no better best friend in all the cosmos.

    Soft brown paint smears, carefully and freely, beneath their forefinger.

Back in the cave, all they had was that curious red clay. It was hard to curl into lines, terribly staining, and they never really liked how their pieces turned out. But this paint (Will called it acrylic, but they don’t understand what that means) flows and follows their hand closer, more forgiving than the clay. 

      A head dips into four legs, spaced by an abdomen decorated in decor. Flowers spill across the flank, made by dabbing fingerprints of brilliant shades over where a terrible wound would be. They tilt a finger, drawing only the edge of a silicone pad for long strands might burst out. 

      Their mark, a faintly-coloured handprint, presses into the paper beside their drawing. Carefully, they peel the thin paper away from the easel and set it to hang, magnetizing it against a easy-to-clean wall. 

      “Y’know,” Will pipes up from his spot against the wall, tablet in hand. “When we get to Alpha Centauri, your art will probably be pretty popular. It doesn’t have to be if you don’t want to to be, of course, but I bet enthusiasts will love your glyphic style. It’s really unique.”

The specter chimes softly in understanding. Nightlight is densely armored, for such a thin slip of a thing; his exoskeleton mingling with synthetic fungus to form a protective shell.

Which means he’s perfectly adept at being too close to sharp, dangerous things.

If Robit is not getting enough hugs– the solution seems obvious to him, and he hopes that Robit will understand, when Nightlight touches down on the floor in front of him and holds his arms out wide.

    The movement is processed, comparing to prior similar movements they’ve seen in their short time (one from Will, one from Penny, one even from Dr. Smith; they don’t remember that one very well, but there’d been some very uncertain feelings there), before they realize the reason. 

      Ah. It’s an offer.

     They bend down (falling to a knee, because this one is so very small, just like Will) and, carefully, give them a hug. These little organics can be so warm sometimes, the texture of their skin and the beating of their organs so different, and they rather like it. They’ve never gotten a chance to hug another of their species, only briefly as they held poor Scarecrow (who was in no shape for hugs, be it physically or mentally), but they don’t know if they’d like it much.

      [ Thank you. ]

     There’s light here, yes, but it’s intermittent. A quick blackout sheet hides the other source of light, from Engine-Glimmer to screen. Little Will even wrapped a bit of cloth around his wrist, to mask his comms.unit. 

      Someone walks by, patting the switch to flick the lights on. The sound of that attempt grows louder, from a soft pap to an almost thud. On the third attempt, they spring into action.

    Bam go the lights, shining bright enough to piece the blackout curtains. The effect is rather spooky, what with the light dulled into this ethereal, filling shape around their head and chest. 

    [ Unit: has an idea for a Joke. ]

       “Is it a mean one?”

      [ Assumption: No. ]

      “Is someone going to be hurt?”

      [ Assumption: No. ]

      “Will anyone be really scared?”

       [ Assumption: No. ]

       “Will anyone be kind of scared?”

        [ Research: Implies Briefly. ]

       “... who is your intended target?”

        [ Situational. Will not Activate on Poor Subject. ]

       “And what if you do, and that person doesn’t find it funny?”

    Well, they suppose they do have a button.

      “I bet I would have liked Grant. Maybe I wouldn’t be the same person if he was still here, depending on how one views nature versus nurture, but... I don’t know. Mom said he was nice.” 

Will settled down next to Robot, packing himself in to see what the fuss was about. He was glad to learn anything about Robot - what they had should always be a two way street. They became friends because of that simple fact. It was give and give.

Will saved Robot. Robot saved him. Will helped Robot put themself back together, and Robot got him from the fire. Then saved Judy, and kept the family warm, and so many things. It wasn’t fair for Robot to keep giving and giving and giving. It had to be Will’s turn sometimes.

That was only right.

“I’ve seen this one before,” Will commented. He traced his fingers over the shape that Robot pointed to. “Is this… does this mean your home? Where you come from?”

He frowned. “I guess that doesn’t really make it your home. We come from Earth but Mom says that’s not home anymore.”

     Their head tilts consideringly, lights twirling through thoughts and feelings. Their origin is a Feeling, one familiar (in some ways) to them and to what they sense from Will. It’s more than a factory, more than a strange, almost miraculous in hindsight birth; there’s a song there, different from the Engine assigned to them but similar in some regards. 

     They point to the symbol again, as if to reiterate (or to finish a thought).

     [ Mother. ]

      Anything that can sing can feel, after all, and while they still are not entirely certain of the coding details of their birth, they know that the Ring had a Song and a Purpose. That makes it alive to them. 

       It does not love like the Mom they’re more familiar with, not at all, but maybe that’s just an organic measure. Mom has far fewer creations than the Ring does, given that she has yet to carve numbers on her children in order to keep track of their maintenance. 

“It’s a rhyme. They teach it to little kids to help them remember which letters are vowels and which are consonants. Here. A E I O U sometimes Y and W,” Will explained, clapping along in a simple rhythm to the beats of the rhyme. “I don’t think they really include W as a vowel for anything but the rhyme’s sake.”

Will sat down with a shrug. “None of it is simple, I guess. Don’t get me started on the difference between bear and bear. Then there’s tear, tear, and tear, all spelled the same. Oh, and bare! I promise, you don’t have to get all of it at once. These things take time, and … ”

Will looked down with a frown. “And I still don’t know any of your language at all…”

    Their lights swirl, brighter and brighter, in that familiar pattern that typically implies them learning a thing or two. It doesn’t make much sense still, and it’ll take some parsing, but at least they have some samples to pour over. Will sleeps a lot after all; they’ll just go over them then. 

     That also, unfortunately for the particularly sleepless, means that some poor family member might walk in on them quietly clapping along to a child’s rhyme.

     Slowly, balancing on whatever they can that wasn’t a soft little human, they fall back into that growingly-familiar cross-legged sit. An arm lifts, tilting to show their factory-placement mark, as the other arm moves to point at it. 

     [ Ocean. Lightning. Coordinates. Origin. ]

    They’re having a hell of a time replicating the ‘inquiry tone’ Will uses for questions.