asgardchrysalis | o2; Discovery [Closed]

Entry tags:

o2; Discovery [Closed]

Who: Ariadne (

dataset)
What: Talking about mission stuff
When: April 2
Where: Ariadne's Garden
Warnings: Tiniest bit of blood, Potential Game Spoilers.

It was natural for him to look into strange matters and investigate them. In this case, he had been given something new to investigate involving a strange occurrence with the local lake. The details were sparse. He only knew that the lake exhibited some type of ...abnormality.

The best approach was to interview the witness who initially reported the incident before looking into matters further. In this case, the witness happened to be someone he was casually familiar with: Ariadne. Ariadne said that she could usually be found in her garden, so Connor headed there first to see if she was available for a few questions.

He ducked under a branch and stepped into the garden he had been to a few times before, careful to avoid any of the newly budding strawberry plants. "Ariadne?" It had become a habit to look up into the tree branches overhead first in case she was perched up there.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Fortunately - or maybe unfortunately - performing tasks for others was Connor's forte. Though some of the tasks on her list relied on circumstances out of his control, others were just execution of simple instructions. "I'm certain I could find some of the items on your list." He offered as a starting point.

"You keep trying to help me and I keep trying to help you and we're getting nowhere," she said. Amused, of course. Not irritated. She couldn't possibly be irritated with Connor. At least, she hoped she never found anything to be irritated about in him.

People were full of surprises.

"We're going to help each other to death."

...Perhaps she had a point.

"I'm sorry." Though it was an apology, he didn't seem bothered by what she said. "Androids are created to be accommodating. Even though I don't have to obey anyone's instructions, I still find it natural to help someone who could use assistance."

"I feel the same way," she said. Androids and servants. Maybe they had a lot in common. Or maybe it was just Ariadne's sunny outlook. She laughed, anyway. Finally. For what felt like the first time in forever.

A lifetime, if her resurrection was to be believed.

No point in getting back into that, now.

"For what it's worth, Connor, I don't need you to be accommodating or anything else. Just be...who you wanna be."

Seeing laughter was a sharp contrast to how she had been some time before. Connor felt some small part within him lift at the sight of it.

He nodded, "I will." He wasn't sure who he wanted to be, given that it was another one of those 'wants' he was not accustomed to, but it was probably more along the lines of following gut reactions on what he felt like doing.

She offered him something of a smile, feeling grateful to have a friend who just swung by. But it occurred to her that nothing Connor did was entirely spontaneous. At least, she didn't think he'd quite figured out how to be spontaneous just yet.

Ariadne tilted her head to one side. "Where you looking for me just now?" she asked, glancing down at the bush that had finally stopped smoking.

She would mourn its loss. She was pretty sure that one had been named Kevin.

Looking for her? He blinked. Oh. Right. "It was to ask you about something you had previously discovered."

Connor recounted his overall intentions. "I wasn't told much about it, only that you had identified something strange about a lake. I wanted to ask you about what you had seen before taking a look for myself."

And with a sincere glance, he wanted to make sure she knew it wasn't a high priority. "However, I can understand if you're not feeling up to it."

Ariadne shook her head. The lake was actually a happy memory, all things considered. She'd spent the better part of an afternoon messing around, trying to solve its mysteries, before she eventually gave up.

Which was fine. The exercise had been good for her.

"I know what you're talking about. The one that threw me back every time I tried to break the surface of the water." She smiled. "Never figured out how or why."

Connor arched an eyebrow. Threw her back? As in it repelled her? It sounded like some strange kind of surface tension upon first hearing it, but of course, he'd have to see if for himself to draw any firm conclusions. "Some liquids have the potential to deflect foreign matter."

Hm.

"It will be difficult to try and solve the exact cause without knowing the chemical composition of the lake itself." He looked up, putting a hand to his chin in thought. "If only there were some way that I could get a working lab in Asgard. Without my ability to sample things in real time I would need some kind lab equipment."

"Chemical...composition? I mean, it looked a smelled like water. I'm not sure if it tasted like it, but only because it wouldn't let me taste it."

Sadly, while Ariadne had many talents, science wasn't one of them. Anyway, that was the domain of the Humans.

They were much smarter than she was, on the whole.

"I was wondering if maybe there was something living in the water. A spirit or nymph. Maybe someone trying to keep us out of its home."

"It's very unlikely that anything is living there. If it's reacting that way there must be a more rational reason for it." Even if the words were of a slightly corrective nature, he didn't sound like he intended to come across as condescending.

"Knowing the chemical composition would give us the details that are invisible to the naked eye. It could allow us to understand why the lake reacts the way that it does to certain objects. Or in this case, why it repels them."

He looked off to the garden. Particularly at the plants - that other mystery he had yet to solve. "That knowledge could be used to help us understand more about Asgard as a whole."

He sounded almost... delighted by it. After all, piecing together information had been a large part of his job back home. And he did enjoy that part.

Spoken like someone who'd never met a nymph or spirit. But Ariadne got him. She knew that Connor could only believe in what he could see. And maybe he was right. Maybe there was a perfectly logical explanation.

Then again, Ariadne's concept of logic was a bit more...flexible...than most.

"Well," she said, "I don't think you can take the water out of the pond, so if you want to look closer at it, you're going to have to bring everything you need to the bank."

"I'll keep that in mind." He didn't have anything in terms of equipment just yet. With Asgard's archaic technology, it would be difficult to have anything which would be state of the art. He imagined that it would have to be built by hand and he was not designed to build things.

"Thank you for your assistance. It's always helpful to have an eyewitness account when trying to solve an investigation."

