uhm, actually... it's maidkeypads.

It's been nearly an hour, and neither the Princess nor the box has moved. It's a trap. She's sure of it. Another game played by the Maids. "This will keep you occupied," they had said. She knows what their occupations entail.

But the curiosity is killing her. Nothing else has, yet, so surely it's fine to investigate?

She crosses the cage slowly, one silent step at a time, legs extended further from her body than usual in a defensive posture, giving her a strange, elongated look. The sound never changes. The whirring, the grinding, the soft, constant clatter like a strange heartbeat - it's enticing. Her breaths come deeper and longer as she approaches the box.

She can't smell anything, even this close. Nothing alive, at least, so nothing that interests her. There's just the lacquered wood box and the noise. With infinite caution she raises a foot, quietly taps a talon on the box's exterior.

Nothing. No - did the sound get just a little louder? She taps again, and again she's sure there was the slightest sympathetic response from within.

There's a handle of some kind on the box. She knows about handles. She knows they open things. Slowly, vigilantly, she grips the handle in a foot and pulls the front of the box open.

Stood perfectly straight, shining in perfect condition with it's hands clasped at it's lap, almost as if it was a mannequin. Slowly, ticking starts up, louder than the soft whirring of it's internals.

It's first expression starts with curiosity, seeing it's newly-met princess in front of itself in quite a curious condition. She's the first thing it's ever seen, after all. It's movements are calculated, careful, yet curious and naive as one thing makes itself clear - past it's metal body holds quite a relic, a key going in circles, resembling an almost hypnotic spiral as it ticks, and ticks to keep the maid awake.

A tickle on her brain. "Artificial," she says, mimicking the way Phi had spoken, then, "Artificial," a different voice. Fake. Not alive. Like the artificial grass lining a corner of her cage.

Comprehension crashes upon her in a single eye-twitch, and her posture subtly shifts. Not-alive maid. Alone. But can't kill what isn't alive. She eyes the new arrival warily, like a threat, and releases the handle of the box, backing off a pace.

"Ah, yes... It is a maid. Your maid, to be precise." It's voice is awkward, synthesized a little snappy yet designed to be comforting. "The box is merely... Packaging for it's delivery." As if it wasn't a prison similar to her cage.

"Ah... the... ticking? It's what makes itself work.. makes itself alive. At least, close to the definition of living. Would you like to see?" It offers to turn it's back to you, granting view of the special key that somehow grants life to what otherwise would be a resource-intensive mannequin representing the caricature of a maid.

"My... maid," she says, uncertainly. She's never had a maid before - except as a meal. There are The Maids, of course, but they certainly aren't Her Maids. They've always made that fact clear enough.

When Phi turns, the harpy tenses reflexively, body quivering, nearly ready to pounce at the opening. With an effort, and with the help of that brain-stroking whirring, she manages to fight the instinct down. To turn its back her, this new thing must either be completely oblivious to the danger, or totally assured of its ability to overwhelm her. Or...? No, she can't imagine any other possibility.

"So..." she says, voice strained with the effort of withholding herself. "You are alive after all. Not so... artificial."

She steps closer to Phi, sniffing deeply, trying to detect any sign of that life. Still nothing, nothing but the continuous whir-hum-tick. She watches the key spin... spin... what an unusual limb. The source of the ticking? For what purpose? Why should this creature make such a... stimulating noise?

The harpy shivers, suddenly finding herself standing close enough now to the maid that its key ruffles the edges of her breast feathers. Part of her is terrified at the strange sway that noise has on her, such an irresistible allure, but it's so delectable. This thing is like a void in all of her senses, a void of life, sucking her in.

"The livelihood of this maid isn't an important question to ask, is it? As it's purpose is simply to serve, and serve. All other purposes are just a derivative of the original. Unless the princess finds meaning in something more... Though such is unadvised." It's neither in acceptance nor denial of it's sentience, almost apathetic towards itself.

Nodding at the request, it gently turns it's joints to let it kneel, then sit, and descend onto the floor, laid face down as otherwise the ever-spinning torso-sized key would disturb and obstruct any other position. But said key is currently exposed from all angles, as if asking for a twist.

"...Like this, princess?" Despite it's composition, it's motions was fluid, betraying the expectation of the idea of an artificial maid. Though the snappy ticking key is obviously excluded. It's passive, and gentle, whirring love and care poured into it's every action as it's hum grows louder while seeking validation.

"Just like that," she says hoarsely. She steps forward, eyes rolling in tiny circles as she follows the path of its key. Her curiosity about it is staggering, but there's more important questions to answer first. Her foot lifts, hovers, then slowly lowers, wrapping firmly around the maid's docile head, flinching just slightly as her hot, rough skin meets its unexpectedly cold, smooth surface.

"It finds that fine-tuning the parameters are... quite difficult, but maybe the princess may help it learn..?" An offering of blind trust in the princess. Such a gift allows the princess to not only push, but rather expand it's parameters, it's limits to her liking.

