[The thing about an open-ended question like were you happy is that it's a wordsmith's dream, so wildly open to interpretation that she could attach just about any angle of response at all to it and argue later that what she'd said was technically true. There are so many ways she could adhere to the letter of the ask while never coming close to touching the spirit, and it would be so easy — if she didn't want to answer it.
The problem is, maybe she wants to answer it. Maybe she wants to look at herself, at the memories this damned City has dredged up without her consent, and actually see if she can answer it as much for herself as for Kaveh.
Did it make her happy? It made her special, at least. It made her a focus of attention, made everyone — she thought, at least — love her for what she could do. She could overhear them sometimes saying what unprecedented good fortune it was, two of them in the same generation. A burden on Nym to train them both at once, and balance it out, but once they were ready...
Did it make her happy, knowing the future that was already marked out for her, and that all she had to do was walk the path to it? There was never anything else. They only just read about the things that happened to other people, only just played at them the best they could from a perpetually secondhand perspective. How many kisses had she written for the equivalent of paper dolls, over and over and over again, relentless on the idea until Nym gently critiqued her fixation, told her she needed to branch out more?
She doesn't even know what it's like firsthand, but she could craft it for others. Was always supposed to make it for others. Was supposed to write about pain and hope and love and loss in echoes of what she read, what she was instructed — did it make her happy?
If she were someday as old as Nym, taking her turn at training her own successor, would she look back on all she had done and call it happiness?]
I think I was.
[Because she remembers, too, curling up with Arche in the great chamber that housed all her monitors and screens, workbook on her knees, pen in her hand, loose bits of hair slipping free from her ponytail — and how it had felt just to tell Arche her stories, the thought that she could make them come to life, the eager stilted nudging of QUERY: what happens next, Ghost? I am eager to know what comes next :). Maybe they were the same, she and Arche, both things programmed to resemble ordinary girls, the perfect tools for the tasks that needed them, and maybe they were both playing at being alive but she knows she was happy when she was with Arche.]
Nobody wants to be unhappy, do they? It was what it was. I don't remember being sad about it.
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The problem is, maybe she wants to answer it. Maybe she wants to look at herself, at the memories this damned City has dredged up without her consent, and actually see if she can answer it as much for herself as for Kaveh.
Did it make her happy? It made her special, at least. It made her a focus of attention, made everyone — she thought, at least — love her for what she could do. She could overhear them sometimes saying what unprecedented good fortune it was, two of them in the same generation. A burden on Nym to train them both at once, and balance it out, but once they were ready...
Did it make her happy, knowing the future that was already marked out for her, and that all she had to do was walk the path to it? There was never anything else. They only just read about the things that happened to other people, only just played at them the best they could from a perpetually secondhand perspective. How many kisses had she written for the equivalent of paper dolls, over and over and over again, relentless on the idea until Nym gently critiqued her fixation, told her she needed to branch out more?
She doesn't even know what it's like firsthand, but she could craft it for others. Was always supposed to make it for others. Was supposed to write about pain and hope and love and loss in echoes of what she read, what she was instructed — did it make her happy?
If she were someday as old as Nym, taking her turn at training her own successor, would she look back on all she had done and call it happiness?]
I think I was.
[Because she remembers, too, curling up with Arche in the great chamber that housed all her monitors and screens, workbook on her knees, pen in her hand, loose bits of hair slipping free from her ponytail — and how it had felt just to tell Arche her stories, the thought that she could make them come to life, the eager stilted nudging of QUERY: what happens next, Ghost? I am eager to know what comes next :). Maybe they were the same, she and Arche, both things programmed to resemble ordinary girls, the perfect tools for the tasks that needed them, and maybe they were both playing at being alive but she knows she was happy when she was with Arche.]
Nobody wants to be unhappy, do they? It was what it was. I don't remember being sad about it.