"Glad I could help," she said, with a crooked smile in the corner of her mouth. "I hope you can find whatever it is you're looking for."

And, sadly, she still didn't know enough about Asgard to see the probabilities. But that was kind of what made it exciting. Being surprised could be alarming, but it could also be exhilarating. And, as she well knew, could change the course of your life.

"And Connor? Seriously, think about the dog. And I'll pick something on my list. We can hold each other accountable."

"I will." He paused before adding. "However, it may not happen regardless of what I think."

If she was going to hold him accountable he might as well explain. "The idea of being the master over anything seems almost... hypocritical for an android." Given that androids were the property of other people for as long as they had existed, he didn't quite like the idea of owning something else as soon as he had the freedom to do so. Even if what he owned was a dog, it made little difference.

"I'd like to become friends with them first and see if they would allow me to take care of them. There's always a chance they may not want that." Granted that dogs couldn't communicate the same way as humans, they surely had other ways to communicate.

A little wrinkle formed in her nose, when she smiled. "I don't know a lot about pets," she admitted. "But I think that's ultimately the point. To be friends." That didn't include hunting dogs or horses. But Ariadne didn't like either of them, so she didn't count them as truly pets, anyway.

"At the very least, you're right. Spend some time with some dogs. Just...see what happens."

Connor nodded.

With that, he turned slightly and put a hand on the branch that hung just above his own. "Are you feeling better now?" Though he genuinely wanted to know, It was also a veiled way of asking if he could get down from the tree. If not, he would stay there of course.

It wasn't that he was afraid of heights. Being in a tree just seemed...unnecessary.

She wasn't, but lying came to Ariadne so easily that sometimes, she could even convince herself. "Much," she said, giving him a little nod, because he was clearly looking for permission to get down.

And she...kind of wanted to see how he did it.

You could tell a lot about a person from the way they interacted with trees, she found. And she was ever so curious.

"I'm glad to hear that." And he was equally happy to think that he'd been able to make a difference in her mood. "Since you're feeling better, I'll take a look at your plant. Maybe I can figure out what happened to it."

Connor didn't so much as interact with the tree as he did look down, assess that the height wouldn't be fatal, and slipped off the branch to the forest floor below. This was without assessing, of course, that he had to deal with how gravity impacted the human-like internals that Asgard so kindly provided. It wasn't something he had adjusted to since arriving.

He landed on the ground hard with his hands and knees immediately slamming into in the dirt in spite of his own weight - That was typical with a fall from such a height. But the sheer amount of pain that rushed through his body from the impact made him recoil. Connor sharply took in a painful-sounding breath. "...Shit." He hissed bitterly.

And Ariadne was right. She did learn something about Connor.

She learned he could swear.

Her descent was a bit more graceful. After all, she'd been climbing about as long as she'd been walking. She gripped one branch, then another. Trading hand after handle until she dropped from a lower height and landed in a neat squat.

"Are you all right?" she asked, scurrying over to his side, holding out both hands, although she hesitated when it came to actually touching him.

Pain was not something he was accustomed to. The searing feeling rang through his hands and knees and he did his best to breathe through the strangely unpleasant feeling.

“I’ll be fine.” Connor sat back onto his heels and dusted both off each hand with the other. A small gash was evident at the heel of one of his palms and royal blue colored blood started to seep through the open cut. A minor injury. Connor glanced at it but seemed fairly disinterested. It would heal within a few seconds, surely.

He began to unroll his sleeves, trying to be mindful enough not to get shirt dirty. “It’s difficult to judge what I physically can and can’t do in Asgard until it’s too late." He informed, "I would ordinarily be able to drop down from that height with no issue.”

She knelt down on the ground beside him, gripping the edge of her tunic between her fingers to carefully and neatly rip a strip of fabric to use as a bandage. "I know the feeling," she sighed. Ordinarily, she would have used her talons to make him a proper bandage. She missed them. As much as she missed her scents.

It was like losing her wings all over again.

"At least with all the things you've lost, you've gained some things too," she said, hopefully. "The ability to taste, for one thing."

"I admire your optimism." Countering that notion with the fact that taste was useless for someone who didn't eat didn't seem productive. Instead, he looked at what she seemed to be doing with her dress.

A bandage?

Connor glanced at his hand. For some reason, the gash didn't seem to be healing itself. That was one more ability he didn't have in Asgard. At that point, he would normally offer his hand to her so she could bandage it without protest but... he didn't know if she would like that. She seemed to have an aversion to touching others' hands for some unknown reason. "Let me take care of it." He purposely withdrew his injured hand to his chest.

Ariadne handed over the bandage without protest. Not only was she skittish about touching someone's hand, but she was no healer. The last thing she ever wanted to do was make an injury worse with her haphazard fixes, picked up on the road over the last nine years.

"It's funny," she said, sitting back on her heels. "Most people make fun of me for it. The optimism. They say it's naive to hope for the best, to see the bright side."

And that bothered her. More than she could articulate, really.

Connor took the bandage and began to wind the cloth tightly around his palm. He talked offhandedly as he did so. "Studies have proven that those who engage in optimistic behaviors are more likely to have improved physical and emotional health, achieve success more often, be more persistent, and have improved longevity."

He tied the fabric off once it was tied to satisfaction. "Though a link between optimism and longevity can't be directly proven, those who show more optimistic traits have been shown to have a 14.9% longer lifespan than their pessimistic peers."

Once that was done, he reached for the jacket he had left lying in the grass and slipped it back on. "Overall, the benefits of optimism far outweigh the detriments."

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