cape_kore | Private Video || Lydia Martin || 03

Lydia Martin speaks and even the gods are to listen. That speaks to remarkable arrogance or remarkable desperation, and in both you have succeeded in intriguing me.

[For now.]

Speak.

[Lydia really wasn't sure what she had expected... but it wasn't this. She manages to keep her cool and speaks calmly.]

You were trapped in that cube for a reason. Likely, not a very good reason. They only people you harmed were there when you first got out. An argument can be made for a reflexive reaction. Lashing out at what you couldn't see.

... But there were other people that ran into you and you didn't leave a scratch. Why? Also, if you really are a god... why are you still here?

[Does nobody here bother to READ?]

If you know what I am, why I was in that cell, then you know it is expected that I would kill.

[And that's it. That's the answer. The reason. Just that.]

[That children's book didn't really have a big chapter on god murders and subsequent punishments! Mythology isn't her area of expertise.]

... So ... you let them live as an act of teenage rebellion? Aren't you a little old for that kind of thing?

[Not that she should be complaining here. She presses her lips together, looking down at her lap.]

Right. Thank you for being filled with hateful spite and resisting the urge to murder a couple of geniuses pretending to be heroes. You still haven't answered the second question.

I thought your species generally considered it uncouth to flaunt one's ignorance. If the limited scope of your tiny lives renders you incapable of conceptualizing of anything beyond your own mortal experience then by all means, continue with your little witticisms, if one may call them such. If you think it wise to trivialize matters more ancient than any language you speak and equally as nuanced. To me.

[Which is to say that she's treading on rather dangerous ground.]

Your second question is incomplete. What is a god?

[Ahem. Definitely clearing her throat and moving on from that seemingly touchy subject.]

The typical definition is a creator or an all-powerful being. You must be pretty powerful to have gotten sealed in a prison like that. What's stopping you from leaving?

A useless definition, unless you're willing to explore the nuances of creator or all-powerful. Or being, for that matter. Your people gave mine this title millennia ago; is that not sufficient?

Is it not also sufficient that I am here? Ask too many questions about the whys and wherefores and a man must inevitably begin to suspect that you're looking for an edge. Want me back in that cell, do you?

[And now she's starting to see why Sharon told her not to engage.]

I don't care where you go as long as I know we're safe. The only edge I'm looking for is over our kidnappers. If you can't get out, what chance do the rest of us have?

Things seem to be getting worse the longer we're stuck here. I want to keep my people safe and I want to get out. That's it.

There are those who would claim those statements contradictory and tell you that if you care about your safety then it is imperative that you also care about where I go and what I do.

[A point of academic interest.]

They aren't entirely wrong.

I will tell you this, feilan. The last year I came to your Earth was the two thousand and twelfth. I was bound in that cell some years after that and I have been bound, by my reckoning, for three hundred years since.

Yet those mortals I once faced in battle still live, and more: they recall none of what passed after our paths diverged. I will tell you that even I could not toy so wantonly with time.

[She doesn't really think Loki poses a threat to Kobra. Unless... Kobra tries his hug theory. That might not end well.]

If you didn't kill the freak with the eyeliner addiction for shooting you with a crossbow, I think the rest of us will be just fine.

[Crap. Her face falls. She raises her hand to her head, pressing to fingers to her left temple.]

That's what I was afraid of. Different times, different universes? A mythological figure and ... others. [Mina, Castiel, Balthazar. That weird other-Loki.] This is too much. We can't fight this.

I don't make a habit of killing children.

[One could of course argue that comparatively speaking, all humans are children, but there are always distinctions to be made. Besides, taken as a whole, the long scope of his life is not terribly murderous at all.]

'A mythological figure'. How dry. I live. I am not some figment of your species' imagination, born out of their longing for something more powerful than they are to guide and protect.

You broke an old and stubborn thread when you opened my cage. What have I to fight my way back to? A thousand more years of torture and my inevitable demise. Watching my children die. Tell me, titlingr: why should I use what power I have to benefit you and yours when it would mean my ruin? I live.

[Lydia smiles. It's slow and small, but genuine. This guy scares her, of course he scares her, but there's a part of her that almost admires him.

It's a small part, however. The rest of her just can't stop drawing comparisons to Peter Hale. He's dangerous. Incredibly dangerous.]

You only kill when it's necessary? You'll do anything to live and avoid that prison? Well this is a prison, too. Slightly less disgusting and horrifying, but it still counts. So I can either back myself into a corner, trying to protect them from you and whoever is running this nightmare...

Or you could help us. [Not that she'll ever trust him, and for good reason. It would just be nice if she didn't have to constantly watch out for him on top of everything else.]

