✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦
⊹˚₊·‧─────༺🎪༻─────‧·₊˚⊹

R A I S I N G ◦ A N ◦ N P C !

⊹˚₊·‧─────༺🎪༻─────‧·₊˚⊹
✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

▶ BOOK 1: M A K I N G ◦ A N ◦ N P C !
▶ CHAPTERS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |

⊹˚₊·‧24: Sorry

Pomni pointed at Ragatha, then formed a circle with her fingers around her own right eye, while saying “Mama”.

Both Ragatha and Pierrosie, who sat on the ground in front of Pomni’s bed, imitated it, but without talking and just mouthing the word.

It had turned out that Pierrosie understood a bit of American Sign Language already, so Pomni thought of proper name signs she could teach both her and Ragatha. Her knowledge was a bit rusty, and the limited fingers made signing and understanding a little tricky at times, but it would work for now.
And Pierrosie was very eager to learn — and to communicate. 

Both Ragatha and Pomni were stoked about this; Especially because Pierrosie now had more ways at her disposal to express herself, making it easier for them to understand her.

For that reason, Ragatha was also very motivated to learn signs. It was cute how she sat next to her tiny daughter and imitated and learned everything Pomni had to offer.

“Yes, perfect! You’re doing so well, Pi. You, too, Ragatha.”

This prompted a cute chuckle from her.

“Now… who’s next…” Pomni thought out loud. But before she could come to a conclusion, Pierrosie signed something.

Pomni hadn’t looked and didn’t catch it.

“What’s that?” She asked.

Pierrosie repeated her sign.

At first, she tapped on the black tear under her eye — the sign for her own name, chosen by herself — then she rubbed her tiny fist over her chest in a circle.

PIERROSIE SORRY

Both Pomni and Ragatha, who also understood the sign by now, were rattled.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Pi,” Pomni quickly gave back, her heart aching in a way she had never experienced before.

She didn’t want the little entity to feel guilt. She didn’t want her to know about this sentiment altogether for now. Seeing how this little thing, which had been popped into existence only a measly couple of weeks ago, could experience such a feeling, hurt in regions of Pomni’s mind she hadn’t known to exist.

She wanted her to experience nothing but joy, and love, and whimsy; And as far as she could tell, the others felt similarly, by keeping any form of dread far away from her.

“My sweet, sweet baby…” Ragatha replied, teary-eyed, and Pomni could see that she was holding back hugging the little clown doll, “Whyever would you feel this way?”

Pierrosie started to sign; A little clumsy — though not in a childlike way, but like a machine that hadn’t been finetuned yet — but Pomni understood and translated simultaneously for Ragatha.

“Sorry—Pierrosie—afraid. Sorry—Pierrosie—not talking. Sorry—Pierrosie—different. Sorry—Pierrosie—”

‘BROKEN’, was the last word she signed, but Pomni wasn’t able to say it out loud. A sob clenched her throat.

If she had thought that Pierrosie experiencing guilt before was already tough, her understanding so much and experiencing a sense of being broken and different was something that felt like it could positively end Pomni.

Whether Ragatha knew what Pierrosie had signed last or she also couldn’t hear any more of this, Pomni didn’t know; But the ragdoll pulled her baby close, hugging her, also crying.

When she talked, her voice sounded so sorrowful. “My love… my sweet darling… You don’t have to be sorry for any of these things. Never. Never ever, ever, ever, do you hear me…?” Ragatha said both softly and firmly, while her voice fluttered as if it were hard for her to speak in the first place. “Pomni and I and everyone else in the circus like you exactly the way you are.”

“You are just as perfectly imperfect as the rest of us, Pi,” Pomni added, wiping away the tears bottled up in her eyes, hoping the young AI was able to understand her words; She knew this wasn’t something a real toddler would understand — but a real toddler would also not feel dread like this that early in its life, right?

“Papa’s right. And you love us, too, right?” Ragatha added.

Pierrosie nodded enthusiastically — her face wearing a confused expression. It was clear she hadn’t anticipated such a big reaction to her statements.

“Then you understand how we love you.” Ragatha finished her conclusion.

Pierrosie looked at both of them, apparently thinking about their reasoning.

Then she nodded again, showing them a thumbs up.
It made Pomni give a weak little laugh. It felt as if Pi had truly understood and accepted what they had said, and indeed, decided to not feel any guilt or shame anymore.

“You’re such a good kid…” Pomni commented, mumbling more to herself than to Pierrosie.

PLEASE OTHER SIGNS, Pierrosie expressed her wish to continue learning.

Ragatha sat her back down, but not without kissing her on the forehead.

A little rattled, Pomni tried to go with Pierrosie’s flow of focusing on positive things again, and showed her the sign for Kinger, as somebody knocked on the door.

Before either of them could answer, the door opened on its own, disclosing Caine, who came in as if he owned the place.

Which, to be fair, he technically did.

Pomni was about to bark at him again, when she felt Ragatha’s hand on her thigh.

