「Long distance」

《 Cycle 1 - "data pearl"》

///

Sun's can gleamed with a bright white, their data pearls floating curiously with the zero gravity of their can.

Suns themself was floating through their can, their eyes closed and dreamy like usual. Their original purpose, trying to find a way to end the endless unascension of the ancients, now the iterators, was long since overrided.

They infact just gave up. Gave up trying to find a way to ascend, and just began wondering what they could do with their endless thoughts.
They were iterators.
Not ascensionists.
Or ancients.

They weren't made to leave the cycles behind.

Suddenly, somehow in their cycle-to-cycle calculations, they were disturbed.

Not by an overseer or by an inconvenient critter accidentally falling into their memory conflux, but a creature entering their actual can.

Suns jumped. The zero gravity ceasing in the room caused the pearls they held to all fall.

The thing had fallen from their access shaft. It staggered up after shaking it's head from the fall.

It held a long stick in its hand and back. It held a delicate green pearl in the other hand.

Suns noticed the light red skin of the creature, its ears poked out like fronds of a fern. The large scar on its eye was hard to not notice.

"purrir," it slightly answered Suns' unspoken question.

As Suns thought, they came to a sudden conclusion. they snapped and pointed. "Hunter! Thats who you are." they exclaimed. "You're Harrassment's little slugcat, aren't you?" they happily extended their mechanical back arm so they could pet the critter.

"I'm happy to have a visitor, its better than just exploring my imagination, you know." they smiled.

Hunter pressed into their pet as it listened, flicking its ear.
"could I see that pearl? I doubt you have uses for it― unless you want to give it to the scavengers?" they kindly asked.

Hunter placed the greenish glowing pearl in their hands, and calmly stepped back.

After decoding it, Suns began to play the encoded message.

*
"There's no harm in writing this, right?.. I mean, there's no ancients to get upset at this.. So I guess its fine!" Harrassment shrugged.
"I was wondering, I've seen ancients, all shapes and sizes do these things." he began.

Leaning back, Harrassment looked up as he made little actions out of his fingers. "some would be attatched to a specific other one, I think that all of the creatures under our cans do the same thing? Except for survival. But they would just do the neatest things!"

_
Suns smiled lightly, watching the rest of the video-like pearl. Harrassment seemed so invested in it.
_

"They would make these little pearl things, necklaces maybe?, and they would give them to eachother and wear them around! And brush eachothers hair, and- they'd make these names for eachother, they were just so close and-"

"miiriiir"
Harrassment turned around. Hunter floated, suspended in the air in the background.
Harrassment sighed and stretched. "Well, I guess I was kinda information dumping... But it's unfair, why do they get to do so many things, go so many places, and just- have freedom! While us iterators can't have those things...?"

Hunter sniffled.
"rruir," it said.

"Yeah well, its easy for you to say, you go out and hunt crazy things all the time. You ever think I get tired of calculations?" he rolled his eyes.

"rrrmrmr"
"Don't you talk about my mother like that!... Just kidding, I don't have a mother. And I literally can't understand you. You should give me a mark of communication some time."

"mmmrmr"

He sighed.
"I'll- rewrite this pearl sometime so I can talk more what I was gonna talk about.. Then maybe i'll throw it away."

*

Suns softly pulled away the pearl.
"Did.. Did he ask you to bring this to me?" suns looked curious.
Or was it a mistake?

Hunter licked its paw and stretched before laying down. Suns' back arm pulled them back up.

Bringing up their console, Suns began asking in the local group.

*

SRS: Harrassment?

SRS: NSH, are you busy?

NSH: maybe...

NSH: what is it?

SRS: Hunter brought me a pearl from you.

NSH: ...what?

NSH: I didn't prepare a script pearl for you. Besides, why would I send a pearl when we can easily talk on the local group?

NSH: You haven't opened it, have you?

SRS:. ..maybe I have, would it be a problem?

NSH: No, not.. Particularly.

NSH: I have a habit of.. Spilling my cords out to a pearl, sometimes.

NSH: I get on a rant, and then I end up saying my deepest darkest thoughts.

NSH: point is, some of them are sensitive, some aren't.

SRS: You were talking about ancients on this one. The connections they had, stuff like that.

SRS: you looked invested

NSH: Pf- I guess I kinda was. Anyways, do you mind sending Huntsie back? Ive been wondering where the little thing's gone.

SRS: Yeah, no problem! Do you want your pearl back, too?

NSH: Hm.. Well, I guess Hunter did work hard to get it there.. Maybe you could find a better use for it than I did, anyways, so keep it.

SRS: Oh, Okay! I'll talk to you later then, bye!

*

Closing their console, Suns sat back as their arm pulled back. Hunter crawled into their arms.

"..rrprr..."

Suns smiled gently, starting to pet Hunter while looking at the pearl.

Maybe I could do something with it.

\\\

chapter closed
908 words
unproof-read (my appologies)