Are we going to have a problem?

If you would sleep better believing that about me then by all means, delude yourself, but it is delusion all the same. I said that I don't make a habit of killing children. Nothing more or less than that.

[Which says, in the end, very little. It doesn't say he's never killed a child, or never would. It certainly doesn't say he has any qualms about murdering adults, or whatever qualifies as such. If he'd killed only when necessary, well. It would never have happened at all.]

You know little of prisons and less of me. Less still of your own limits, if you really think you're in any position to be making threats.

[She doesn't sleep well at all these days. What's one more thing keeping her up at night?]

It wasn't a threat. It was a question. What could I possibly threaten you with?

You are incapable of threatening, I am equally incapable of promising; the question is therefore a pointless one, is it not?

I don't intend to crush your irritating little species today, if that pleases you. Likely not tomorrow, either, nor any day within your lifetime but my help is another matter entirely, and you've not convinced me to give it.

And what's it going to take to convince you? Made up holidays, a few feasts, and ritual sacrifice?

Edited 2012-12-01 22:12 (UTC)

No, though you're entirely welcome to try. It would be most amusing.

[And amusingly novel. Anyone who knows their myth and history knows that for all the varied and numerous gods the Norse worshipped, and for all the stories they told of their trickster, there has never been any organised cult to Loki.]

I wish to know why I should care. I do not wish to leave today; I will not wish it tomorrow. Why should it matter at all to me that you do? In scant few years you'll be dead, you and the rest of the humans here and I shall be left to care just as little about the squalling babes you produce and raise and leave behind. I stand to gain nothing if I do help you and lose nothing if I do not; why should I trouble myself for a lone mortal girl and a few of her friends?

Gods do not give blessings without sacrifices. There is always a price.

I don't have a good reason.

[Her eyes narrow. Any help from him would probably be more trouble than it's worth. She'll just have to settle for the fact that he probably won't act against them. Probably.]

And I don't think I'm willing to pay the price.

Yes, certainly.

[Daneel is downstairs in very short order. He finds Lydia in the kitchen, as she said, and he smiles slightly in greeting as he comes to join her.]

I hope you're well, Lydia

[It's incredibly hard not to smile back, so she just gives in and grins at him. She has the box open in front of her with the lid propped up so the could see the picture. It's a Venice scene. A canal with a bridge and some colourful buildings around the edges. Generic but pleasant.]

I'd say I'm a little better than well. [A beat] Despite still being trapped here with no access to a mall or hair salon and the eerily-selective earthquakes that seem to affect only one building at a time.

How are you?

[Questions about his own well-being are slightly peculiar for him. It's not a thing he spares thought for, usually.]

I'm well. I'm functioning within proper parameters.

[He sits down at the table beside her, looking at the box and at the pieces. The goal is self-evident, but how much he's expected to help isn't clear to him.]

Is there some service from a hair salon that you require?

[She laughs softly at that answer. He obviously didn't mean it to be funny, but it was.]

Good to hear.

[As for the pieces, she starts carefully picking through them to pull out the the ones that made up the border and placed them in front of her and Daneel.]

Hmmm. Not really. My hair is naturally fabulous, it's more the principle of the thing. I might need a trim in a few weeks... If we're still here.

[He nods, and watching her carefully, he starts to fit together pieces.]

My last mistress was, as I understand these things, a fashionable woman, and considered beautiful. I might be able to help with some things.

[Allowing for seventeen hundred years of fashion shift, anyway.]

[It's not often that she gets to hear about Daneel's life. She shifts a little closer, inclining her head but keeping her focus on the puzzle. She tries to sound interested, but not too interested... even though she practically hung off his every word anyway.]

And did you consider her beautiful?

[Daneel takes a moment to consider this. He's never even though about whether he even has an opinion on something like that. If he had any sort of negative opinion about her, he could hardly say so, not aloud.]

I'm not sure that I can judge that, Lydia. More important, I think, is that Lady Gladia was a good mistress, and proved herself to be wiser than she realised, and she was very important both to Dr Fastolfe, who helped create me, and Partner Elijah, who was my friend.

[There was a certain stress to the word friend. That meant far more to him than any physical appearance.]

[She smiles, finally looking at him]

You like brains over beauty, then. [Well that sounds awfully similar to something someone else said very recently.]

... So, you had more than one creator? And... a mistress. And a friend. Anyone else?

[This is Lydia's subtle attempt at learning more about him without having to directly say that she really likes hearing about his past.]

