouble at all in doing so. When he steps out, his legs nearly crumple from beneath him, but then there are a trio of different sets of hands pulling him and holding him and he is being held. Their fingers- all eight sets- tangle with his.
The Helmsman remembers the songs, and the stories, and he remembers being kissed. He leans up against all of them and closes his eyes.
The soldier. The chronicler. The caretaker. The nameless.
"I mithed you all tho much."
Technically, it is a violation of its programming to not report this to the engineers. However, technically the glitch itself does no harm. It does not pull the Helmsman away from its duties. It does not interfere with the calculations it must run every nanosecond it is functional. It simply happens, with no real effect.
According to the time logs and its own calculations, the glitches began three sweeps after the Helmsman was first commissioned.
They used to only happen when it was on standby.
When its organic body did not need to be awake, and it fell into the closest thing the Helmsman system could identify as 'sleep'. Except, really, it was only a blink, and suddenly the Helmsman felt as if everything it could see with its organic visual sensors was too... flat. It couldn't connect to the cameras, it couldn't connect to the rest of the ship properly, and it didn't know what to do. Then, the Battleship Condescension would jolt the system awake, and everything would be normal.
But the glitches would not stop. And has time went on, they would change. Things would be added to the glitches.
The appearance of others. Sometimes.
First, an attendant to the Mother Grub, for some reason on the ship and who would never be there when its mind was called for once again. Then, a troll unidentifiable, wrists burned, hair unruly, missing a title but somehow the Helmsman knew a lesser known name was within its databanks. A greenblood last, wild and smooth all at once, whose broken smile could still light up the room despite possessing no true illumination capabilities. Their images in the Helmsman's glitch come slowly, so slowly, over the many sweeps it is in commission.
Over those same many sweeps, the glitches begin to happen less during standby mode and more during active duty.
...He holds it, sometimes. The troll with no title. And the contradictory greenblood writes stories for it on the walls of its chamber that never seem to stay outside of the glitch. The attendant... She sings for it. Sings, and strokes its hair.
Somehow, those do more for the Helmsman system than every extension of Life that Her Imperious Condescension sees fit to bestow upon it. The system could not explain this logic, since there was none. But it was somehow truth.
The glitch happens one last time.
It happens during the Vast Glub.
The Helmsman's systems are screaming and going static and white noise and it is screaming- screaming with its organic vocal chords, which it has not done in some time- and She is storming into its chambers and-
The glitch has changed again.
Faintly, the Helmsman knows that the other three trolls that are a part of the glitch are nearby. It knows that like it knows the schematic of the Battleship Condescension.
But in this moment, there is only one.
There is only one, and he is neither the troll with no title, nor the soft attendant, nor the sweet storyteller.
The Helmsman's vision swims, glitching rapidly, going from four dimensional to two and then back again with no apparent pattern. One moment, it is staring at a troll who stands quietly against a wall, and then She is pressing Her claws against its chest, digging them past cloth and into skin, screaming that it is Hers and that it does not have permission to leave. Blood is pouring down the Helmsman's mouth, leaking from its eyes and filling up its goggles, and Her claws go around its throat-
And it glitches-
And the hand is more worn, more callused, gently sliding against the area between its neck and shoulder and he is whispering-
And She is screaming-
And glitching
"-just a little fuckin' more, you're almost back t'us-"
and glitching
"-NEVER LEAVE ME, YOU AREN'T ALLOWED, YOU'RE MINE AND I WILL NOT ALLOW IT-"
And She kisses it-
And he kisses-
And she smells of salt water and blood and hard metal-
and
and
g l i t c h
The Helmsman stays glitched.
The air still smells salty, but somehow more pure than before, and there is a strange scent mingled with it, acidic but refreshing, and for some reason it makes his normally inactive stomach clench. Scars are along the chapped lips pressing against him, but he finds he doesn't mind. Her fins never curled towards him, but the set belonging to this troll do, and his hands- a gunsman's hands, hold him tightly.
Carefully, gently, the Helmsman pulls his hands down from the biowiring and realizes there is no trouble at all in doing so. When he steps out, his legs nearly crumple from beneath him, but then there are a trio of different sets of hands pulling him and holding him and he is being held. Their fingers- all eight sets- tangle with his.
The Helmsman remembers the songs, and the stories, and he remembers being kissed. He leans up against all of them and closes his eyes.
The soldier. The chronicler. The caretaker. The nameless.
"I mithed you all tho much."