idomitableCleric, noraBlom, emeraldEclipse, openSystem! how bad can you be at faking humanity before the perception filter breaks? Chana’s gonna find out.
Her name is Nora Blom, and she is your caretaker. Guardian. Parent. A thousand English words that you can only hope you are translating correctly. She often calls you Steven or Stevie, and she checks in on you frequently enough in comparison to your other caretakers that you wonder if maybe you’ve landed in an earth where this sort of thing is common.
Today she is angry with you, not only because you have just doused your rather expensive computer object with water and it is now broken, but also because you’re failing Earth math. Imaginary numbers aren’t real, and you don’t understand how they exist, let alone how you can fail them, but you are, in fact, failing. You’re failing just about all your classes, actually, but apparently Steven had been pretty excellent at math.
Everything else, not so much, but failing math is drawing much more suspicion.
“STEVEN. Why would you do that? Why would you break your computer? You love that thing!” She sounds angry. Frustrated. Extremely close to tears. Your ears swivel downward as a sinking ache fills your chest– guilt. Bash and Afiqah told you that getting your computer wet was a bad idea, and you didn’t listen to them. You had thought they’d been underestimating their own technology. You had wanted to see for yourself what would happen.
Now your caretaker is a mess, and you do not know how to comfort her.
“What is wrong with you lately?” she asks desperately, looking at you with Tarris-driven eyes. Her whole frame is shaking and she is looking at you like you have all the answers in the universe, but still like you are her child. Well, human child. You’re not certain your parent ever looked at you like this. The emotions are very raw, too much for you to handle comfortably.
“I apologize,” you say, your voice incredibly flat compared to hers.
Nora throws up her arms and makes half a scream. Your ears twitch back, flattening themselves so that they do not have to catch the full brunt of the noise. “You don’t sound like yourself! Are you okay, is something wrong, are you /okay?/” She sounds like she is begging you, her voice desperate, hoarse, a thousand intricate things you don’t quite grasp, but it makes you deeply sad. You want to tell her Steven is not here anymore, but with your knowledge of human culture, stunted as it is, you know that would only make things worse.
You incline your head. “I’m okay,” you say this awkwardly, the words sounding strange in your mouth, and it only exasperates your guardian further. “You must believe me. I am okay,” you reiterate more slowly, trying to convince her. She shakes her head, takes several deep wheezing breaths.
She rubs the soft spots on the side of her head harder than what is probably healthy, and you see tears tracking down her face. Your ears quiver, but there is nothing you can think of to help her.
“You would tell me if something was wrong,” she mutters to herself more than anything, but then she looks down at you for confirmation. “You would tell me if something was really wrong, right?”
Although you don’t know this, the real Steven Blom would tell his mother to fuck off. Theoretically, your response of, “Of course,” should be far far better.
It only makes Nora look more concerned. Still, she accepts what you’ve given her and turns, exiting the room with a flourish. Her shoulders are shaking, her breaths shuddering. She is sobbing.
You have no idea how to remedy this situation.