Edited 2012-12-01 05:36 (UTC)

I had two creators, Dr. Sarton and Dr. Fastolfe. Dr. Sarton was... killed, shortly after I was first activated. He was responsible for much of my physical appearance, and based me upon himself. He was murdered by an anti-robot extremist, who mistook Dr. Sarton for myself.

[And that is something he will never, ever be comfortable with. It was long ago by now, but it was still a little bit of a shock to think of. A human died, indirectly because of him. Daneel fits several more pieces together.]

That was how I met Partner Elijah. He was a detective, and I was assigned to help him investigate Dr. Sarton's death. We worked together on multiple occassions. Partner Elijah was a very clever man, intuitive in a way that I would like to be able to emulate.

[Who else did he have? Well, there's only one answer for that.]

There was also friend Giskard. Friend Giskard was another robot created by Dr. Fastolfe. He was not like myself, far more conventional in appearance, but we worked together in Dr. Fastolfe's household until his death, and passed into Lady Gladia's possession afterwards. He also knew Partner Elijah.

[Oh god. Okay. That's not-- Oh god.

She sets her hand on his arm until he's finished speaking. She's still not sure about what he can and cannot feel. She'd rather assume he reacted similarly to humans and provide some sort of comfort than just act like none of it matters because he's a robot. Mostly because he isn't just a robot to anyone in this house.]

I'm sorry for your loss.

[And she was. It was hard to be sarcastic to Daneel. He was probably the only one she was genuine with 100% of the time.

She lets go of his arm and goes back to working on framing the puzzle.]

I hope you never stop making friends, Dan. There should always be someone watching your back.

[Daneel looks at her for a moment, puzzled by the sympathy, puzzled -- still -- at being treated so human. He isn't; he possesses a lot of analogues, maybe, to being human, but he isn't, all the same.]

I think there will always be individuals with whom I feel particularly at ease, in whose company I seem better able to think and process, to whom my reactions are strengthened and more intense. It's very easy to become accustomed to that, and to miss it when it's gone.

[And he misses Elijah, and he misses Giskard, even if one is far more recent a loss.]

I'm not always sure how to put into words what I feel in human analogues, but I can only term that as friendship. I hope that's accurate. I consider you and Kobra to be my friends, certainly.

It sounds accurate enough to me. We are definitely your friends. And vice versa.

[Best friends. Friends that wouldn't just stop talking to each other for weeks while their whole life was falling apart.

... Right. Puzzle. Lydia sniffs and fishes for more pieces.]

I haven't done one of these since I discovered texting.

[He's not sure what, exactly, 'texting' might mean, but there are other things that have his attention right now. Daneel pauses, his fingers over the puzzle pieces.]

Is something disturbing you, Lydia?

[He's sure something's up, has felt this disturbance in her mind before. Now seems a good time to ask, with just the two of them.]

[That was-- a little sudden. Lydia narrows her eyes but doesn't look away from the table.]

No. Why?

[How does he keep doing that? He's always there when she's upset. Always reaching out to comfort her before she even realizes she needs it. He just... knows. Every time.]

I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be fine?

[Because she keeps getting upset, quietly, secretly, without saying anything. Because he can't figure out what triggers it. Daneel ought to be more careful, and he knows it, but her distress is plain to him.]

You merely seem unsettled to me. Perhaps I'm mistaken.

[He wasn't, but he was trying to be tactful without revealing too much of himself. He had abillities that a robot shouldn't have, and even if it was doubtful he would be deactivated for them here, he also wasn't eager to lose his new friends, were they to be uncomfortable with that knowledge.]

[He can always tell. She turns her head slowly, finally looking at him, and offers a small smile.]

Just thinking of how things were back home. I guess I-- [She doesn't miss it. She misses certain people some of the time, but in general?]

It's not important.

[He should be more careful. And probably, he should have anticipated this. Lydia's clever enough that she might very well work things out on her own. Partner Elijah certainly had.]

If it bothers you, then I would think it's worthy of at least a little attention, but we needn't speak of it, if you don't wish to.

[It does bother her. A lot. She'd spent so much time cutting people off and shutting them out that when she needed someone to listen, no one had been there. Now she has someone flat out asking her to talk about it and she still won't.

For such a smart person, she can be pretty stupid sometimes.

Lydia moves a bit closer, loops her arm around Daneel's and places her hand on top of his.]

It's just that-- if I'd had anyone back home that had cared enough to do what you're doing now? Maybe a lot of what happened could have been prevented.

[She can picture Peter Hale's face so clearly in her mind and it hurts her. Remembering what he did to her... it hurts. She leans against Daneel and stares at the picture on the box, trying to block out the memories.]

