Aisha

That sounds so perfectly ominous. I'm sorry I didn't immediately answer your question, I was busy. I can't wait to log onto Artfight ASAP!

Anywho, to answer your question, and this might be kinda cowardly of me, but I don't really know yet...

I'm still figuring out who Ezron and Aisha are in my story. It's probably the hardest writing project I've undertaken, since it's so intertwined with art and art is also super challenging for me.

It's hard to choose between them, because they're so different and are both so vital to the story.

Like, for their differences: Ezron is soft and gentle, while Aisha is hardened and serious. Ezron is deeply dependent on connection, but Aisha can go without. Ezron is clingy and needy. Aisha was literally designed in a Lab to operate alone. Ezron was shielded away in a bunker, but Aisha endured two decades of apocalypse. Ezron lays his heart open bare. Aisha hides behind secrets. Ezron pours the milk in before the cereal. Aisha looks on in disgust. Etcetera!

But they're also so similar to one another. Aisha isn't a dark mysterious edgelord. She feels just as deeply as Ezron, she just struggles to convey it or conceive it, and she's torn between her human side and her A.W. side.

Ezron isn't a soft-as-marshmallows coward, he's.... Oh, who am I kidding. He totally is!

And despite their differences, my story is about these two people meeting after the end of the world, and finding in one another a reason to keep on living.

They're both so important to me. It's hard to choose what I like the most. So I guess to answer your question... Between Ezron and Aisha, who I prefer depends on my mood.

When I feel like writing drama and slow-burn, and subtlety and introspection. Like, gentle and soft characters, who are fumbling through a scary and dark world, and they're scared and alone, and just want to find someone else to be with... Then it'll be Ezron.

But if I want mystery, or military fiction, or horror... If I wanna write about supersoldiers and the apocalypse and survival in inhospitable environments, and people with cold hearts and hard eyes, then it'll be Aisha.

But above all, I love writing them together, and to see Aisha rediscover wonder and happiness and joy through allowing herself off the rigid path of mission and purpose — even if it's as small as a photograph by a castle — and for Ezron to finally be with someone.

"Do you know this one?" Aisha asked, sheathing her now clean knife. 

Ezron stopped on the winding cobblestone path, beside a towering rock buried under moss. His head tilted up, he brushed a dreadlock out of the way of his eyes, and he looked intently at the Castle. 

The ruined Castle loomed atop the hill, it's ancient walls rose from the bed of grass and the rock. The battlements were worn down into jagged and crumbling shapes, but still monumental, still reaching towards the cloudless morning sky. 

"No." He admitted gently, and his head turned imperceptibly over his shoulder. "Do you, Aisha?"

"I was never briefed about it." Aisha commented without stopping her stride, and that was all the answer she gave.

Ivory hung in long curtains over the weathered stone, and tall grass spilled from the cracks in the ruins of the battlements. Dandelions crowded the edge of the path, and Lavender dominated the rocks and the walls, and gave the air a faint sweetness that drifted on the light morning breeze.

Ezron watched the ruin with silent admiration, and thought about the camera in his backpack. 

"Infact, I think it's been totally untouched." He said.

Ezron fumbled with his backpack, and unslung it from his shoulder. He placed it where the path was flattest, and pulled out his archaic 68MP camera. He held it up, and he took a photo. The mechanical snap of camera shutters is what drew Aisha's eyes from the cobblestone path, up to the back of his head. 

"You shouldn't waste charge. We don't know when we'll have electricity again."

"This isn't a waste."

He softly insisted, and he took another photo.

Uninterested, Aisha weaved past Ezron, her slung AN-94 cluttering softly against her military jacket, the dark metal and polymer stark amongst the vibrant overgrowth. She walked onward, but as the path curved upwards beneath her feet, she didn't hear Ezron's pitter-patters behind her. Eventually, she looked over her shoulder, exasperated and narrow-eyed.  

"What is it now?"

Ezron looked from his camera display and he had a smile on his face, apprehensive and unsure of himself. A peculiar mix of embarrassment and excitement glimmered in those black-button eyes. "Could you... go back just a little, Aisha?"

Aisha's eyebrows rose in mild disbelief. Her expression flattened into an impassionate line. "You what?"

"I'd like to take a photograph."

Aisha stared at him. The disbelief faded; she had grown accustomed to Ezron's little habits.

"Of me?"

"Of you. With the castle."

A silence settled between the two. In the far distance, from the clutches of a tree flowering into spring, the morning chirping of birds, and the breeze rustled the youngest leaves, and made the edges of Aisha's hijab softly flutter. Aisha scoffed, and placed her scarred right hand on her broad hip.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"It's not ridiculous."

"Look." Aisha took a more conciliatory approach. She gestured to the path. "Ezron. I'm on a mission. I have somewhere to be. We can't just stop to take holiday photographs. Besides, who's ever going to see them?"