A smile creeps across her features, exposing the dagger points of her teeth. "Learning," she says again, more confidently. "Yes, little maid. I can teach you all about feeling."

Oh, what a curriculum she'll construct - she can hardly wait to begin. But first, there's one prominent question remaining. She reaches out her wing and allows the spinning key's bows to bump and rustle along her long primaries, feeling the mechanical motion from within the maid resonating up through the shafts of her feathers in the same way she feels the differences in air pressure under her wings.

It's expression is of discomfort, a subtle panic in its face but composure kept all the same as it reasons with the harpy princess. Knowing it's programming and it's purpose, it almost stammers a few words out but the express permission of allowing the harpy to essentially put it out of commission, even if temporarily, is too heavy a sentence to handle.

"Oh," she says quietly, and wraps her claws around the key's shaft - not enough to stop its motion, but enough to cause friction. "Ohhhhhh," she moans, watching as its body twitches in response, feeling the gears fighting to keep turning against the resistance. What a marvelous weakness.

"You'll die if I pull this out," she muses, "and live again if I return it?" She weighs that concept carefully. It seems impossible. She's never seen a dead thing come back to life.

"I don't believe you," she says, and jerks the key free.

She gasps in mild surprise as Phi actually freezes and falls silent, then shudders with instinctual pleasure at a clean kill. Half-true, so far. She considers the key in her claw for a moment - it seems unremarkable, just a larger type of the thing she knows as a key. She drops it unceremoniously and turns her focus back to the corpse laying before her.

She nudges it with a foot once, just to make sure, then grabs an arm and tugs it. Heavy, cold, maybe a little stiffer than a normal corpse, but otherwise just a corpse. She roughly kicks it over, then leans down over it to investigate more closely. Jointed, almost like an insect. Could it be pulled apart just as easily?

She grabs a scruff of its dress in her mouth and pulls, snapping the straps and exposing it down to the chest. A knuckle of one claw traces over the bare... flesh? appreciatively. She licks her teeth, then lowers her mouth to the motionless throat and carefully bites down. She jolts at the unyielding sensation, like chewing on the bars of her cage. After gnawing experimentally for a while sits back up, leaving a thick layer of saliva smeared on the maid's neck.

She sniffs along the strange body, making absolutely sure there's nothing living hiding away. She buries her nose into the crotch of its dress and inhales deeply, then lifts her head, still a little baffled that there's nothing identifiably organic anywhere.

Her mind whirls with possibilities, the fun she could have with this strange body... and then her eyes fall on the key again. It feels silly to even try, but if it's true?

She pushes Phi onto her stomach again, limbs cocked at odd angles from the rough treatment. She picks up the key, stares at the keyhole, and slips it back in.

Nothing. As expected. Ah- but didn't it say...?

As it fixes itself, it's dress which was torn at the straps, falls off its frame before it catches it, its face adjusting with intense embarrassment. "R- really..?" It asks of the princess in a flushed, almost defeated tone. It's keeping up a sense of modesty despite the fact that there should be nothing under said dress, at least at the chest.

With its other hand, it feels around its body, bumps and dents with the handling of eventually finding the saliva and pinching it on its fingers, before realization struck like a bit flipping in binary. "D- did the princess.. c- chew on itself..." Its synthesizer still has the slightly distorted qualities as it's embarrassment is overwhelming, practically and physically steaming through the gaps of its structure, overwhelmed from the princess's... displays of affection.

The harpy steps up to Phi, looms silently over it, then raises a foot and forcefully shoves it back over. She holds the maid down with a claw across the shoulders, bites down on the winding key, and jerks it out again. She feels the maid go still beneath her foot and shudders.

Then, she pushes the key into place, jerks it around like she's tearing meat from bone, and moans at the glorious sound of it once more twitching and ticking back to life. Just as the maid's sputtering protests start back up, she pulls the key again, and groans loudly into the sudden silent stillness.

The key clatters to the floor from her panting, drooling mouth, and she almost doubles over in ecstasy. Her instincts are screaming at her about some half-recognized danger, and she realizes how easy it would be to lose herself in this feeling. She would have to be careful.

She plucks the key from the floor with a claw and sockets it back one last time, then shifts her other foot from Phi's shoulders to the back of her head, holding her face to the ground. She shakily lowers her mouth, bites down, and slowly turns, reveling in every tiny click reverberating through her jaw.

She releases it, letting the key turn freely to bring her new maid back to life yet again, and sighs heavily as the delicious whirring and ticking dances across her skull.

At the end, all it can do is what it can't, its frame laid exhaustedly on the ground, staring up at the harpy princess as it doesn't even dare to get up nor has the slightest capacity to even do so.

Its synthesizer is malfunctioning at this point, as loud, defeated hums that vaguely resembles malformed breathing along with the occasional broken harmony of noises that comes with trying to form a sentence - or even just a word, or really anything at this point.