[He wraps his arm around her, holding her against his side. There was a strong temptation to tamper with Lydia's mind just to calm her, to try to soothe some of the hurt he felt, but at the same time... he was more than a little reluctant to experiment with his abilities on her. In the past, his mere physical presence had helped, and maybe it would help here, too. That was a far better option, one that didn't involve potentially accidentally harming her.]

I'm sorry that your memories cause you such pain, Lydia. I admit that I'm surprised that you would say that, though. It seems to me that I'm doing very little for you, and I can't imagine wanting to do less.

[Such pain. There it was again. That sort of... intuition. He just knew. Her brow furrows and she clings a little tighter.]

How are you doing that? ... How do you always know? Is this part of your programming? Can you feed off of ... frequencies? I don't understand. Dan, it's like you know what I'm thinking.

[He could deny it. Indirectly, of course; he doesn't think he could manage a full lie, not merely to protect himself. That besides, he's not sure protecting himself is even part of this question. Giskard would have known how to handle this properly, but Giskard would probably have chided him (deservedly) for his carelessness in the first place.]

It's not possible for me to know what you're thinking, Lydia.

[And that's true. It's perfectly true and he could leave it there, just like that. Would she continue to be suspicious unless he tampered with her? Perhaps... in this case, it's better to be perfectly honest, and when he confesses, his voice is rather resigned.]

But you are partly correct.

[She doesn't let go of him to pull away and look him in the eye. She'd rather just stay close. It's not really concerning so much as surprising.]

How, then? Will you explain it to me?

[A question. Not an order. She said she'd never order him to do anything. If he wanted to tell her, he would. But he didn't have to.]

[Daneel gives a little sigh. He's not at all sure how this will be taken.]

I am aware of minds near me. That doesn't mean I can understand thoughts themselves, but I can sense and follow emotions. I've been reluctant to say so because it's not something I was originally programmed to have, and I would surely have been dismantled were it to be discovered on Aurora. A telepathic robot alone would be unthinkable to most human beings.

[He's resolved to tell Lydia everything, and he's aware that the second part is a little more... troubling, even if he hasn't actually done it.]

I can do more than merely sense minds, Lydia. I could, if I wished, adjust them in small ways. A large change would cause harm, which goes against the First Law, so it isn't something to be done lightly.

[She's processing all of this internally. Trying to understand more than what he's saying. Trying to understand what it all means. It's fascinating! It's exciting. It's... incredible.

The only scary part is the thought of how dangerous this knowledge would be in the wrong hands. Daneel ceasing to exist... That thought was causing her more pain that the memories.]

Adjust them how?

I could, for example, strengthen someone's feelings of protectiveness to encourage them to act in defense of another. I could encourage a sense of calm in someone who is angry or distressed. I could reduce someone's inhibition to allow them to act as they wish.

[Daneel's voice is slightly hushed. Talking about this sort of tampering is... odd.]

It's difficult to explain. I sense the emotion, and I can see how to tamper with it. Friend Giskard could have explained it better. I am very new to these abilities, while he possessed them for many years before he passed the programming matrix to me.

[She does pull away finally. But not much. Just enough to see his face. She looks more determined than anything. Determined and a little awestruck.]

Dan, that's amazing.

[That isn't quite the reaction he expected, to be perfectly honest, but it's obviously preferable to fear, or dismay, or discomfort.]

I admit I'm relieved you don't find it to be an uncomfortable revelation, Lydia.

[Relieved is good. She leans forward to kiss him on the cheek.]

You are the last person that would ever abuse an ability like that. I couldn't be uncomfortable if I tried. I trust you.

[She used to trust no one.]

... But it might be better if I promised not to tell anyone. I do promise, by the way. Your secret's safe with me.

I believe you're correct, Lydia. Thank you for your discretion. I trust you as well.

[What he finds himself focusing on, more than anything, is just her use of the word 'person' to describe him. It catches him just a little off-guard, but it's... pleasant.]

I certainly didn't mean to intrude upon your personal feelings. I was merely concerned, Lydia.

[Seemingly satisfied with that, she turns back to the puzzle and forms part of a building in the corner.]

It's fine. Don't worry about it. Really, it's not like you were reading my diary or something. Not that I'm stupid enough to keep a diary. If anything, you were just being a great friend.

... I'll tell you someday. Everything. Just not right now. Okay?

[He nods. He can accept that answer. He would very much like to know, but he can accept this.]

All right, Lydia. You needn't tell me if you don't wish to.

[And that was fair. There was still plenty about himself that she didn't know.]

Private Video || Lydia Martin || 03

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