"I will." Ezron softly defended his position. His fingers rapped against the camera - one of his many little tics that Aisha picked up on over the months. "And you. And maybe other people."

"We don't have time for this."

"But we do have time." He insisted. "We have nothing but time."

She paused, unable to think of a rebuttal.

"....Why even bother?" 

"I just - I just think it'd be rather pretty." Apprehensively, Ezron rose the camera back up until it covered his mouth from her view, a silent suggestion along with his words. "Really, you don't even need to move."

Aisha stared at him, and another pregnant silence descended. The sun made it's microscopic crawl across the empty blue sky. Beside Ezron's feet, his backpack slumped to the side, a few of it's contents spilled out onto the mossy stone path. Aisha's gaze darted down and back up in an instant. 

"You aren't going to leave me alone about this, aren't you?"

"I'm going to hold it over your head for the entire year." Ezron declared, and his words contained the faintest challenge, his eye contact was just a little too severe. That was enough for her.

"Oh?" Aisha tilted her head, slow and dangerous. Her tone danced on the ambiguous border between playful and threatening, but with her face a mask of equanimity, it was impossible to tell.  "In that case... Maybe I should leave you behind." She drawled.  It'll certainly save me the trouble."

Ezron's eyes immediately widened, a spike of panic made his eyebrows rise into his dark dreadlocks.

"Oh. I-... I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry." He backed down immediately, his adam's apple bobbed in his dark throat.  "A photograph isn't even that important, actually. Let's get going, shall we? Just - let me gather my things."

Ezron knelt without a second thought, stuffing his things back into his backpack and righting it. Aisha watched, her arms crossed over her chest. Deep past the AN-94 slung by her side, past the camoflauge jacket, past the engineered skin and reinforced ribcage, something in her artificial heart warmed a few degrees. 

"Actually, Ezron." Aisha said, slow and deliberate. "You can take the photo."

Just as Ezron was about to sling his backpack over his shoulder, he paused. He looked up. "... Excuse me?" He said, incredulous.

"Come on. Take the photo already."

The incredulity faded away and Ezron beamed.

"Okay!"

His backpack forgotten, he quickly scrambled to his feet. 

"Okay. Okay, just... wait there."

He held up his camera, and adjusted the focus ring until it snapped into clarity on the tiny display.

"It's been a good eighteen years since my last photo." Aisha intoned. "Am I doing it right?"

"You're doing wonderful, Aisha." Ezron chirped. The concentric lenses zoomed in. 

Aisha knew he was lying, or atleast, didn't mind at all. She stood awkwardly, stiffly, with her arms limp by her sides. The ruined castle loomed from its position at the top of the hill. 

"Are you sure? I don't think I'm very photogenic."

"Well, you can make a gesture, if you'd like." Ezron suggested.

Aisha stared into the tiny red dot of the camera. After a few seconds of deliberation, she put the peace sign up. Behind the camera, he giggled to himself, and though he tried to muffle it by biting his plush bottom lip, it didn't matter, because her enhanced hearing picked up on it immediately. 

"What's so funny?" Aisha asked.

"It's just... that's very ironic, for an A.W." Was his reply. The tiny display reflected in his dark eyes. 

Aisha's lips rose from an inpassionate line and into a little smile. She chuckled, low and restrained and quick. At the same time, Ezron took the photo, the soft mechanical shutter of clicking lenses. And another. And another. And one more. 

"Alright, that's enough." Aisha put her hand down. 

Satisfied, Ezron looked down at the camera's digital display. The image was slightly crooked, the background blurry and improperly focused, except for the bloom of lavender over her shoulder. There Aisha was, in minature, AN-94 slung by her side and holding up the peace sign. But most important of all, that smile; imperfect, candid, maybe even a little silly. But it didn't matter. 

"You smiled."

And something in Ezron's voice sounded like reverent awe. 

"You're a funny man. It's hard not to smile." Aisha conceded. 

Ezron stared at the photo for a while, lost in his thoughts. The Castle atop the hill suddenly seemed so small in comparison. He moved his dark thumb along the display in a slow circle around Aisha's tiny head.  

"Let's get going, shall we?" The real Aisha offered. She turned around. Ezron awoke from his trance, before he stored his camera away and slung his backpack over his shoulder.   

Aisha waited for Ezron to reach her side, before they continued up the path. The castle loomed infront of them. It was a minute of trudging up the cobblestone path, as it went from flat to slightly steep beneath their boots, before the silence was disturbed again. 

"Aisha." Ezron asked, and he looked up at the taller woman. Aisha kept on walking, her hijab concealing her face from his angle, but he knew she was listening. "Do you like me now, Aisha?" He ventured, soft and apprehensive. 

The A.W's head turned imperceptibly, until he could make out the glimmer of those intense green eyes. "Don't push it, Ezron."