She understood.
Even though he hadn't waited for permission to enter, he had at least tried instead of just appearing inside the room out of nowhere.

“Hello, my favorite nuclear family, I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” he began.

“You did.” Pomni answered, coldly, putting a comforting hand on Pierrosie’s back, who had shuffled closer, looking at Caine with matching skepticism.

Caine ignored her and continued, “I did some thinking. ‘What would my precious little humans and their inferior AI enjoy after all that’.”

Pomni wanted to reply with something incredibly rude, but Ragatha put her hand over Pomni's mouth.
It was scary how well she could read Pomni, and how quickly and casually she intervened by now.
A little sexy, too, maybe.

“And I think I came up with a good solution. One catered to you specifically, my complicated blue-footed booby birds. And your… restricted AI situation.” Caine added, while looking at Pierrosie.

The clown doll stared back; Then showed him her middle finger.
It wasn’t censored.

Ragatha, who now had to take care of two angry troublemakers, quickly took Pierrosie’s little hand into hers, covering it, chuckling nervously. “That sounds great! Let us hear it!” She commented.

Either Caine didn’t recognize the gesture, or he ignored it completely — in any case, he continued, “I thought about a… child-friendly adventure,” he said, underlining the word "child-friendly" in a weird way, as if he were maybe being a little sarcastic; not because it wasn't child-friendly, but because he didn't believe in children. “And I think I came up with something. Without portals, since they are probably off the table for now, too. No enemies, only friendly NPCs. No hurt, no mannequins. With many wacky characters to meet and socialize upon, and character-building riddles! How does that sound?”

Ragatha, Pomni and Pierrosie stared at him, silently.

Caine cleared his nonexistent throat, turned to the side, then looked over his shoulder with an intriguing look.

“There will also be a treasure chest in the end. If you can find it.”

Pierrosie’s and Pomni’s attentions were piqued.

“Not spoiling anything, but it might harbor something that’s very dear to you guys' hearts.”

“That… that doesn’t sound too bad now, does it, Pierrosie?” Ragatha commented gently; Though Pomni was able to hear the nervous tremble in her voice.

Pierrosie looked at her, with her big black porcelain eye, then again at Caine.

EVERYONE, she signed.

Her using ASL instead of the AI language from earlier seemed just as comforting to Pomni as it was unsettling. She was happy the girl decided on a form of communication that Pomni could understand; But it also felt as if she was starting to stray away from why they wanted her to interact with Caine in the first place: To learn AI things.

“Everyone? You want everyone to join?” Caine asked her.

Pierrosie nodded.

“Are you sure? It could also be just your parents—"

EVERYONE, she signed again, with vigor.

This seemed to please Caine.

“Very well!” He said, “Then it’s decided! Another in-house adventure, a special for our newest addition! Let’s meet tomorrow morning at the usual spot!”

“Caine, wait—— we haven’t even agreed—" Pomni began, but the ringmaster had already vanished into thin air.

---

Later that night, after expanding her (and the Mama’s, mostly) sign library, the bonded datasets would transfer Pierrosie into the Mama's soft recovery platform, and hug and kiss her more than usual.

Even though Pierrosie was nearing her preferred tactile-input threshold, she did little to protest. They seemed to need it, and Pierrosie was more than willing to provide. Exhausted, she deliberately suspended one function after another — movement, visual processing, kernel log monitoring, sensory input — slowly approaching standby mode. She kept only audio active, listening to the Mama and the Papa talk softly about topics she did not care to understand and simply taking in their voices like cozy white noise.

As she was about to turn off completely, though, the Papa said something that seemed… off. That didn’t make much sense, even when she tried to think about it.

It made Pierrosie reactivate more of her functions, even though her available computation was running low.

She opened her eye, signing, ‘EXIT DOOR‘ MEANING WHAT ?

This startled both of the trusted datasets. They immediately seized using their nice voices, and looking at each other as if something bad had happened.

“We… we thought you were asleep,” the Mama said instead of replying to Pierrosie’s query, sounding somewhat… apologetic?

“It’s a door leading out of a room,” the Papa added; Though that wasn’t what Pierrosie was referring to, and the Papa knew that, too, most likely.

Pierrosie did not appreciate the way they treated her right now.

THIS WORLD EXIT - MEANING WHAT ? YOU WANT - WHY ?

The Papa looked very nervous. The Mama didn’t understand Pierrosie’s signs, but she seemed uncomfortable, too.

“We… we explain it another time, Pi.” The Papa answered, “It’s nothing for you to worry about as for now.”

Pi didn’t like that answer; But the Papa at least sounded more genuine now, so she would let it slide.

But the thought accompanied her into her sleep phase: What did the datasets mean by the concept of exiting their own program? It felt like there was something fundamental she didn’t understand about the mindfile models yet, and she was eager to find out about it.

⊹˚₊·‧🎪‧·₊˚⊹

▶ NEXT CHAPTER (not yet online)
▶ BOOK 1: M A K I N G ◦ A N ◦ N P C !
▶ CHAPTERS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
▶ LATEST CHAPTER